Pitch Black (2000)

Pitch Black (2000) (aka The Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black)

In David Twohy's taut science fiction thriller about the marooned crew (only 11 survivors) on a commercial transport ship (the Hunter-Gratzner) bound for a galactic outpost known as New Mecca, that crash-landed (during a meteor storm) on a planet plagued with nocturnal, underground, bloodthirsty (flesh-eating) flying creatures:

• the film's unique premise of a constantly-lit, barren desert planet within a three-star system that unleashed hibernating, terrifying winged alien creatures in the darkness - and now the planet was about to undergo a rare, month-long eclipse of its three suns - something that happened only every 22 years
• the death of the seriously-injured, impaled navigator Greg Owens (Simon Burke), meant that the ship's leadership went to the ship's second Navigator Carolyn Fry (Radha Mitchell)
• the complex character of amoral, vicious murderer and anti-hero convict-prisoner Richard D. Riddick (Vin Diesel in a star-making role) - one of the survivors and the only one who could see in the dark (with surgically-enhanced eyes); although he was blindfolded, chained and tied inside the ship after the crash, he miraculously escaped (by dislocating his shoulders) and threatened with a shiv (knife) made of bone
• the tense scene when Fry asked Riddick how he was able to get an operation on his eyes: ("Where the hell can I get eyes like that?") and he responded: "You gotta kill a few people...You gotta get sent to a slam where they tell ya you'll never see daylight again. You dig up a doctor and you pay him 20 menthol Kools to do a surgical shine job on your eyeballs"

• the bargain or deal between morphine-addicted law enforcement escort, police officer William Johns (Cole Hauser) and Riddick - if he helped save the crew from the sharp-toothed flying monsters, and aided them to escape from the planet, he would be promised his freedom: "So here's the deal. You work without chains, without bit and without shivs. You do what I say when I say it...."
• the discovery of an abandoned geological research settlement from 22 years earlier (all of the geologist settlers of an "advanced team" in the dwelling there were probably slaughtered - Riddick commented: "They're all dead" - by night creatures); they had left behind a water well and a shuttle-craft or "disposable" skiff ("like an emergency life raft") with drained batteries (or power cells); their goal was to to power up the drop-ship shuttle-craft and escape from the planet
• as nighttime approached, the screeching, bat-like alien creatures (using night vision radar) swarmed into the air in massive numbers; Riddick mused to himself: "Beautiful"; Shazza (Claudia Black) foolishly wouldn't lie down and stay immobile like Riddick, but fled and was targeted and decimated (ripped in half) by the creatures; Riddick theorized about her death: "It ain't me you gotta worry about. She should've stayed down. If she only would've stayed down, she'd be okay. She wouldn't have died....These just might be the f--kers that killed every living thing on this planet."
• the shocking death of arts dealer Paris Ogilvie (Lewis Fitz-Gerald) who found himself in total darkness, and when he flicked his lighter in the air (to ignite his last sip of wine), there was the terrifying sudden flash-view of the sight of giant aliens surrounding him, ready to devour him
• as the crew were being picked off one-by-one - it was revealed, in a plot twist, that the young male survivor named Jack (Rhiana Griffith) was actually a girl - she was bleeding and her menstrual blood scent was leaving a trail for the creatures to follow
• the gruesome death of Johns after he had proposed using Jack as "a bucket of bait - trawl with it" to distract the creatures; Riddick fought him hand-to-hand, slashed him across the back with his shiv, and left him as bait for the creatures; Johns was grabbed head-first by one of the aliens
• the powerful concluding sequence when Capt. Fry confronted Riddick for wanting to leave the planet all by himself; she argued that the others had to be rescued, and then he enticingly promised that she could leave with him: ("Look. No one's gonna blame you. Save yourself, Carolyn"); she tackled him in the mud outside the shuttle-craft, and although he overpowered her and held his shiv to her neck, she was able to convince him to rescue the few others remaining; she claimed that she would die rather than abandon everyone: ("Now, you! You listen to me! I am the captain of this ship. And I am not leaving anyone on this rock with those f--kin' things...I would die for them")
• a few moments later, Riddick was blocked from entering the shuttle-craft when he faced off with one of the creatures (seen from a top view, he moved strategically to stay in its blind spot), and he was wounded and bloodied by a second creature, and Fry went to help him when he called for help, although she didn't have to assist him; as she tried to lift his heavy body, she yelled at him: "I said I'd die for them, not you"; however, she suffered a sacrificial death to the nocturnal creature (while she was in Riddick's arms and looking deeply into his eyes) when she was impaled in the back and blood gushed to the ground; he gave his stunned reaction as she was carried away: "Not for me! Not for me!"

• there were only three survivors: Riddick, Jack and Islamic Cleric or Preacher (aka Imam) (Keith David) who managed to get off the planet in the skiff; in the final moments, they agreed with Riddick's suggestion to tell the authorities that Riddick had died on the planet - so that he could escape and seek freedom