Sandkings

TV movies rarely rival their cinematic counterparts, and often end up being a bit rubbish. There are, however, occasional exceptions where a TV movies, or a feature-length TV episode can end up good enough that it is better than quite a few movies released in the cinema. This mid-1990s feature-length pilot for the “Outer Limits” TV series is one such example of a good piece of made-for-TV work.

The story is (loosely) based on George R.R. Martin's award winning short story “Sandkings”, about a cruel collector who comes to regret his acquisition of some unusual alien creatures. The original story was highly entertaining, however scriptwriter Melinda Snodgrass took the slightly dubious decision to re-write the plot in quite a fundamental way. The main character here is idealistic scientist Dr Simon Kress (Beau Bridges) who is working on a secret government project to investigate some dormant eggs found in the Martian soil by a NASA mission. However, after one of the creatures that hatches from the eggs escapes confinement and nearly reaches the surfaces, Kress is horrified to learn that the program is being shut down and the eggs put into cold storage. He secretly steals some of the soil, and re-starts the experiments in his barn – hiding the project form his wife (Helen Shaver) and his young son (Dylan Bridges). The experiments prove successful and the creatures flourish, however problems soon emerge. The Sandkings are vicious insect-like creatures that have a sentient hive mind. They build elaborate towers to protect their Queen and voraciously eat any food they can find. Kress initially feeds them well and the slightly telepathic creatures respond by constructing images of his face on their castle. However, as his family problems mount Kress gets increasingly irrational, and after the Sandkings snack on the family dog he stops feeding them for a while and starts to have megalomaniac visions of himself as being a god to the tiny creatures. Eventually some escape, with disastrous results.

For a TV episode, this has quite a decent cast, featuring three generations of the Bridges family including Lloyd Bridges as Kress' father. The acting quality is quite good, and the direction is decent as well – even if the director does have a fondness for showing off with fancy camera angles. The story is compelling and the Sandkings themselves are quite impressive – although some of the larger examples do look slightly fake.

The biggest criticism is probably that, while this has a good story it is nowhere near as good as it's source material and the adoption of the cliched mad-scientist plot is a bit tiresome. Nevertheless, this is an entertaining story with a convincingly creepy atmosphere.

In summary, a compelling well-made TV pilot that is more effective than many cinema movies and whose only flaw is to be not as good as the short story it is based on.

Rating : 8 / 10

All content ©2003 William Marnoch.

Comments? Agree/Disagree with the Reviews? Suggestions? Random Ramblings? Whatever you might want to say, feel free to e-mail me at william@wmarnoch.freeserve.co.uk .