The year, 2022. The maintenance ship SPACECORE 1 is on a routine "refab" mission. The refabs are fixers. Their purpose is to repair nuclear-armed satellites orbiting high above the earth. Due to the atomic capabilities of these satellites, refabbing is considered dangerous... Very dangerous.
The Dark Side of the Moon is a Sci-Fi Horror film made in 1990 starring Joe Turkel and John Diehl. The ship Spacecore 1 mysteriously loses power while on a routine maintenance mission of nuclear-armed satellites. Miraculously they find a drifting space shuttle that is over 30 years old where they can replenish their oxygen. They also find aboard the corpse of its single pilot. What follows is a string of possessions, murders, paranoia and the mysteries of The Bermuda Triangle and the ultimate source of evil.
Not to be confused with the legendary album, or the French mockumentary released in English-speaking markets as Dark Side of the Moon.
The Dark Side of the Moon provides examples of:
- Absent Aliens: The Spaceship Girl specifically mentions that humans haven't made contact with any alien civilizations. The monster turns out to be the Devil himself instead.
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Or in this case, Absurdly Spacious Spacecraft. The interior shots of the shuttle make it look labyrinthine and far larger than an actual space shuttle.
- Artistic License – Space:
- The ship graveyard provides an explanation for the Bermuda Triangle because the dark side of the moon is supposedly "in line" with it. What's supposed to happen during the roughly 28 or so days in a month when the orbiting moon isn't facing the Bermuda Triangle isn't precisely explained.
- A derelict, powerless ship has gravity, with no explanation as to how.
- The crew are seen smoking in the space shuttle. Not impossible, but it's both a waste of breathable oxygen and in an oxygen-rich environment they could actually explode.
- Bad Moon Rising: Turns out that a specific spot on the Moon, when it's aligned with The Bermuda Triangle, opens up a gateway to Hell.
- The Bermuda Triangle: The film offers an unusual explanation of the disappearances in the story, since the dark side of the moon is said to be in a line with the Bermuda Triangle, and to be where all those missing ships go.
- Body Surf: Satan keeps jumping to a new host after his current one is killed. Though he also has the ability to apparently reanimate any of them even after they've been sliced open.
- Chest Burster: One of the astronauts is killed when a possessed corpse attacks her with something bursting out of its chest.
- Decoy Protagonist: The description of the movie seems to indicate Paxton Warner of being the main protagonist. He's one of the last people to fall victim to the Devil towards the end of the movie.
- Derelict Graveyard: The last shot reveals the dark side of the moon to be a massive graveyard covered with hundreds of ships and planes that Satan had previously destroyed.
- Devil, but No God: Discussed Trope at the end when the Devil (possessing one of the crew members) reveals himself to the only other survivor by pointing out how strange it is that he has no faith in God despite knowing that the Devil actually exists.
- Downer Ending: Giles pulls a Heroic Sacrifice and destroys the ship in order to kill the Devil. Unfortunately, it's implied that this doesn't work out well, making it a Senseless Sacrifice. Plus it also implies from the distress call at the end that this will just happen to a different crew of a different ship.
- Evil Overlooker: The poster only shows the bad guy's Hellish Pupils overlooking the moon.
- Evil Sounds Deep: Satan's voice is this.
- For the Evulz: While Satan's main goal is to kill many people as possible in order to gain enough power to ultimately destroy Heaven, setting people against each other by playing on their paranoia and tormenting them before killing them was unnecessary sadism.
- Hellish Pupils: Everybody who is possessed by the Devil develops these when he decides to show himself.
- I Have Many Names: Satan answers this when the first victim asks him who is he.
- Imposter Forgot One Detail: Satan apparently forgot or didn't care that his host body is allergic to cream in his coffee. It's down to just two crewmembers by that point, so the only remaining human immediately starts to prepare for the final confrontation.
- Kill Sat: Orbital nuclear missile silos are a thing in this version of 2022, and the protagonists are the people with the job of giving them maintenance. The satellite that they were en route to fix before the whole mess with the Devil started becomes a Chekhovs Gun.
- Kneel Before Zod: The Devil gives all his victims the option to kneel before him before murdering them. Of course, since he's driven by Pride.
- Motive Rant: When confronting the final survivor, the Devil reveals and gloats about his plan to destroy Heaven by denying it any souls. Despite having killed thousands of people without giving them any reason. He's mostly doing it out of pride (duh), but the person he's talking to also happens to be the only member of the crew who actually believes that he exists.
- Number of the Beast: 665 ships are said to have been lost in The Bermuda Triangle. Guess who's responsible for these disappearances?
- People Puppets: All the evil characters are this, probably to save on casting costs.
- Precision F-Strike: "Get away from me, you motherfucker!"note
- Satan: The monster in this space horror turns out to be, in fact, the Devil himself. He somehow uses The Bermuda Triangle as a portal to get onto unsuspecting vessels to kill their crew by possessing and turning them against each other before dumping the derelicts on the other side of the moon.
- See You in Hell: Giles says "See you in Hell" to the Devil himself before pulling a Heroic Sacrifice.
- Send in the Search Team: To the eventual bad luck of the Spacecore 1 crew, they notice a derelict spacecraft when their own ship malfunctions and they go see if they can scavenge supplies.
- Spaceship Girl: The ship's computer is apparently a gynoid. A particularly curious example since she doesn't even walk around just sits in one room.
- Supernatural Gold Eyes: Whenever someone is possessed by the Devil, their eyes are always glowing bright yellow.
- Taking You with Me: Giles arms the Kill Sat that the crew was en route to fix before the plot got in the way and orders it to launch a nuclear missile at Spacecore 1. The ending implies rather heavily that it did diddly squat to the Devil's overall plan, but as far as slaps to the face go, it sure is a hell of a thing.
