Dead Space: Downfall is the precursor to the events that occur in EA's videogame Dead Space. It chronicles what occurs when a ship ventures into deep space on a mission to retrieve a religious artifact and in doing so, releases an alien race bent on the destruction and assimilation of the human race. It opens with the USG Kellion finding a video log of what appears to be a distress message sent by Alissa Vincent, head of security on the USG Ishimura, a mining ship, but one whose captain has a hidden agenda. The story that unfolds tells of the events that led up to the recording of that log.

During a massive mining operation in deep space, an artifact is discovered and taken onboard to be brought back to Earth. There is a lot of debate about the artifact, as it seems very important to a zealous religious group called the Unitologists, but others see it as a potential danger. Not long after the relic boards the ship, members of the mining crew begin behaving oddly, exhibiting homicidal and suicidal behavior. Alissa Vincent and her security crew, along with select officers of the ship, begin to piece together the fact that the artifact may be responsible for changing their behavior, but the captain is dead set on retrieving the artifact, even at the expense of lives. When things take a tragic turn, it becomes apparent that one member of the ship's crew is convinced that the relic will doom Earth, so he is trying to sabotage the ship and destroy it. Vincent and what's left of her team determine that they will save the remaining passengers and stop him from crashing the ship or die trying.

This is a fast-paced action flick done in a very anime style. The look reminded me of Golgo-13 (yeah, think way back there). There's a great deal of gore and language, so this is not for children, for sure. However, there's really no way around it since the crew members morph into creatures with pointed blade-like arms and they slice and dice their way through the ship's passengers, having been created from the corpses of those who initially committed suicide or were killed by someone driven crazy by the artifact. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and while watching it, I forgot that I was watching it to prep me for the game and was just simply enjoying it for it's own sake. The animated style was both sharp and crisp, during the times when you'd see terrain or space; and soft, almost hand-drawn looking at times. It was an interesting mix and really worked for the film. Nika Futterman voices Alissa Vincent and she does an amazing job. She's quite the bad-ass and I only wish she was a playable character in the game. Voiceover regulars Bruce Boxleitner, Kevin Michael Richardson, Kelly Hu and Keith Szarabajka also turn in very believable performances.

There are a few special features including a deleted scene (although with animation, deleted scenes are hand-drawn quick renders with minimal voiceovers, so they aren't as cool as live action deleted scenes), both game and movie trailers, a photo gallery of movie stills and drawings, plus the isolated soundtrack to the movie, which is cool if you want to just listen to the creepy strains of music. The box also says Cheat Codes, but I haven't been able to find them. If you plan on playing Dead Space, you definitely owe it to yourself to check out the very cool prequel, Dead Space: Downfall.