History Film / Pandorum

* SpaceIsolationHorror: A crewman awaking from suspended animation to find the ship he's on in dire straits, and trying to puzzle out exactly what the hell happened. [[spoiler: Bonus points for occurring on a spaceship ''that landed in the ocean and sank,'' making it an example of both types.]]

** Manh not killing the kid as soon as he saw it probably counts...

''Pandorum'' is a sci-fi/mystery/adventure/horror film released in September of 2009 and starring Creator/DennisQuaid and Creator/BenFoster. A SpiritualSuccessor of ''Film/ResidentEvil2002'' that echoes ''Literature/TheTimeMachine'', ''Series/TheStarLost'', ''Literature/WhenWorldsCollide'', and ''Film/{{Alien}}''.

* KnifeNut: Nadia mugs people at knifepoint.

* ArmCannon: Bower's StunGun is a [[SuperWristGadget slip-on glove]]; according to the WordOfGod this was so the character could [[MagnetHands use his hands for all the physical activity required]].

* StunGun: Except at point-blank range which makes YourHeadAsplode. The currently popular KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter trope is averted despite the "[[UsedFuture corridors and bulkheads]]" look of the movie -- Bower's '[[NonLethalWarfare non-lethal riot-gun]]' fires an energy burst powerful enough to hurl bodies backward. This is probably justified, since bullets and spaceship hulls don't tend to mix well.

* ArtificialGravity: The Elysium has this, given how nothing is floating in a ship that's about to run out of fuel. Also, because it would be considerably difficult for the horde of cannibals to set up Vietnam War-esque traps. [[spoiler:It's actually [[EarthAllAlong crash landed on the planet they were headed for]].]]

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Humanity survives with a population of 1,213 but they left their supplies, Tanis might end overpopulated like Earth, and it is uncertain if Bower is completely over Pandorum.]]
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Hunters have a culture similar to that of savage tribes in reality where they favor conflict and cannibalism. This culture [[spoiler: was founded by Gallo and their ancestors to combat overpopulation]].
* BloodKnight: [[spoiler: The insane passengers on-board the ''Elysium'' would fight each other to the death and feed on the fallen as part of a "nasty game" and their descendants (the hunters) continued practicing this. They watch one of their own fight the trio to the death and feed on its corpse after they kill it. And again, when Manh and the hunter leader fight one on one, he tosses Manh's spear back to him.]]
%%* BodyHorror

* {{Claustrophobia}}: The film creates this atmosphere quite effectively.

** From the back of the DVD case: "It's pitch black on an abandoned ship 500 miles from the Earth". This is untrue. It's not spoiling anything to say that, believe it or not, but it is a bit of a head-scratcher as to ''why'' they printed that as the first line on the back of the DVD cover. It also said this in the [[NeverTrustATrailer trailers]].

** [[spoiler: Manh]] gets killed by the Hunter kid they didn't kill when they had the chance. For double irony, [[spoiler:he was the one who wanted to kill it and the others stopped him, but when he sees the kid again, he says his hand.]] The kid does not.

* DeathOfAThousandCuts: Nadia, Mahn and Bower manage to take down a hunter by stabbing and slashing at it ''repeatedly'' for some time.

* EasterEgg: The drawings in Leland's lair depict [[spoiler: the cannibal's ancestors with electric sparks around their heads along with blood dripping from noses. Hinting that it was Pandorum that caused the cannibalism rather than the enzyme they were being fed to help them adapt to Tanis]].

* EscapePod: The cryotubes are designed to serve as this in a secondary role. It is stated to be tantamount to suicide in deep space, however, given that there is nobody to pick them up, nowhere for them to land, and they can only power themselves for a few days at most.

** [[spoiler: Nadia calling the ship a "Noah's ark," hints at the story's direction. Turns out the ship had saved the last of humanity from the destruction of the world and is in the ocean like Noah's Ark. Along with a flood leading to humanity starting anew, like in the story.]]

* HamToHamCombat: Payton VS Gallo. Cam Gigandet really hams it up as he yells most of his taunts, and Dennis Quaid more than matches him as it goes on. Though Dennis Quaid's initial response to the Ham is cool, calm, and collected, he starts firing back with his own Ham after awhile, [[spoiler:foreshadowing Gallo and Payton are the same person.]]
* HappyFlashback: Bower remembers being interested in the flight since he was a child and memories of his wife, serving as part of his inspiration to stop being afraid. And focus on fixing everything and save her. [[spoiler: Until he remembers that she left him back on Earth. She was never on the ship, meaning she vanished with the planet.]]
* HeelFaceTurn: Leland undergoes one, although it's partially motivated by self-interest, when he decides to help the characters instead of cannibalizing them.

* {{Irony}}: The crew on the ''Eden'' were all killed when the deranged captain ejected their pods into space. [[spoiler: The same thing happens to the crew of the ''Elysium'' - but this sends them to survival, since they're underwater on Tanis]].
* ItCanThink: The hunters are far from being mindless creatures. They have built blowtorch spears, made clothing from pieces of the ship, set up traps everywhere, and have established a warrior culture.
* ItsUpToYou: The other 59,000 colonists were unable to stop the ship's deterioration. Most died years ago, or woke up hundreds of years ago and [[spoiler:their feral great-grandchildren are troglodytic cannibals]]. A few thousand are still frozen in cryosleep. Maybe a dozen or so at any one time are also wandering the massive ship, completely unaware of what's going on. Its a ''big'' ship. And only the flight crew has access to restricted areas. Bower has security clearance for areas Nadia couldn't get into.

* LetsFightLikeGentlemen: Combined with ItCanThink. When the Hunter Leader corner a weaponless Manh, who puts up his dukes to try and take on the stronger, faster, and armed monster, the Hunter throws Manh a spear.

** The character with the last name Shepard becomes a SacrificialLamb to demonstrate how brutal the Hunters are.
* MessyHair: Nadia's hair is damp and a mess of tangles. Given that she's been awake for around six months, it's likely she's barely had any chances to actually wash.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: A version that actually ends up working out for the protagonists. [[spoiler: At the end of the movie, Bower is deep in a Pandorum-induced hallucination involving mutants climbing into the bridge through the ducts. This is while Nadia and Payton/Gallo are fighting, so he's pointing his weapon at the walls instead of Gallo. In the end, he shoots what turns out to be a circuitry access panel, causing it to fly off and strike the windshield. Since the ship is underwater, the pressure breaks the chipped windshield, causing water to come flooding in. This activates an evacuation of all the surviving hypersleep tubes and results in the drowning of Gallo and the mutants.]]

* NoOSHACompliance: Played with. The vehicle is surprisingly structurally secure given [[DiabolusExMachina all the things it's been through]]. It doesn't however have good signage, and no clear routes between important areas of the spaceship - such as the flight deck and the reactor core. And the {{Escape Pod}}s can be ejected into space by a single crewmember, instead of a TwoKeyedLock.
** Many doors between the flight deck and the reactor are stuck closed due to the power failures, requiring many detours and the roving bands of mutants don't make it easier. Leland, Nadia, and Bower make it from the reactor to the flight deck within minutes once the power is restored.

* RagnarokProofing: Justified as the ship is designed to "outlast our children's children" (a spacecraft would be a useful asset for a struggling colony, if only as a means of power generation). As normal batteries would have died over the years the creators went to some trouble to portray alternate power such as kinetic batteries and hand-cranked generators (presumably made more efficient by future technology).

* RealityIsUnrealistic: Some of the criticisms against the movies were this. Some complain that the Hunters looked too much like the Crawlers from ''Film/TheDescent'' and accuse the film of being lazy. However, this criticism overlooks the fact that [[spoiler: like the crawlers the hunters are morlocks archetypes, as they evolved to adapt to the dark thus have troglofauna characteristics like pale skin.]]

** The trailers and filmmakers make it seem like The Hunters are passengers and crew members turned into [[ArtificialZombie zombies]]. [[spoiler: But they are actually Morlock descendants of human that started a cannibalist culture due to suffering from Pandorum.]]

* ReplacementGoldfish: [[spoiler: Judging by the dehydrated corpse of Cooper that Bower finds, he probably isn't the first person that Gallo tried the whole routine on of "oh no, we both just woke up and neither of us knows what happened, please help me fix the ship". Given how ''long'' Gallo has been doing this, and Leland's comments about the "games" that Gallo played with the crewmembers he woke up, Cooper was probably ''far'' from being the first person he played this routine with either.]]

* RunningOnAllFours: The creatures infesting the ship can do this for extra speed.

* ScannableMan: Done realistically. The computer checks their palm print, while simultaneously reading the numbers tattooed on the left arm to confirm they're allowed to access those particular systems.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Bower and Gallo have an argument about civilization vs savagery.
* SleeperShip: The Elysium. The passengers and most of the crew are kept in stasis in the cryopods, with the crew waking up in shifts to operate the ship. At least, that was the plan.

* SoleSurvivingScientist: Nadia, the only scientist among the surviving people who've woken up so far, is a biologist who protects the biosphere she gathered and forms (incorrect, it turns out) theories about where the Hunter's mutations came from.

* StunGun: Except at point-blank range which makes YourHeadAsplode. The currently popular KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter trope is averted despite the "[[UsedFuture corridors and bulkheads]]" look of the movie -- Bower's '[[NonLethalWarfare non-lethal riot-gun]]' fires an energy burst powerful enough to hurl bodies backward.

** Mahn not killing the kid as soon as he saw it probably counts...

''Pandorum'' is a sci-fi/mystery/adventure/horror film released in September of 2009 and starring Creator/DennisQuaid and Creator/BenFoster. A SpiritualSuccessor of ''Film/ResidentEvil'' that echoes ''Literature/TheTimeMachine'', ''Series/TheStarLost'', ''Literature/WhenWorldsCollide'', and ''Film/{{Alien}}''.

* {{Satan}}: Who Gallo seems to be a metaphor of based on his negative views of God and morality. Also, there is Leland's statement.

* WouldntHurtAChild: Nadia, apparently. Thematically appropriate, given her assigned role as caretaker to the genetic samples that will be used to populate Tanis.

** [[spoiler: [[http://i.imgur.com/2MGbZZQ.jpg The drawings of the Hunter's insane ancestors are shown to be hanging people with her stomach cut open, similar to what their descendants do earlier in the film.]] This implies of that the cannibalism is part of tradation.]]
** [[spoiler: While they are making there way to Nadia's lab you can see water dripping from the ceiling. Hints that the ship is not in space.]]

** [[spoiler: Shortly before TheReveal, Gallo angrily addresses Payton as a "corporal" and Payton doesn't correct him.]]
** [[spoiler: Whenever Payton and Foster are talking, Gallo never speaks nor does Payton try to tell them that another crew member has appeared.]]

** Specific details of the Hunters' origins are not given a straight answer, though there are hints that suggest they're [[spoiler: the descendants of crewmembers that became cannibals due to catching SpaceMadness. Over generations within the course of 900+ years they slowly adapted to the ship due to an enyzme, meant to jumpstart ecological evolution so they could adapt to minor differences in Tanis's atmosphere when they get there, basically becoming Morlocks]].

** [[spoiler: Shortly before TheReveal, Gallo angrily addresses Payton as a "corporal" and Payton doesn't correct him]].