Admittedly, director Steve Latshaws' "Dark Universe" is miles away from being particularly "good", but this viewer found that he himself didn't altogether hate it. It's a passable (if uninspired) story. Its characters and cast are mostly nondescript, and the special effects are variable. They range from slick (the morphing) to incredibly crude (the main monster). The script by co-star Patrick Moran (who plays Carlson) does include some pretty silly lines. But when all was said and done, I did have some fun with this.Martin Sheens' somewhat less talented brother Joe Estevez plays the owner / operator of a Roger Corman version of N.A.S.A. On its way home, his first spacecraft, the Nautilus, flies through a cloud of alien spores, which infect the astronaut on board (Steve Barkett) and continue to infect Earth life once the ship crashes back onto our planet. A secretive team assigned to investigate the crash hires young Tom Hanning (Bently Tittle) as a guide.There's enough enjoyably icky stuff to make this amusing for some fans of the genre. The scenes with the monstrous Steve and a mutated armadillo generate only laughter due to the effects being so corny. The movie does have one thing going for it, at least: a decent music score by Jeffrey Walton.Some of the cast pulled double duty, but the most notable among them is actually a real legend, Florida based exploitation filmmaker William Grefe ("Sting of Death", "Stanley", etc.) who appears briefly as Hannings' father.Five out of 10.

An astronaut gets infected by space spores and turns into one of the stupidest looking creatures I have ever seen.His spaceship crashes in a Florida swamp and the monster quickly begins killing people.There are some hilarious moments in this piece of utter garbage like the attack of armadillo or a worm bursting out of some idiot's neck.There is a decent amount of gore,but the film lacks any scares and features almost no nudity.The plot is bland and the final showdown with an alien is so utterly ridiculous that it defies description.I have seen plenty of awful Z-grade horror flicks in my time and "Dark Universe" is among the worst.It truly reeks.2 out of 10.

I've always enjoyed the laughable schlock that Joe Estevez does, and was disappointed that even though he got top billing he was a rather minor character. Some may poke fun at Joe's talents, but he's done over a hundred films so far and he's far more likeable than his equally pudgy, self-righteous commie brother, Martin Sheen.MST3K could have done wonders with this one, but with a few witty friends and enough beer or dried vegetable matter to go around it could still be entertaining --- just don't even THINK of this as an actual movie!I'd give it a star or two for some nice fleeting breasts, and an extra one for the most hilarious, faked-up special effects since the old Buck Rogers serials. The monster is definite proof that at some point Barney mated with "Alien." You can almost hear it singing, "I love you, you love me, let's terrorize the community!"

Yeah. Right. This movie is right up there with Dusk til Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money as one of the worst, if not the worst ever. I rented this one just to make fun of it and it's so difficult to watch that I didn't even bother. This shlock has absolutely no moment of saving grace. The creature on the box looks like a cross between Giger's Alien and Barney. This one is not even worth getting paid to see. You will feel cheap, insulted and even offended watching this chock. This movie isn't even funny. They show breasts for no purpose other than to give you something to hoot about. I've seen home movies that are better produced than this suckfest. Avoid at all costs, unless renting ultrastink garbage is your bag. This is definitely one for the MST3K crowd. Rating: zero out of *****.