The plot seems conventional enough. A ship in distress makes an emergency landing on an unknown planet. The survivors lead by docking pilot Fry (Radha Mitchell) and lawman Johns (Cole Hauser) join forces to survive in the harsh desert conditions. Johns’s escaped prisoner, Riddick (Vin Diesel), is a looming threat to the group until a larger foe emerges when the planet gets enshrouded in the pitch black night of a total eclipse.

The near black and white visual effects transform the Australian desert into the hostile landscape of the unknown planet, and the contrasts between light and dark, especially when reflected on the faces of characters suggest the battle that is to come. Director David Twohy seems so familiar with the dynamics of fear that his rhythm and shot composition are well orchestrated to reveal only as much as is needed to deepen the terror.

For the characters of Pitch Black, survival is constantly threatened and fear rapidly escalates. First, the group fears Riddick, then the lack of food and water on a desert-like planet, then the unseen monsters who kill two of the members. Finally, when the night falls and millions of rapturous creatures begin to prey, all of the prior fears converge into a constant scare fest. The visual wizardry is used to the maximum through tricky balance of what we see and what remains hidden. Both, the seen and the unseen are equally scary.

The worst situations bring out the worst or the best in people, and the battle against the bat like beasts of night quickly becomes the battle against the internal enemies emerging from dark crevices of the human mind and heart, the territory that tends to erupt with deadly surprises. At least, the beasts are predictable in their drive to kill. The humans, however, are like a minefield. We never know what’s coming. The characters are flipped so that their inner demons are exposed, and then, they are flipped again as they take on their internal challenges. None of them can be taken for granted, neither in their heroism nor in their weakness.

Radha Mitchell walks the tightrope of her character with a delicate blend of intensity and softness. The lovely docking pilot Fry struggles with her urge to sacrifice the lives of others to save herself during the opening sequence when the ship is breaking apart from a meteor collision. And, of course, there is the mysterious and seductive convicted murderer Riddick. His strength, wit, adaptability, and eyes that see through the internal conflicts of the people almost as clearly as they spot the terrible creatures of the night just might be the group’s only hope of survival. Still, Riddick is neither a clichéd, one-dimensional hero nor a villain, but a constant enigma.

Nothing is as it seems in Pitch Black. As scary and unbeatable as the creatures are, they can ultimately be outsmarted for they are just blood thirsty beasts, but the people who become victims die because of their ignorance, curiosity, greed, plain stupidity, selfishness, and yes, even heroism. Within the human dimension, the good and the bad are mixed in a range of hues, neither pitch black nor blinding white nor gray really, but a shifting rainbow of each in succession. Neither a hero, nor a traitor should be taken at face value, and finding true character often requires a terrifying trip into the night.

Pitch Black mesmerizes with its terror while teasing our insatiable appetites for intrigue. As questions of faith and the subtle erotic tension between Fry and Riddick are added for good measure, even those who shun the gripping effect of horror films might find Pitch Black a challenge worth taking on.