This is not the greatest SF film of all time but for a near-zero budget it doesn't do that badly.

It has plot holes - why, for instance right at the end of the film, would our hero lead the predators away from his friends in an act of noble self-sacrifice when all they had to do was move a few steps nearer the huge light source right in front of them? The predators were scared of the light and were easily kept at bay by the light from a burning branch. Surely the portal with its brazzillion candle power lighting display was a perfectly safe place to be.

The acting is variable but I seen far worse. The guys did a fair job delivering a script that could have done with a good tightening up - there's far too much "What are we going to do now?", "I don't know!", "Have YOU got any ideas?" type dialogue. Someone should have gone through and been ruthless with the script, combined and reduced incidents, and then trimmed it again harder and tighter in the editing.

But I watched the film the end - which is more than I can say for many recent, far bigger-budgeted Hollywood SF films. Not a bad first directorial showing.

I was utterly surprised at how poorly this movie was reviewed by some people.

Bottom line, this movie had me in its grips from almost the beginning.

While perhaps there were a few forced moments in the plot, I really didn't know what was going to happen, and yes, I cared about the characters.

I watched this with my 9-year-old son and we both like it.

For me there was an appropriate amount of mystery, and I even liked the spareness of the setting, the dialog and the plot.

This movie is not about space. It's about PEOPLE.

I had not heard of this movie. It is a cheaply made galactic version of "Lord of the Flies." That said, it stands reasonable well on its own. A group of boys find themselves on a planet during a competition among some space cadets. They are somehow dropped into a milieu that is not what they expected. One group is connected and the rest are singles who must prove themselves to the rest. There is a dangerous creature or creatures on the planet, but the real threat is within the group. They are caught between their competitive beings and their wish to escape their prison. The thing reeks of distrust and immaturity (which means that it does hit the mark pretty well). They are incredibly dangerous individuals and babies at the same time. They are selfish and simple, but they are also filed with angst and complexities. My biggest criticism is that we are never able to figure out what the hell they are doing there and what they are trying to accomplish when it comes to getting home. A clear picture of that would have taken it beyond an encounter among a diverse group of flawed figures. Also, I would have liked to know what life on Earth was like at this time.