So little space in here, and so much space out there.
Main Cast: Sharlto Copley, Michael Nyqvist
Director: Sebastian Cordero
If you’ve got a haunted house, I’m there. The deep dark woods, sure I like a nice hike. You’re going underwater or into space? Good luck, Godspeed, let me know when you get back.
You want to show me a horror movie that has my attention and has an immediate creep factor built in, set it underwater or in space.
2013’s EUROPA REPORT was a movie I’d seen all over the various streaming services for years but, for some reason, had never sat down to watch until this morning. I should have been all over this movie years ago. Shows what I know.
Written by Phillip Gelatt and directed by Sebastian Cordero, EUROPA REPORT tells the story of the first manned mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa, an ice moon where scientists have recently discovered water under the ice. And where there’s water, there’s the possibility of life. So our six astronauts strap in and take the months-long journey further into the galaxy than we’ve ever been before. And since it’s a horror movie, it’s anyone’s guess how many, if any of them, are coming back.
Much of the movie is told in flashback as official looking doctors played by Embeth Davidtz and Dan Folger tell the history of the mission and give a constant commentary throughout, almost documentary-style, of what happened when the crew left earth.
Meanwhile, we get to watch the crew onboard the ship and the ordeal they go through to carry out their mission.
Spoiler, it doesn’t end well.
I dug the hell out of this movie. The cast was engaging, the story intriguing, and the dialogue held my attention and carried the plot along. Excellent work by all involved.
Several familiar faces show up with Sharlto Copley, Davidtz and Fogler. Another one I knew I recognized but couldn’t place was Karolina Wydra as scientist Katya Petrovna who you will remember as Zosia from the hit show Pluribus. Everyone’s doing great work.
The situations (landing a rocket that uses burning fuel for its thrust on a moon covered in ice) they find themselves in are enough to make anyone feel that anxiety creeping in, but the real showstopping scene for me involved an external repair to the module, a tear in a suit, and another suit being covered by a corrosive agent that will poison the air if it gets inside the ship, and what happens after. Such amazing tension. Really, the entire movie is tense, but some scenes really shone.
I’ve seen a ton of space movies—like actually set in space movies using Earth physics, I don’t mean STAR WARS movies—and I’m always a little uneasy just in general because of the setting, but EUROPA REPORT really stands above pretty much all the other movies in this genre, in my opinion. I can’t believe I waited so long to see this one. It’s really that good.
C. Dennis Moore is the author of over 60 published short stories and novellas in the speculative fiction genre. Most recent appearances are in the Dark Highlands 2, What Fears Become, Dead Bait 3 and Dark Highways anthologies. His novels are Revelations, and the Angel Hill stories, The Man in the Window, The Third Floor, and The Flip.
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