First off, Talisa Soto is one fine looking specimen, but she's aged to a point where she can't pull off either Lara Croft or Vampirella, both of which were modeling gigs she had when she was younger. She even played Vampirella in the horrible movie version with Roger Daltrey as the heavy.

I don't know what they thought they were doing when they made this movie. The locale, Harts Island, is sufficiently creepy. A million bodies, mostly of the indigent have been buried there and should make for a good creepfest, except it isn't used much.

The bad guys are flies which are never seen clearly, although sometimes their perspective is employed by jerky camera moves that detract very strongly from the story. These jerk action moves are very obviously done on a tripod as all the jerks are across one direction or span. Whats more, the actual cinematography is poor. Sometimes, there would be a sweep across abandonned buildings (which we are told in an interesting story onc e housed the quarantined sick and then, later, the mad. This plotline is never brought up again) that goes right to left and then, inexplicably reversed halfway. Bad filming.

The flies themselves are laughable and there is no gore worth watching.

We should have a separate discussion about any movie starring Malcolm "If-Theres-A-Check-Involved-I-am-So-There" McDowell. He phones in his performance, pretty much like he's done in every movie since Tank Girl (last decent performance from him that I saw).

It has NOTHING to do with the Dead Universe, despite the title. Some people do die but their deaths are ridiculous.

The only person worth watching was the island manager, who actually was kind of interesting. I've never seen him before, have no idea what his name is, but he was pretty cool.

Mos Def is also in the movie, for the inane rap music connection.