WITHIN THE ROCK

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STARRING: Xander Berkeley, Caroline Barclay, Bradford Tatum, Brian Krause, Barbara Patrick, Michael Zelniker

1996, 84 Minutes, Directed by: Gary J. Tunnicliffe

A deep space mining crew is sent to detonate some explosives on an out-of-orbit moon to divert it from its collision course with earth. Their task is complicated by a stunt man in a rubber suit moving in slow motion intent on killing them off . . .

Yeah, it's one of those movies: the type you wish that you were watching something else instead. And you are! The plot is ripped off from Alien, the designs from Aliens, and the monster from The Creature from the Black Lagoon. But like I've said on many on occasion, there's no problem inherently with a genre movie being derivative if it offers its viewers something more.

Alas, Within the Rock doesn't. It remains true to its roots as a straight-to-video cheapie. It offers us instead clichés piled upon clichés, an interchangeable cast, kills off the vaguely interesting characters early on in the movie, has two characters in a fist fight (for no obvious reason) during the final confrontation with the monster. And so forth . . .

Within the Rock could easily have been one of the movies that the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 crew rips off so incessantly. But it is too lifeless an affair for that: after all, the (unintentionally) funniest line in the entire movie is "what shall we wear for protection?"