Welcome to Syfy Schlock!, a recurring column devoted to those infamous movies hailing from “The Most Dangerous Night on Television”. Indeed, I’m reliving Syfy née the Sci Fi Channel’s bygone weekend programming, which included some of the most dubiously made creature-features, supernatural slashers, and disaster movies to ever grace the small screen. And if you have even an iota of nostalgia for that now-obsolete age of reckless, low-tier entertainment as I do, then you’ve come to the right place.
While I prefer the creature comforts of Syfy’s homegrown offerings, I also won’t decline a space adventure — so long as there are alien monsters thrown in the mix. Thankfully, a Syfy movie I had yet to actually see, 2009’s Star Runners, indeed has monsters to go with its spacefaring. And as it turns out, this forgotten voyage is a smidge better than I first anticipated. Mind you, this is mainly due to Star Runners taking heaps of inspiration from other sci-fi media I enjoy, including Pitch Black and Firefly.
Now, I’m the first to admit to I was an avid watcher of Syfy Saturdays during the mid to late 2000s, so my missing out on Star Runners comes as a surprise. Then again, I’m sure I saw the commercials, mistook it for a boring space opera, and then waited for a different movie that was more to my liking. Space stories tends to be hit or miss with me, however, Star Runners is less about uncharted space travel and more about sheer survival.
Not to be confused with Disney XD’s unrelated Skyrunners, also from 2009, Star Runners is not the space epic I was expecting. It’s far less ambitious than that. Once we’re past the setup, Mat King’s movie becomes isolated and grounded. The story begins with friends Ty and Lei (Connor Trinneer and James Kyson) being ordered to transport a mysterious crate. Plans change, though, once the pair sees the contents of said crate; an amnesiac and seemingly non-speaking woman later named Asta (Toni Trucks) was asleep inside. Finally, those three and several other random characters land on a strange planet after their flight is attacked by terrorists.
Soon enough, Ty and his shipmates are all pitted against a breed of giant bugs. And when they’re not dealing with the local vermin, the characters avoid the deadly solar flares that forced the planet’s former residents to take shelter underground. So, yeah, it’s more Pitch Black than Resident Evil, but for a short while, Star Runners does play out like a basic survival horror game. Only once Asta’s extraterrestrial origins and abilities are revealed does the movie get back to its sci-fi identity and inject some facets of Firefly, or to be more exact, the movie Serenity.
Unlike Pitch Black, you won’t have to worry about overly dark or claustrophobic scenes; Star Runners chiefly takes place in less obscure parts below ground before later moving to the yellowy and bright top surface. Of course, the encounters with the big bugs fare better in the near darkness than they do in open lighting; these overgrown and metallic dragonflies aren’t done any favors once they’re seen above ground.
Overall, Star Runners feels like a pilot for a series, albeit a failed and crudely made one. Production values are about as low as expected, yet at the same time, anyone who grew up watching syndicated and cheesy space shows on the weekends might find more to enjoy here. It was more watchable than I first foresaw.
I was a bit shocked to discover my next movie here, 2011’s Ferocious Planet, was directed by Billy O’Brien. That name might not ring a bell to most folks, but anyone who has seen the cow creature-feature Isolation and the coming-of-rager I Am Not a Serial Killer surely understands where I’m coming from. With that said, I understand filmmakers stay working by doing these kinds of projects in between and I definitely don’t judge them for taking what looks to be paycheck jobs. What’s more concerning, though, is the fact that O’Brien hasn’t directed anything since 2016.
When I think of Syfy movies, I think of Canada, or to be more specific, the Canadian wilderness. To my amazement, Ferocious Planet was actually shot in the woods of Dublin, Ireland. That not-Canadian destination would explain O’Brien’s involvement here, not to mention the cast, however, I’m also wondering why they would waste this location on a generic alternate universe story. Were there no evil imps, pixies, or water nymphs they could capitalize on?
Despite having a title suggesting interstellar travel, Ferocious Planet takes place on Earth — only now in a parallel plane after the film’s characters are blasted from their home dimension. And naturally, this new world offers only terror and danger, as these interdimensional tourists quickly learn upon arrival. It doesn’t take long before alien-like beasts appear and make the characters’ trip back home all the more challenging.
Compared to Star Runners, Ferocious Planet does a rather weak job of world-building. At least the former movie used various sets and created some sense of geography to indicate a departure from normalcy and shift in space. There was also a clear A-to-B passage to give the movie a semblance of motility. Here, though, you feel like you never left or went anywhere. The alternate dimension slant implemented here is, essentially, a tactic for rationalizing the clearly Earthian appearance of the story’s new surroundings. You’re forced to use your imagination because the filmmakers couldn’t.
Far worse than the unimaginative environment is the urgent threat at hand; the movie’s choice of monsters is a kind of low-def and unmenacing quadruped whose manner of running I can only describe as kangaroo rat-like. Was this creature a conscious choice, or was it the only one they could afford to make?
If there is anything I did like about Ferocious Planet, apart from Joe Flanigan’s handsome mug — it’s a compliment when I say he’s got the face of a default video game character — is, of all things, a side story about Catherine Walker’s character straying from the main group to investigate what looks to be signs of life in the distance. The outcome of that small and auxiliary plot is the most Twilight Zone-esque thing about a movie that tries but ultimately fails to be one long Twilight Zone episode.
Going into this double-feature, I assumed I would like Ferocious Planet more than Star Runners, on account of its monster having more screen-time and there being no actual space hopping. But, it just goes to show that first impressions and genre preferences don’t always line up, especially when it comes to Syfy movies.
Stay tuned for more Syfy.
Tales from the Paulside 
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