Pandorum (2009)
12-month trend
12-month trend
Monthly article views
2025-09 to 2026-08
Two astronauts awaken from hypersleep on a derelict interstellar ark to find the ship overrun by mutants and a terrifying psychological psychosis.
The story
After human overpopulation depletes Earth's resources, humanity builds an interstellar ark, the Elysium, to colonize an Earth-like planet called Tanis. Passengers are placed in hypersleep for a 123-year journey, with a rotating crew maintaining the ship. Eight years into the mission, the ship receives a final transmission from Earth. An indeterminate time later, two members of a flight team, Corporal Bower and Lieutenant Payton, awaken from hibernation with partial amnesia. They discover their teammate's pod is empty and must navigate the ship's ventilation system to escape their quarters, only to find the vessel in a state of decay and inhabited by hostile entities.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
After Earth's resources are depleted, humanity sends 60,000 people on the interstellar ark Elysium to colonize Tanis. During the 123-year journey, two crew members, Bower and Payton, wake up with amnesia and potential 'pandorum'—a psychosis caused by deep space. They find their teammate Cooper dead and discover the ship is being stalked by creatures. They eventually team up with two others, Nadia and Manh, to reach the reactor. They encounter a paranoid man named Leland, who reveals that a crew member named Gallo went insane, killed the captain, and induced pandorum in others, leading to a tribal, cannibalistic society of mutants. Bower eventually restarts the reactor, killing many cannibals. In the chaos, the group splits. Payton realizes that 'Gallo' is actually an aged Gallo who took Payton's pod and suffered from pandorum, making him believe he was Payton. Gallo kills Leland and confronts Bower and Nadia, revealing the ship is adrift in deep space. After a struggle, a window breaks, flooding the bridge. Bower and Nadia eject a pod and land on a lush coastline on Tanis, where they see other pods breaking the surface.
- First release year
- 2009
- Runtime (minutes)
- 108
- Production countries
- United Kingdom; Germany
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Christian Alvart
- Writers
- Travis Milloy · screenplay; Travis Milloy · story; Christian Alvart · story
- Cast and characters
- Dennis Quaid; Ben Foster; Cam Gigandet; Antje Traue; Cung Le; Eddie Rouse
- Themes
- overpopulation; cannibalism; psychosis; evolution
- Tone and mood
- horror; tense; derelict
- Setting
- The interstellar ark Elysium, 923 years into a mission to colonize the planet Tanis.
- Premise and plot tags
- space adventure; generation ship; mutants; psychological thriller
- Source material / true-story basis
- Preliminary script by Travis Milloy in the late 1990s; story originally set on a prison ship.
- Franchise connections
- Planned sequel and prequel
- Content notes
- cannibalism
- Reception
- The film was poorly received and a box office flop, grossing $20.6 million on a $33 million budget.
- Reported review scores
- Rotten Tomatoes · score: 26% · review count: 87; Metacritic · score: 28 · scale: 0–100 · review count: 13
- Production trivia
- The title 'Pandorum' is a fictional slang term for a form of psychosis caused by deep space.; The film was originally intended to be a low-budget film shot on video in an abandoned paper mill.
Genres
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
Your lists
Loading your lists…