The War of the Worlds

What's this? A 1950's science fiction film that I actually like? Well yes. Sort of. And yes, I'm talking about the 1953 version of War of the Worlds here, not the 2005 abomination starring Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise, with all the personality and charisma of congealed rice pudding, but with less acting ability. Seriously, he's shite. But anyway, I digress. So what makes this an okay sci-fi movie? I'll try to explain.

The film begins with an overly dramatic voice over introduction, quickly followed by equally overly dramatic orchestral music. Then there's a bit more of a voice over intro which will sound very familiar to anyone who's listened to Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. And let's be honest, who hasn't? The narration explains why the martians need a new home and why Earth is the only other suitable planet in the solar system. A nice touch when they show the Earth is that you can see clouds within the atmosphere. A lot of sci-fi at this time neglected to show any clouds, so well done for that.

Then we cut to southern California and we see what looks like a flaming comet travelling through the sky and crashing to earth. Fire crews arrive at the scene to put out the fire caused by the crashed object. A load of the nosy local residents arrive too. The fire is quickly extinguished, but the crashed object itself remains hot and smouldering. A suave scientist is fishing nearby. The authorities call for his help in working out exactly what the object that crashed might be.

So doctor suave shows up at the scene. He of course immediately meets a young girl who is aware of his work and is a massive fan. The girl introduces doctor suave to the local vicar, who also happens to be her uncle. Doctor suave says the object is too hot to get a proper look at and that he'll have to stay in town until it cools. The vicar of course says that doctor suave can stay at his house. The girl doesn't seem to have any objection to this. She invites doctor suave to a square dance at the social hall that evening.

While most of the town are at the square dance, three local guys are standing guard at the crash site. Then all of a sudden a hatch in the object begins to unscrew. A snake-like periscope appears through the opening and begins surveying the area around it. The three men approach the crashed object in an attempt to show that they're friendly. But the laser eye at the head of the periscope fires at the men and instantly vaporises them. At the same time all the lights in the town go out. At the square dance doctor suave discovers that everyone's watch has stopped at exactly the same time. He finds out that all the watches have become magnetised, and with the use of a compass that the magnetic field is emanating from the crash site. The police and doctor suave head up there. The periscope thingy vaporises one of the policemen, but doctor suave and the remaining policeman manage to take cover. They quickly decide to call in the military for help. At this point they begin to get reports of similar objects landing all over the world.

The military arrive and surround the object. They decide to fly a plane overhead to try and get a look at the object from the air, but rather predictably the periscope thingy blows the plane to shit. Then they decide to bring in more military. As in all the military. The girl who's keen on doctor suave obviously needs some plot reason to be hanging around, so at this point she's magically transformed into a nurse who's busy handing out coffee and doughnuts (coffee and doughnuts are always good for laser burns).

Early the next morning three small flying craft complete with periscope thingies appear from inside the crashed object. The military prepare to fire at the craft. The vicar bloke thinks they should try to communicate first before shooting (yeah, that really worked well last time) so he wanders out towards the craft and gets turned into toast. The military fire everything they have at the three craft. But the craft have their own force fields and nothing the military fire at them can get through. In return the martian craft start blasting everything and everyone to shit. The military retreat, along with doctor suave and his girl. Doctor suave and his girl attempt to escape in a nearby plane, because of course doctor suave is a pilot. But he's a bit of a shit pilot and they crash land soon after taking off. They take shelter in a nearby farmhouse. They manage to get something to eat, but then another of the meteor objects crashes from the sky, skids and smashes into the side of the farmhouse. One of the smaller craft emerges and sends its periscope thingy inside the farmhouse for a closer look. The periscope thingy retreats, but the girl gets a glimpse of one of the martians outside. Yes, in this film they actually bothered to show us the martians. Another plus for that I think. And they don't look all that terrible considering when this film was made. Think of E.T. but with a camera lens for a face and you're not far off. A periscope thingy comes back for another look but doctor suave manages to chop its head off. Doctor suave and his girl finally make their escape from the farmhouse, just before the martians destroy it.

At this point there's another voice over, basically telling us that everything has gone tits up and that the world has gone to shit. Washington decide the last resort is a nuclear strike. And the first target is the original landing site in California. One of the science boffins estimates that if the bomb doesn't work the martians will take over the world in six days. So doctor suave and his girl go back to observe the nuclear strike because obviously that seems like a sensible thing to do. Rather predictably the martians activate their force fields and the nuclear strike fails. So at this point all the cities are evacuated.

Doctor suave and his girl get separated. She takes off with a load of people in a school bus while he steals a truck. Doctor suave gets pulled from his truck by a mob and gets left behind in the abandoned city. His priority now, realising that everything else is lost, is to find his girl and to make sure she's okay. Cue scene of him running through empty city streets while dramatic orchestral music plays. Eventually the martians show up and start blasting everything to shit. But still doctor suave won't give up the search for his girl. Eventually he finds her taking refuge with a load of other people in a church. The martians attack the church and it looks like everything is lost. But suddenly the martians stop attacking and their craft begin to fall from the sky. The people in the church venture outside. The door to one of the crashed craft opens and a dead martian arm flops down from inside. All the martians are dead. Killed by the bacteria in our atmosphere to which they had no resistance. Humanity is saved. Hooray! The end. The moral of the story? Always get your vaccinations before you go abroad.

I like this film. It held my attention for its duration and I actually sort of cared about what happened to the suave doctor and his girl. There's not much of a plot I admit, but what there is of it is well executed. And there's no extra padding in this film. Unlike many other films I could mention, there are no pointlessly long scenes that drag on serving little or no purpose. The science is credible and the story doesn't seem too far fetched. It's basically martians come to conquer the world but end up dead. That's it. It doesn't get much simpler. The effects are good for a film of its time, and they're far superior to many other films from the time or even later.

If I have a criticism (and I do) it's that the female character is once again too much of a damsel in distress, needing to be rescued and comforted by the suave doctor. But I think you have to put that down to 1950's attitudes towards women. You can't blame the film for that, it's just reflecting society at the time. Fortunately we didn't have to wait too long before we saw strong female characters in films becoming the rule rather than the exception.

IMDb rates this film higher than the 2005 version and I think that's fair. For me this film is the better of the two. I found it to be more engaging and entertaining, and I'm sure that's not solely down to Tom Cruise's plank-like performance in the newer film. The 2005 film for me is all special effects and no substance. The 1953 film had to have substance because it couldn't just rely on special effects to pull it through. I wasn't expecting much from this film but I was pleasantly surprised. As long as you keep in mind that this is a sci-fi film made in 1953 then I think you'll be pleasantly surprised too.

RoboCop 3

I didn't have high hopes going into this film. That's probably why I'd been putting off watching it for the past 21 years. It didn't even manage to live up to the low expectations that I had. Perhaps I'd better explain why. Okay, so this is what I knew about RoboCop 3 before going into it. I knew that Peter Weller was no longer cast in the titular role. That in itself is sin enough. Peter Weller IS RoboCop in my mind. Actually more to the point, Peter Weller is Murphy. You can't take some strange guy and suddenly expect us all to believe he's Murphy, whether he's inside a robot suit or not. I also knew that Nancy Allen DID reprise her role as Officer Lewis, but only upon the understanding that she would be killed off in the first half of the film. So your main actor is no longer in the film and your main supporting actor wants out halfway through. If that doesn't set off the movie shite-o-meter I don't know what does. I also knew that unlike the first two films, this one achieved a milder certificate 15 rating. So I was expecting it to be much easier on the blood, guts and profanity than its predecessors. Finally I knew that at some point in this film RoboCop sprouts wings and flies. Although I was kind of hoping that would turn out to be some horrible, horrible joke. (Spoiler: it wasn't).

The film opens with the usual Media Break news programme that we've come to expect, with reassuringly the newscaster from the previous films. The news tells us that OCP has been bought out by a Japanese corporation. It also tells us that Old Detroit is still a shit-hole. OCP is trying to move residents out of said shit-hole so that they can level the place and start again from scratch. Of course many residents are none too pleased, so OCP has a new "Rehab" force, or "Urban Rehabilitation Officers" to encourage people to move on. Cue the creepy, evil guy in charge of the Rehab force giving an interview, and of course trying to put a positive spin on things.

Then we see a young girl in her bedroom. Her dad comes in and she asks him if the news reports are true and if it really is a war-zone outside. Her dad tries to reassure her and say that she's safe where she is. Cue a huge wrecking ball that comes straight through the bedroom wall. The family make a run for it, out into a scene of chaos where all the other residents are doing the same. The Rehab force arrives and starts herding people onto buses. The young girl gets separated from her parents. She's chased by one of the Rehab guys but falls over by the side of a van. The van door opens and she's pulled inside. In the van are the main group of resistance fighters who are intent on staying put. The group's leader is a local black woman.

The group then drives to the police armoury where they attempt to steal weapons. They successfully blow the gates open, but are immediately met by an ED-209. The good news is ED-209 still growls in this film like he's supposed to. The bad news is that the voice is just slightly different. Just different enough for it not to sound right. The young girl runs over to ED-209's leg and plugs her laptop in. Yes, she's some sort of smart-arse hacker kid (god I hate those). ED-209 does his usual 20 second countdown, but at the end he says "I am now authorised to... be loyal as a puppy". So that's ED-209 taken care of. One of the group uses a stolen swipe card on the door to the armoury. But the card has been reported as stolen and sets off the alarm. They figure they've still got a few minutes to loot, if only they could blow the door open somehow. Cue smart-arse kid with ED-209 again. So the door is blown open and they go inside and steal some guns and shit. Two police cars show up, but the kid gets ED-209 to shoot at them and our resistance friends escape. (Wait, so someone is attempting to break into the police armoury and you send just two police cars? That's nuts). Also, because of this film's mild rating none of the police actually get shot. Yes the cars get shot to shit, but all the policemen escape unscathed. It's a world away from ED-209 turning Mr Kinney into pâté in the first film.

The call goes out over the police radio for all units to pursue our resistance friends. One of those who responds to the call is Lewis. After a truly uninspiring car chase, Lewis and her other police friends all manage to crash. Our resistance friends celebrate in their battered yellow van, but then another police car starts pursuing them. It's RoboCop (you'd never have guessed, would you). Meanwhile Lewis and her police friends have crashed in a rough part of town. I thought they were all rough? Anyway they're surrounded by a local gang and Lewis calls for backup. RoboCop hears the call and breaks off his pursuit of the yellow van to go and help. Sergeant Reed (also the same guy from the previous films) orders RoboCop to continue pursuit of the van, but he ignores the order. He arrives at the scene and detaches one of his hands, replacing it with a machine gun attachment. At this point I thought RoboCop had basically just become a glorified food blender. Even more laughable is that RoboCop manages to catch a bullet between his fingers that's heading towards Lewis. He manages to defeat the gang, but he gets petrol bombed in the process and ends up looking like shit.

Meanwhile the Japanese corporation that has taken over OCP is unhappy with the slow progress in clearing Old Detroit of its residents. The Japanese firm says it's going to send over its army of ninja androids to speed things up. Cue a scene where one of said ninja androids is sitting cross legged with his eyes closed, palms turned upward holding a sword. A little bit of a stereotype there wouldn't you say? Or lazy, unimaginative writing. Probably more likely the latter.

An OCP dickhead goes to the police station to find out why RoboCop disobeyed an order to pursue our resistance friends. He talks to the tech nerd babe in charge of RoboCop. You can tell she's a tech nerd as she's wearing a white lab coat and glasses; it's the tech nerd uniform. Tech babe says RoboCop would only disobey an order if he didn't agree with it. So in other words he made a decision. Tech babe says RoboCop's friend was in trouble and so he made a judgement call. She points out that human policemen do the same thing all the time. OCP dickhead says RoboCop doesn't have friends, he's just a machine. Tech babe argues that if OCP just wanted a robot, why did they put Murphy inside in the first place. They argue some more. OCP dickhead says that Murphy is dead. Tech babe says that RoboCop is Murphy (well, what's left of him anyway). She also argues that you can't interface human and machine and then complain when the human part makes a decision. In the end the OCP dickhead says that he wants Murphy's memories and emotions wiped to make him more predictable. And that they want to use RoboCop on the Rehab force. Murphy is sitting in his chillout chair. Tech babe watches his dreams on the tv monitor. In the end she decides not to wipe his memories.

RoboCop works out where our resistance friends are hiding thanks to his photographic memory. He makes his way to their location and Lewis decides to go with him. One of her colleagues asks if she wants her body armour, but she says she's off duty and refuses to take it. (Hmm, talk about making it bloody obvious what's going to happen next). So RoboCop and Lewis arrive at the church where our resistance friends and a load of refugees are hiding out. Then evil guy and his Rehab force turn up to level the place. RoboCop and Lewis decide to make a stand against the Rehab force, saying that the people inside the church are just innocent civilians. Lewis says "If you want to get in there you're going to have to shoot through us". Evil guy replies "I don't have a huge problem with that" and machine guns Lewis in the chest. RoboCop tries to shoot at the evil guy and the Rehab force, but he's unable to because they're all OCP officers and it goes against his programming. Evil guy then fires a grenade at RoboCop which hits him in the chest. RoboCop manages to pick up Lewis and carry her inside the church while our resistance friends provide covering fire. Then there's some mushy bollocks between RoboCop and Lewis before she finally dies.

RoboCop decides to stay and help our resistance friends. They all make a quick exit from the church via the sewer. Sadly for our resistance friends the evil Rehab guy is able to track RoboCop easily as he's OCP property. Our resistance friends make it to their underground hideout, but RoboCop passes out and does a faceplant just outside the door. Presumably a delayed effect from having a grenade in the chest. The resistance people pick him up and carry him inside. RoboCop manages to say the words "tracking beacon" and smart-arse kid manages to find and remove it. One of the resistance guys throws the tracking beacon in the sewer, right underneath a manhole cover that they've booby trapped. A Rehab guy attempts to open the manhole cover and is blown to shit.

OCP dickhead phones tech babe. He says she might want to turn on the news. The news shows evil guy giving a statement to say that RoboCop gunned down his colleague and that he's joined the "terrorist rebel forces". The newsreader says that RoboCop is armed and should be considered extremely dangerous. OCP dickhead says he wants to see tech babe in his office at 7am the next day and that maybe then he won't consider bringing charges against her. The head of OCP puts out an arrest warrant for RoboCop. He says without RoboCop's help the rebels will be much easier to deal with. He then fires OCP dickhead, who immediately leaves the room and shoots himself in the head. We only hear the shot of course. This film is far too tame to show anything that good.

Our resistance friends make it to a new hideout. They're trying to fix RoboCop, but the guy says he's more used to fixing cars than cyborgs. RoboCop manages to say that they should try to find tech babe as she'll be able to fix him. Smart-arse kid goes to the police station in search of her. She finds tech babe and says she knows where RoboCop is. Tech babe doesn't believe her. But smart-arse kid tells tech babe that RoboCop says thank you for not taking his memories away.

One of the ninja androids arrives at the old resistance hideout. There's four guys there, but they refuse to say where our friends have gone so they all end up dead. Tech babe and smart-arse kid arrive back at the hideout in a police van with all of RoboCop's support equipment. Tech babe says it looks like a direct hit to RoboCop's heart. There follows a scene very reminiscent of the original film, where we see things from RoboCop's point of view. We see him come to at various times as Tech babe is working on him. We see the woman leader of the resistance say "I've got that heart you wanted" as she holds up said heart in her hand. We see a new chest plate being fitted. Finally we see RoboCop reboot and list his prime directives. Prime directive 4 "Never oppose an OCP officer" has been deleted. So RoboCop has been successfully repaired. There's a soppy scene between smart-arse kid and Murphy while tech babe sleeps. Smart-arse kid talks about her parents. Murphy uses his photographic memory to search through the police database. He discovers that smart-arse kid's parents were both killed while trying to escape from a relocation camp. Murphy asks her if she misses her parents. She says yes. Murphy says "But you remember them. Because if you remember them, they're never really gone".

Our resistance friends show tech babe something they stole from the police armoury. They say they have no idea what it is. Tech babe tells them it's a prototype for RoboCop's jetpack. (Dear god, please. No). Tech babe is fitting RoboCop's jetpack when suddenly he has a flashback of Lewis dying. Lewis says "Get them for me. Promise". RoboCop stands up and throws off the jetpack. The resistance leader asks him where he's going. RoboCop replies "Unfinished business" and fucks off. Tech babe tells the resistance leader not to worry, RoboCop will be back. Smart-arse kid asks where he's going. Tech babe replies "To keep a promise".

RoboCop walks into the police department. Sergeant Reed asks quizzically "Murphy. Do you know there's a warrant out for your arrest?" To which RoboCop coyly replies "Yes" as we see the police department crawling with officers. Sergeant Reed says "Just checking. What can I do for you?" RoboCop asks where the Rehab force department is. Sergeant Reed says it's just down the hall. RoboCop says thanks. And that he may want to call the fire department. RoboCop goes into the department and torches it. No really, he has a flamethrower attachment. He asks one of the Rehab guys where he can find evil guy.

Evil guy is in a motel room. There's a knock at the door. It turns out to be one of our resistance friends turned informant. He says he'll lead the Rehab force to the resistance hideout. RoboCop arrives at the motel, but evil guy manages to escape out of the window and gets away in a passing OCP van. RoboCop finds a pink Cadillac outside belonging to a pimp which he commandeers. So we have a ridiculous scene where RoboCop chases the OCP van in a pimp-mobile. The doors at the back of the OCP van open up and several Rehab force guys are there with guns. The pimp-mobile is blown to shit, but RoboCop keeps on driving the increasingly wrecked car until it's just a chassis. There's some kids playing hockey in the road. They move out of the way when the OCP van comes past. Evil guy chucks some cash out of the back and all the kids run into the road to pick it up. RoboCop of course has to stop and evil guy gets away.

Back at the resistance hideout the informant guy returns. As he does so the Rehab force comes crashing in through the windows, guns blazing. The woman leader of the resistance group is shot and killed. The informant guy is also killed. Tech babe and smart-arse kid make a run for it. Tech babe realises she's not going to escape, so she puts smart-arse kid into a ventilation shaft and tells her to go. Tech babe is captured and taken to OCP headquarters.

Evil guy goes to police headquarters. He tells Sergeant Reed that he wants 50 of his officers to help the Rehab force clear the remaining residents. Sergeant Reed tells evil guy that's not the kind of work the police do and throws his badge on the floor before walking out. One by one, all of Reed's colleagues come forward and throw their badges on the floor before walking out. Evil guy sees an arrested gang member in the police station. He asks if he and his gang friends would like to make some money. So yes, evil guy decides to use gang members to help clear the residents.

Smart-arse kid is crawling through the ventilation ducts at OCP headquarters. She uses her laptop to hack into the security cameras and locate tech babe. Sergeant Reed and his colleagues show up in Old Detroit in their police cars. He says in 45 minutes the Rehab force will be there to finally clear the residents and level the place. He says to get anyone who shouldn't be fighting down into the basement. He says everyone else is now deputised by the Detroit police department. Can he do that? I thought he'd just quit?

RoboCop arrives back at what remains of the resistance hideout. One of the android ninjas shows up. There's an extremely tiresome battle between the two during which RoboCop gets various extremities sliced off. Eventually RoboCop manages to reattach his grenade launcher attachment and destroys the android with a grenade to the face. At the same time another tiresome battle begins between the Rehab force/gang members and the police/residents.

Smart-arse kid finds tech babe. They use smart-arse kid's laptop to hack into the tv transmitter and broadcast a message out to the people of Detroit, letting them know what evil bastards OCP really are. Meanwhile the police/residents are getting their asses handed to them by the Rehabs/gang members. It looks like it's all over for our resistance friends. But what's this I hear? Yes, RoboCop and his jetpack have come to save the day. The effects used for RoboCop flying are truly appalling, even for the time. And I mean utterly abysmal. You really have to see it to believe it.

Tech babe and smart-arse kid manage to escape. RoboCop flies into OCP headquarters to confront evil guy. Evil guy summons two of the ninja androids. Tech babe and smart-arse kid run in to find RoboCop battling the two androids. The girls manage to hack into the androids and get them to simultaneously decapitate each other. Evil guy calls them both "stupid fools" (strong words indeed) as the two androids are fitted with a "thermal failsafe device" which will nuke everyone to shit in a few seconds. What the hell is "failsafe" about that? It's definitely more "faildangerous" if you ask me. Evil guy says that they're all dead. But RoboCop gets back in his jetpack and flies both the girls out of the window to safety. As they fly away we see the OCP building getting blown to shit.

In the final scene the head of the Japanese corporation goes to visit Old Detroit with the head of OCP. We see the residents busily cleaning up and getting back to normal. The Japanese guy fires the head of OCP. The head of OCP sees RoboCop. He says "Well I gotta hand it to you... what do they call you? Murphy is it?" to which RoboCop replies "My friends call me Murphy. You call me, RoboCop". Hooray. The end.

Thank fuck for that. This review has taken me days. I've only been able to watch a few minutes of this film at a time before feeling nauseous. It's just so bad. The original RoboCop was fantastic. The second film, while not quite up to the standard of the first was still an enjoyable movie. But then this dreadful piece of shite comes along and vomits all over the first two films.

The story is weak and uninteresting. RoboCop/Murphy seems to be much more of a side character in this film, with the young girl being the main focus of attention. In my opinion that's a mistake. I wanted this film to be a continuation of Murphy's story, but sadly it wasn't. Maybe they realised that wasn't possible with a completely different actor playing the role. I think they picked the guy based upon the fact that he looks a lot like Peter Weller, and probably not so much for his acting abilities. He's okay, but he's no Peter Weller if you ask me. In this film RoboCop/Murphy is reduced to cheesy one-liners. They definitely went more for the humour/comic book feel in this film, but it misses the mark by miles. The dark humour and satire of the previous films has vanished. Instead now we have a film that feels rather insipid and watered-down.

There's no gore, violence or bad language to speak of. I think evil guy calls tech babe a slag at one point, that's about it. Nothing hard hitting or shocking here then. And no real surprises either. It's one of those films where you know what's coming every step of the way, and you're not looking forward to it, for all the wrong reasons. One of the worst things by far is RoboCop's jetpack, both in terms of its implementation and the fact that they even did it. I don't need RoboCop to fly. At no point during the previous two films did I think "You know what this film really needs? It needs RoboCop to fly. Sod all the shooting people to shit with a huge gun, just have the fucker fly". As soon as RoboCop donned his jetpack, my brain donned its own jetpack, and fucked off to a alternate universe where this film doesn't exist.

Is there anything good at all about this film? Well the answer to that is surprisingly, yes. The composer used in the original film was brought back on board for the third movie. So the iconic themes and music from the original film are present once again, after sadly being noticeably absent from RoboCop 2. Yes, it's not great when all you can say that's good about a film is the music, but it's a plus point nonetheless.

So overall what can we conclude? Well, I would've said it's a shame. I would've said it could've been great. But honestly, I think with Peter Weller not reprising his role it never really stood a chance. It was always going to suck, the question was how hard. Sadly the answer appears to be extremely. If we look at the trilogy it definitely takes a downward spiral and IMDb reflects this; RoboCop scores 7.5, RoboCop 2 scores 5.7 and RoboCop 3 scores 3.8. I think 3.8 is may be a fair score for this film if you take it in isolation. But comparing it against the previous two films I'd personally score it lower. If you watched the first film, or even the first two films and enjoyed them, don't watch this. Keep your RoboCop memories happy ones. I'm gonna go watch ED-209 make people pâté now.  

U.F.O.

Okay, I'm going to start this film review with a couple of spoilers. Spoiler 1: Everybody dies. Spoiler 2: I didn't care; I was just glad the film was over. That pretty much tells you all you need to know about this film, but maybe I should elaborate just a little.

So the year is present day 2012 in this case. The film opens with a load of shaky camera work as we follow a SWAT team into a house while some shitty dramatic music plays. One of the SWAT guys says that they're "Go for termination" and we hear a load of screams over their radios, presumably while the SWAT team are killing the occupants of the house. Then we cut to a blond woman in a darkened room. She tries to light a match. She swears. Then she runs out the front door of the house into the pouring rain, accompanied by the same shitty dramatic music from before. The woman looks up, and as she does the music slows and stops as the scene goes into slow-mo and ends. Then we cut to a nightclub. Cue shitty dance music and lots of far too attractive people dancing. It's definitely not your usual Friday night cattle market here. But who knows, maybe clubs like this actually do exist, just not in my world. Some people of no consequence who happen to be friends are at the club. One of them is the blond woman we've just seen. Her boyfriend is also there, as are two of her boyfriend's mates. Mate one is an army guy who's currently on leave and is basically out on the pull. Mate two is totally wasted and is quickly managing to repulse everyone of the opposite sex inside the club.

Blond woman's boyfriend asks her to go outside with him. They end up sitting on the roof of a car and start talking about some bollocks or other. Back in the club army guy has spotted a very attractive brunette woman. He goes over and starts dancing with her. They start talking. It turns out she's American. Back outside and blond woman's boyfriend is spouting some soppy nonsense at her. He even says "This is so fucking cheesy". You're not wrong there mate. But blond woman replies "Cheese is good. I love cheese". To cut a bad scene short, he proposes and she says yes. Back inside the club and wasted guy falls into a woman's cleavage and spills his drink down her dress. Two bouncers come over and start giving him grief. He calls for army guy to come and help him. Next we see army guy being thrown outside by the two bouncers. They're giving him a hard time. Blond woman's boyfriend goes over to help, despite her begging him not to get involved. So there's a big scrap where even blond woman gets involved at one point. Army guy gets one of the bouncers in a headlock and threatens to break his neck, so the bouncers back off and the fight is over. Meanwhile mate two, Vincent, comes out of the club after all the fighting is over. Army guy calls Vincent a wanker for blowing his chances with the American woman. He starts talking about her and how beautiful she is. But then he starts describing her using cruder terms and rather predictably she's stood right behind him. But she just smiles and says "You had me at beautiful". They all go back to blond woman's place. Blond woman and her boyfriend have sex. American woman and army guy have sex. Vincent throws up in the bog and passes out.

Next morning and Vincent is the first to rise. He's feeling a little delicate. He goes to collect the milk from the doorstep. Do people still have milk delivered? Vincent sees the neighbour and goes over to talk to him. The neighbour says that the power is out for the whole street. He says it's been out since about six. The neighbour says he's off to meet his wife in London. He said she was called in for an emergency meeting. Apparently she works in "Government domestic crisis management". That's handy. Blond woman's boyfriend appears. The three guys all realise that there's no phone signal. Neighbour guy says that his landline is out too. Neighbour guy then tries the radio in his car. There's no reception on that either.

Army guy and American woman go for a walk. A scruffy guy wearing a hoodie appears with numbers and symbols drawn on his face and hands. He starts spouting stuff from the bible; Matthew 24:36 specifically. Army guy dismisses him as a nutter. Then scruffy guy looks at American woman, pauses for a second and runs off. Army guy and American woman go to a shopping centre. Army guy sees one of his friends who is assistant manager at a supermarket. He says they won't be opening today as there's no power. He also says the power is out for pretty much the whole country. He then shows Army guy a video on his phone. It's some guys filming themselves skating, but then several objects streak across the sky and crash in a nearby field causing big explosions.

Cut to evening time and they're all back together at blond woman's house. They're playing charades as there's not much else to do. They all start to speculate about what's behind the power outage. Their theories range from solar flares to dirty bombs. They then realise that all the watches and clocks in the house stopped at the same time. Yes you guessed it, at 12:36am. We then see blond woman and her boyfriend in bed. Vincent knocks on their door. He asks if he can sleep on the floor in their room because he's scared. How old is he, six? Next blond woman is woken from a nightmare. She goes downstairs. The whole house begins to shake. Everyone else is woken and they all think it's an earthquake. But they look out of the window and see something in the sky. They all venture out of the front door. They look up to see a very bad cgi alien spacecraft (think Independence Day but shit). They all go back inside and get dressed. Army guy gets his pistol.

They all go to the supermarket to get supplies. There's a queue of people there and no one to open the store. A young black woman is first in the queue. But a group of white lads come and push in front of her. She asks that they not push in and the lads give her a load of racist abuse. The woman says that her husband is English and that she needs food for her kids. One of the lads goes to throw a punch at the woman. Army guy steps in and blocks him. Army guy's friend who is the assistant manager arrives. He lets our friends and the young black woman into the supermarket via a side entrance. They begin sneaking around the supermarket picking up supplies, conscious of the fact that if anyone waiting out front sees them it'll cause a riot. Sadly they're spotted and the racist guys come in and start giving army guy grief. American woman finds army guy's pistol and she fires three shots into the air. They all make it safely out of the supermarket. In the car park a couple of big guys ask army guy to hand over their supplies, and their car too. Army guy pulls his gun on them and the guys decide to find an easier target.

They arrive back at blond woman's place with the supplies. Blond woman says that they should go to George's as it'll be safer. American woman asks who George is. Vincent replies "Well let's just say he's a controller short of a PlayStation". We then see a very brief shot of Jean-Claude Van Damme making fists with his hands, while stood in front of his kitchen cupboards? They all agree it's a good idea to go see George, but army guy says he needs to drive to his house and pick up some more bullets for his gun first. American woman insists that she go with him. They stop for fuel. But the old git at the petrol station says all the pumps are dry. He says the army turned up earlier in the day and took every drop. The old git also tells them that he has seen three of the alien spacecraft. The old git reckons that the human race is basically screwed. So they leave the miserable old git and drive off. They're driving along when suddenly a car crashes into them and rolls over. The car is on fire and about to explode. There's a woman in the car who's dead. A man in the car is in poor shape. They decide the kindest thing they can do is suffocate him so that he doesn't suffer. Army guy pulls American woman away from the burning car, but she looks back and screams that there's a girl still alive in the car. They manage to rescue her just before the car explodes. She has a wound that needs attention so they make their way to a nearby chemists.

Back at the house blond woman's neighbour turns up. He's back from London but he looks pretty beat up and scared. Blond woman's boyfriend asks him if he knows anything and what they should do. He just replies "Run! They're coming!" in what must surely be some of the crappiest acting I've ever seen. The neighbour guy then gets back in his car and fucks off again.

Army guy and American woman arrive at the chemists with the little girl. There's a policeman outside. Army guy tells the policeman that the girl needs medical attention. The policeman says it's not his problem. But after some macho bollocks between army guy and the policeman, he agrees to let army guy in for five minutes. The little girl points at the policeman and says "That's the man with the purple mark". Army guy takes the girl inside the chemists and lays her on the counter. All of a sudden the policeman raises his machine gun to shoot the girl, but army guy manages to knock the gun away. The policeman and army guy start fighting. While the policeman manages to knock army guy backwards, he yet again tries to kill the girl by strangling her. Army guy manages to stop him and the two guys scrap again. American woman appears and jumps on the policeman's back, but she's knocked away. After a fight scene that goes on way too long (seriously, I was getting bored) American woman manages to stab the policeman in the neck and he dies. We see through a tear in his trousers that he does indeed have a purple symbol on his upper thigh.

Back at blond woman's house it appears that the alien invasion has started as there's lots of alien shit flying around in the sky. For some bizarre reason at this point Vincent and blond woman's boyfriend decide to go and find a car, leaving blond woman alone in the house. I'm still not clear why they did that. They clearly wanted blond woman to be alone in the house and couldn't come up with a good enough plot point as to why that should be the case. So blond woman is alone in the dark, trying to hide from these alien probe things that keep coming to the windows. Again it's a scene that goes on for far too long and was far too boring. It's just blond woman creeping around the house being scared. Eventually it turns into the scene we saw at the start where she's trying to light a match. We see her once again run outside into the rain and look up. This time we see what she's looking at. It's one of the flying alien probe things. All of a sudden there's a shot from somewhere and the alien probe thing blows up. It turns out to be a couple of soldiers with a bazooka. Everyone else turns up at this point. It turns out the soldiers are the last of their unit, so they decide to hang out with our friends. Scruffy hoodie guy appears and steals army guy's gun out of his pocket. He starts waving the gun around at everyone. The two soldiers point their guns at him and tell him to put his gun down. The solders shoot scruffy hoodie guy, but as they do he fires a shot that hits blond woman's boyfriend in the chest. He dies.

They finally make it to George's place. Yes, good old Jean-Claude finally puts in a proper appearance. Well, I say that. But it looks like all of JCVD's scenes were filmed in a different location, with none of the other actors present. You see a shot of our friends asking JCVD a question, then you see a shot of him answering, stood alone in front of some kitchen cupboards. It looks really odd and disconcerting. Anyway, he definitely phoned his scenes in with this particular film. He sounds dreary and positively bored. JCVD rambles on for ages about alien invasions, alien technology and all that sort of shit. He says the aliens can take human form and it's almost impossible to tell them apart. JCVD tells everyone to stick to their friends and people they know. The two soldiers say they've known each other for 15 years. Vincent says he's known army guy and blond woman for years too. So then of course everyone turns to look at American woman. JCVD says the way to check if she's E.T. is to look for a purple symbol on the inside of her upper thigh. The two soldiers want American woman to strip in front of them. But army guy says he'll take American woman into the other room so she can undress in private.

In the other room army guy faces the door. He tells American woman that he's genuinely sorry to have to do this. At this point he confesses to her that he's been dishonourably discharged from the army. He turns to face her and she shoots him in the head. She then manages to disable the two soldiers. Then she has a fight with JCVD. But it's shot in such a way that they probably just used body doubles. American woman grabs blond woman and holds the gun to her head. They head outside, closely pursued by the two soldiers. The two women head into an outbuilding where American woman leaves blond woman. American woman heads outside and just as the two soldiers are about to shoot her, she de-materialises and is picked up by one of the alien probe things. JCVD comes outside. He looks up at the alien probe thing, says "Oh shit" and is then blown to bits. The probe turns its attention to the little girl (yeah, she's still hanging about) but it doesn't shoot her. Then some other alien ships turn up and they start having a bit of a battle. Maybe that's what JCVD meant by alien technology. Anyway, there's a load of flying things shooting at each other and it's all very confusing and very boring. Blond woman, Vincent, the two soldiers and the little girl make their escape in the soldiers' truck. One of the soldiers puts some music on. It's "Nowhere to Run" by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. Oh please, give me a break. So Nowhere to Run plays while the soldiers drive along shooting at shit. One of the soldiers is killed and the truck crashes. They manage to make a run for it back to the farmhouse.

Then it all goes a bit nuts (like it hasn't already). Vincent punches blond woman and attempts to rape her. The remaining soldier starts fighting Vincent. He beats Vincent to shit but blond woman stops the soldier short of killing him. Meanwhile the little girl looks on in horror, probably thinking that her newly acquired family seems a little on the dysfunctional side. The power suddenly comes back on. The news is on TV. And guess who the newsreader is? Yes, it's American woman. Then yet again we see the SWAT team approach the farmhouse. It turns out the SWAT team are in fact aliens, as we now see that one of them is the policeman from earlier. They enter the building and report that there's a girl inside who can positively identify them. So they get the go ahead to kill everyone. We hear the dying screams of our friends over the SWAT team's radios. The End. Aww, I love a happy ending.

I honestly don't know where to start with this one. This film is just a huge pile of incoherent shite. It's utter, utter bollocks. The plot is meandering and has no point. The acting is mediocre at its best and laughable at its worst. The characters are all one dimensional and thoroughly dislikeable; I felt no sympathy or empathy for any of them, I just thought they were a bunch of tossers who were so far up their own arses it was untrue. The music is shitty house/garage/maisonette/shed/whatever the hell you call it these days. But oh my god, the camera work! I can only imagine that the camera operators were in a perpetual state of seizure. It was annoying. Actually it was thoroughly nauseating. Why do films these days need to do it?  It's not big and it's not clever. Personally I think it gets used to try to cover up shite directing. Not that it does of course. And then there were constant split-second flashbacks/flashforwards. Bloody hell they were annoying. Not to mention completely unnecessary.

As you may have gathered there's not really much sci-fi in this film. I really had hoped for more, especially when you consider the bloody film is called U.F.O. The only effects are the alien spacecraft, which we see briefly, and it's all crappy cgi anyway. This is just a film about a bunch of people I didn't care about doing a bunch of stuff I didn't care about. And they all die, which is no great loss. There are actually some pretty well known actors in this. Sean Pertwee plays the scruffy hoodie guy, but his appearance is all too brief. As is Julian Glover's appearance as the old git at the petrol station. Julian Glover, best known to Star Wars fans of course as General Veers in The Empire Strikes Back. But sadly not even an actor from the best of the Star Wars movies could save this sorry excuse of a film. And let's be brutally honest, Jean-Claude Van Damme was never going to do it. I don't think this film would appeal to even the most hardcore of JCVD fans. He's in it for roughly ten minutes, he sounds bored, he talks a lot of nonsense, and the way his scenes are cut together makes it difficult to watch. This is by far the lowest scoring film on IMDb that he appears in. That score by the way is 3.1 out of 10. Honestly, for me that's too high. At no point was I even remotely entertained or engaged by this film. If I were to use one word to sum up this film (other than swear words) I think it would have to be superficial. Move along people. Nothing to see here.

Teenagers from Outer Space

The year is present day 1959. A non-bearded guy looks through a telescope in an observatory. He gets all excited because he thinks he's seen something. He calls another guy over who must be his senior because he has a beard. (Beards are important in establishing intellectual hierarchy). The object has gone, and the bearded guy tells his young colleague that he probably just saw a comet or a meteor. However the non-bearded of the two men insists it was something that was drill-like in shape and movement.

Cut to a dog howling in the desert. The dog is howling at something in the sky. It is indeed a drill-like object that's descending from the heavens, accompanied by some shitty dramatic music. The drill-like object lands and immediately looks orders of magnitude less impressive than it did in the sky. It's your bog standard looking flying saucer, which bizarrely appears to be about the size of a dustbin lid. The credits roll over the landed saucer while more shitty dramatic music plays. The dog runs over to the saucer and starts barking at it. The hatch at the top of the saucer opens, a guy appears and shoots a ray gun at the dog. The dog immediately vapourises and all that's left are its skeletal remains. Several more guys emerge from the saucer carrying cases. I can only assume the saucer utilises TARDIS technology. Either that or the guys are all very, very familiar with each other.

One of the guys tells another guy to go and get the "gargon" specimen from the saucer. However the youngest member of the group, Derek (don't laugh), says he has found evidence of intelligent life on earth, provided by the inscribed tag that was on the dog's collar. Derek and Thor (the guy who killed the dog) have a bit of a tiff. Derek questions Thor's need to kill everything he sees. The captain tells them both to shut up and proceed with fetching the gargon from the saucer. But Derek pulls a ray gun on the captain and says that they'll report conditions on earth as being unsatisfactory. Derek says that only civilised beings could have made the inscription on the dog's tag, and therefore they shouldn't bring thousands of gargons to earth to have them destroy the civilisation. Then there's a bit more of a tiff where it's established that gargons are creatures that our alien friends breed for their meat. They grow rapidly to an enormous size, and so the alien visitors want to find a nearby planet upon which the gargons can live and breed. Derek also explains how pants his civilisation is. They have no families, are used as slaves, and once you're too old and no longer useful you're put to death. Derek thinks that this is all wrong. The captain says that when they return home Derek could be tried and executed by the high court for treason. But Derek insists that they find an uninhabited planet for the gargons to live on.

Sadly Derek is overpowered and the captain tells one of the others to fetch the gargon specimen. At this point we see the dreaded gargon. I was quite excited to see what this much talked about and feared creature would look like. It's a lobster. It's just a fucking lobster (cue sad trombone). While they're all fannying about with the gargon Derek manages to give them the slip and make a run for it. Thor goes to shoot Derek but the captain stops him. The captain says that Derek must be brought back alive as he is the son of their leader, a fact that Derek himself is unaware of. The lobst... sorry, I mean the gargon appears to thrive on earth. The captain orders the others to secure the gargon in a nearby cave. He says they can monitor its growth rate and see exactly how much meat they can expect to get from the herds. He says they'll begin looking for Derek in the morning. The captain goes into the saucer to contact the leader. The leader says the captain must return home to prepare for the transportation of the gargon herds, but that he should leave his best guy behind to search for Derek. The leader says that if necessary Derek and anyone he comes into contact with can be killed. So the captain leaves Thor behind while he and the other guys bog off home.

Derek heads into the nearest town. He locates the address that was on the dog's tag. It turns out that a young woman called Betty and her grandad live there. They have a room for rent so Derek decides to stay. Betty is quite taken with Derek. She asks her grandad if it's okay for Derek to stay rent-free until he finds a job. Betty's grandad is obviously quite taken as well, as he says that's no problem at all. (The people in this town are so nice it's downright creepy). Betty says she's going over to her friend's house to swim in their pool and so she invites Derek too. Meanwhile Thor is in town and hot on Derek's trail. Thor is turning the residents into skeletons as he goes and is generally being a bit of an arse.

Derek and Betty arrive at her friend's house. Betty discovers her dog's tag. Derek explains that when he arrived he was with some other men, and that one of them destroyed the dog. He says he found the tag amongst the remains. Betty can't quite believe it, so she asks Derek to take her to the spot where it happened. Thor arrives at Betty's house. Her grandad, assuming that Thor is Derek's friend, tells him where they went. Derek and Betty arrive at the landing site and sure enough there are Sparky the dog's remains. Betty says it can't be Sparky because all that's left is the skeleton. Derek then explains to Betty how their ray guns work. Betty asks if it's a new secret weapon that Derek and the others invented, and then the others turned against him. Derek says yes, something like that. He says he should try and find someone he can explain it to (presumably he thinks Betty isn't quite up to the task of comprehension). Betty says there's a professor in town, so they make their way to see him.

Thor arrives at the house of Betty's friend. She doesn't like Thor's tone and so refuses to tell him where they went. So Thor rather predictably turns Betty's friend into a skeleton. Betty and Derek call by Betty's house on the way to see the professor. Betty's grandad is asleep so she leaves him a note to say where they've gone. Thor turns up at Betty's house and once again, her grandad is very obliging and tells Thor where they've gone. Derek and Betty arrive at the professor's office. He hasn't arrived yet. His secretary says they can wait in his office, but Betty says they'll wait out in the car park. The professor arrives at his office and sends his secretary off to fetch something. Thor comes into the office and demands that the professor tell him where the others went. The professor says he has no idea what he's talking about. So Thor turns the professor into a skeleton (yawn). Thor leaves and Derek and Betty return to find the skeletal remains of the professor. Betty says she must phone her grandad. Betty explains to her grandad that Thor isn't exactly the best of friends with Derek. She tells him to leave the house and meet her at the police station. Betty calls the police to explain the situation and to let them known she's on her way. The police say they'll be waiting with armed guys outside when they arrive. Thor gets to Betty's grandad before he manages to escape. He forces Betty's grandad to drive to the police station.

Everyone arrives at the police station at the same time. There's a gun battle between Thor and the police. Thor turns a couple of policemen into skeletons, but he is also shot and wounded. Thor manages to give them the slip. Betty and Derek discover drops of blood on the pavement next to a parked car. Rather predictably Thor is in the back of the car. He forces Derek and Betty to get into the car. Thor demands they drive to see a doctor. In the doctor's surgery Thor is asked to lie down. The doc says he will give Thor an anaesthetic but Thor says he won't be drugged, he just wants the doc to remove the bullets. Thor still has Betty and Derek at gunpoint. Derek asks Thor why he didn't shoot him when he tried to escape. It's at this point that Thor reveals that Derek is the son of the leader.

Thor is delirious and only just conscious. Betty, Derek and the doc use this as their chance to escape. The doc says Thor won't be conscious for long. The three of them head back to the police station. As they arrive the doc suddenly remembers that his nurse will be arriving for morning surgery. He gets on the phone to tell her not to treat Thor. But sadly the call comes too late, the nurse has already treated and revived Thor. The doc explains that Thor is a murderer. The nurse repeats "A muirderer!" (I did actually laugh out loud at this point).

Thor forces the nurse to drive to the landing site. Betty's friend who is also a reporter is there mooching around. He sees Thor and the nurse and takes off in his car. Thor tells the nurse to drive after him but she refuses. Thor knocks her out and starts to drive himself. There's a bit of a car chase around some twisty mountain roads. Thor is still a bit the worse for wear and is all over the road. The nurse comes to and manages to jump out of the car, just before Thor drives off the road and down the mountain. We then see the headline in the paper "Killer in accident, captured alive" followed by a news report that says Thor is in confinement in hospital. We also learn from the news that a "monster" that was shackled in a nearby cave has escaped after chomping on a policeman. He went inside to investigate while Betty's reporter friend was there (oh yeah, I forgot that bit). The news goes on to say that groups of armed volunteers are now out trying to track down and destroy the monster.

Betty and Derek drive to where Thor's accident took place. Derek says if he can retrieve Thor's gun he can use it to destroy the escaped gargon. While Betty and Derek search for the gun by moonlight, Betty finally clicks that Derek isn't from this planet. So Derek comes clean and there's some soppy bollocks between them. Betty says she doesn't want Derek to go back home. Derek says "I shall make the earth my home. And I shall never, never leave it". Then they kiss while some soppy violin music plays. All of a sudden the lobst... gargon appears, only this time it's greatly increased in size after having chomped on the policeman. Derek picks up a rock to throw at the gargon, and rather handily finds Thor's gun underneath. But the gun must've been damaged in the accident and no longer works. Bummer. However they manage to escape in the car. The search party also come into contact with the gargon and many of them are killed.

Derek says the gun could still work if he can find an alternate source of energy. He thinks that hooking the gun up to the electricity grid may work. Betty tells her grandad to wait at the house while she and Derek go to the edge of town. Betty's reporter friend turns up at her house. He asks her grandad why he and Betty aren't taking shelter from the gargon. Betty's grandad says that Derek and Betty took off for the edge of town. Realising that Betty and Derek are going to try and kill the gargon, Betty's grandad exclaims "Those crazy kids!" and he and Betty's reporter friend take off after them.

Derek climbs an electricity pole. Realising that Derek can't cut live wires, Betty quickly phones the power company and gets them to cut the power. Once the gun is hooked up Betty asks them to turn the power on again. There then follows a Star Trek-esque scene where Betty is shouting at the guy at the electric plant that they need more power. The guy says he can join in more circuits but it may blow up the line, Captain. Betty tells him to try anything, it's their only chance, Scotty. Eventually there is enough power and the gargon is defeated. Hooray!

Derek says to Betty that he must leave and that he knows what he has to do. Betty is rather upset and reminds him of his promise to her. But still, Derek takes off alone in the car. Betty, her grandad and the reporter guy return to Betty's house to find Derek has changed back into his space gear. Derek forces the reporter guy to get into the car with him by using the broken ray gun. Derek begs Betty not to interfere. Betty is about to tell her reporter friend that the gun doesn't work but she thinks better of it. Derek then tells the reporter guy to take him to the hospital where they are treating Thor. They arrive at the hospital and manage to get Thor out and into the car. Derek tells Thor that he's been stupid, but he's seen the error of his ways. He says they're going to meet the other ships that are arriving shortly. There then follows a news report saying that lots of alien ships are approaching, followed by shots of people looking skyward in horror while an air raid siren sounds.

Betty and her grandad arrive at the landing site, closely followed by Derek, Thor and the reporter guy. Betty again reminds Derek of his promise to her. Derek says that he's not forgotten it. A guide ship lands and Derek's dad hops out. Derek asks his dad if he can go inside the guide ship and bring the fleet of gargon carrying ships in for a safe landing. Derek's dad says sure, why not. Derek goes inside the ship and quickly locks the hatch. Derek tells the fleet to increase speed and gives them false co-ordinates. Betty, her grandad and her reporter friend take shelter in the cave. The fleet crash lands and all the gargons, Derek and our alien friends are killed. Aww. Shame those saucers never had any windows to look out of. The three venture back out of the cave. Some soppy violin music plays and a ghostly image of Derek's face appears in the sky. "I shall make the earth my home and I shall never, never leave it". The End.

There are a number of things wrong with this film. Firstly I have to take issue with the title. Derek is clearly the youngest of the alien guys who comes to earth. But when they filmed this the guy who played Derek was 25, a little too old to be classed as a teenager I would suggest. Maybe the lobster was a teenager? So in fact there are no teenagers from outer space. In fact there are no teenagers at all, from outer space or otherwise, because the woman who played Betty was 24. Interestingly this was the last film she appeared in. This was the only film, other than a short, that the guy who played Derek appeared in. So we're not exactly witnessing the birth of long and illustrious acting careers here. There's a good reason for that; neither of them can act. Actually that's not entirely accurate. NO ONE in this film can act. Everyone in this film is just saying the lines they've been told to say. It's as if none of them are aware of what acting actually entails. Derek is positively monotone. It's like watching Natalie Portman's Queen Amidala all over again. Okay, I admit it could never be quite THAT monotone, but it's not far off.

I hate the over friendliness of Betty and her grandad towards Derek. They're just so nice and over accommodating to the point of being sickening. I genuinely thought Betty's grandad was going to whore Betty out to Derek at some point. I don't know if 1950's America was this friendly towards complete strangers, but I'm guessing not. I don't think there's many people who would let a complete stranger stay rent-free in their house indefinitely, and immediately let said stranger go off with their granddaughter. The whole tone felt jarring and unrealistic.

The plot is reasonable I suppose, but I got the feeling that the story got increasingly fragmented as it went along. The special effects are dreadful. The "gargon" is literally just a lobster. I mean come on, they could've at least made some effort. The flying saucer is the laziest looking saucer I think I've ever seen. There's no detail on it whatsoever. Chuck some lights on there, or have the thing surrounded by dry ice. Just something. Anything. I will give them credit for having the dog and the humans dissolve to skeletons though. I imagine that was quite impressive (and probably scary) for the time. Thor's turning everyone and everything into skeletons did get a little tiresome after a while though. I'm guessing they knew they had a good effect and so wanted to keep using it, especially as the rest of the special effects were so dire.

I know having human aliens keeps the cost down, but they could've at least said that they were humanoid and not literally humans. At one point Derek even says to Betty that the only difference between them is that they were born so far apart. Alien life is pretty much a given. But alien life that evolves in another part of the universe to be identical to us in every way? No, that's not happening.

So overall this film is pretty bad. However I did manage to get through it in one sitting, so it's got that going for it I suppose. This film has an IMDb rating of 3.5 out of 10. That's probably about right I think. It's below average, but it's by no means the worst thing I've seen. I can't really recommend watching this, but should you end up in the unfortunate position of having to watch it, I don't think it will mentally or emotionally scar you for life.

Galaxy of Terror

Okay, I have a confession to make. It's taken me four separate viewings to make it all the way through this film. I hope the following will help to explain why.

So it's sometime in the distant future, we're not told exactly when. The film opens with a shot of a desolate looking planet, accompanied by some of the worst 80's synth music ever. We're then shown the interior of a spacecraft where a guy is being chased by an invisible force (invisible is cheap). Oh yeah, this bit is accompanied by even worse 80's synth music. Anyway, the invisible thingy finally gets him and he dies.

We're then shown another planet where some old bag introduces herself as the "interpreter of the signs" and "the oracle of the game". Confused yet? I know I am. She says she plays at the bidding of the all powerful one "The Planet Master". The Planet Master is a bloke with a red lava lamp where his face should be. Honestly, it's one of the cheapest, shittiest effects I've ever seen. The old bag and The Planet Master are playing some sort of futuristic space game, although to me it just looked as though they were playing an old Pac-Man table top arcade machine. Then one of The Planet Master's minions appears on the view screen. He says they've lost all contact with the spacecraft we saw at the beginning. He says he has no idea why they landed on the desolate planet. The Planet Master says they must send a ship to the planet on a rescue mission. He tells the old bag to leave him. He says "The waiting is over". And "I play alone". Honestly, I'm still none the wiser.

Cue our rescue ship and its crew. We have Tom Selleck moustache guy, a guy that looks like Ming the Merciless, the woman captain who looks like Captain Janeway after a rough night, moody perm guy, blond boob woman, wuss guy and two old guys. One of the old guys is the cook, the other is the mission commander. Oh, there's also Joanie Cunningham from Happy Days. By the way, that last one is actually Joanie Cunningham from Happy Days, not someone who looks like her. Yes, Erin Moran is in this, looking very similar to a certain female character from a certain film about a certain alien that came out the year before this, but the name of that film escapes me just at the moment. There's a few other characters, but this is getting confusing enough already and they all die anyway (spoilers).

After some "hyper-jumping" and some crappy special effects they arrive at the planet, where they're promptly pulled towards the surface and have to make a crash landing. So our team head outside for a stroll. There's a breathable atmosphere so they don't need space suits. That's handy. What's also handy is that even though they crash landed, they did so only a few minutes walk from the other ship. They go on board the ship and find that all its crew are dead. The wuss guy is being a wuss, and very annoying with it too (I hope he dies soon). Wuss guy is grabbed by a load of tentacle things and dies. They go back to the ship for a while and then back outside again to find where the force that pulled them down to the planet emanated from. They find a deep hole in the ground, so the old commander guy descends down on a rope to take a look. He has his brain sucked by an alien snake thing and dies.

Back on board the ship the captain is beginning to suspect that the old guy cook has been sent by The Master to keep an eye on the mission (maybe his culinary skills are lacking). We also learn that the captain was the lone survivor from a mission that went tits up many years ago. Back on the surface the remaining crew make it to the entrance of an alien building. The door begins to open and Ming the Merciless throws these crystal nunchuck things he has to wedge the door open and prevent it from closing again. Blond boob woman makes some random comment about hating worms (hmm, I wonder if that becomes relevant later). The crystal nunchuck things break but by that time they've blasted the door open anyway. Ming the Merciless is told to guard the entrance. He's handed a gun but he says "I live and die by the crystals". Wow, that's subtle. I have no idea what could possibly happen next. The others venture on a bit further, but then moody perm guy tells blond boob woman to go back and make sure Ming the Merciless is okay.

Meanwhile at the entrance Ming sees his shattered crystal nunchucks magically put themselves back together again. One flies at him and hits him in the arm. He pulls it out, but a shard has broken off under his skin. The shard begins moving up his arm. So Ming cuts his own arm off. His lopped off arm then picks up one of the nunchucks and throws it at him. It lands in his chest and Ming is dead. Blond boob woman makes it back to the entrance to find the dead Ming and his arm, crawling with maggots. As she's trying to call the ship we see one of the maggots transform into a giant uber-maggot. The uber-maggot attacks blond boob woman, tears off all her clothes, has sex with her (wtf?) and covers her with slime. Eventually blond boob woman's sexual arousal is so great that she dies as a result. Um... moving on then.

Back on the ship the captain has been mulling over the tits-up mission from long ago. She goes a bit mental trousers and grabs a gun. We see her on one of the monitors as she opens the airlock and busts into flames. I've watched this bit a few times and I'm still not sure what happens. The airlock definitely opens and the captain definitely goes up in flames. Whether she shoots herself or not I don't know, but anyway the main point is she's dead. Meanwhile the remaining crew out on the surface head back to the ship. The cook says that when they venture out again he'd like to go with them. Moody perm guy agrees as they're getting a little low on numbers.

They venture back into the alien building and all head down this slide/tunnel thing. We discover at this point that Erin Moran is claustrophobic, but eventually Selleck moustache guy persuades her to follow the others down. They make it to the centre of the alien building and find a massive honeycomb like structure that looks like a transmitter. Moody perm guy gets separated from the others behind a door. He rather predictably gets chomped by an alien. At this point they manage to lose the cook somewhere. Another guy ends up fighting with, um... himself. He shoots his double but quickly realises that there's no blood or guts. He concludes that his clone can't be real. As soon as he realises this his clone vanishes. Meanwhile Erin Moran has to go through another tunnel/slide thing. But half way through she's grabbed by tentacles which constrict and she is squished to bits.

Selleck moustache guy finds the cook. Suddenly the red lava lamp thing appears over his face. Yes, the cook was The Planet Master all along. I know. Shocking isn't it?  Moustache guy tries to shoot The Planet Master but the laser has no effect. Moustache guy says he will find a way to kill The Planet Master for what he's done. (I really hope that's soon. We're an hour and 10 minutes into this and I don't think I can take much more). The Planet Master tells moustache guy that he's already won the game. Moustache guy asks what game. The Planet Master explains that the alien building is in fact a children's toy, built by an ancient race that lived on the planet. The building/toy allowed the children to face their deepest fears and eventually overcome them. The Planet Master knows this because apparently this is where he became The Master. (Christ this is bollocks).

Aliens/monsters then appear but moustache guy successfully fights them off, accompanied of course by more dire 80's synth music. An undead Erin Moran shows up. She tries to strangle moustache guy but he fends her off and shoots her. She then turns back into The Master. This time moustache guy is able to shoot him. The Master says "It is done". The old git proclaims that moustache guy is now The Master, then he dies. The red lava lamp thing now appears over moustache guy's face. There's more crappy synth music. But more importantly, it's also the end.

Thank fuck for that. I don't have the words to convey just how bad this film is. Oh wait, I've found a few. This film is utter shite. The plot reads as though it was shat out of some random plot device. It's so convoluted. It's utter drivel. This film was released in 1980, the year after Alien. It's so obviously an Alien rip-off, but it's such a dreadful one. The acting is non-existent, the special effects are poor, the plot is off its tits bonkers. Everything about this film is horrendous. It's not remotely gripping, engaging or entertaining. The fact that it took me four separate sittings to get through it can attest to that. And the music. Oh god the music. Crappy 80's synth all the way through. I think the guy that "composed" the music for this must've just let his cat sit on his Korg synthesiser for an hour and a half and recorded that.

I hope this review has helped to give you an idea of just how awful this film is. It has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. There are films I've written reviews for that although bad, with the right medication (and therapy afterwards) I could probably bring myself to watch again. But there's no way I could watch this again. It's going to take long enough to get this out of my system as it is. This film has no business existing. Everyone involved in it should hang their heads in shame.

Inexplicably this film currently has a rating of 5 out of 10 on IMDb. I have no idea why it's rated so highly. Maybe it's highly rated by guys perving over the nude blond woman in the frankly bizarre sex scene. I think I'm clutching at straws. I really don't know what people who even remotely like this film see in it. I must clearly be missing something. I am genuinely baffled. If seeing a giant maggot have sex with a nude blond woman is your thing then you're going to love this film. Anyone else should avoid this at all costs. If I ever see this film again it'll be too soon.

Hangar 18

The year is 1980 (or the present day as far as this film is concerned). Three astronauts are in orbit on board the space shuttle. They are about to launch an American spy satellite into orbit from the shuttle's cargo bay. At seven minutes to the launch they discover that there's a problem with the satellite, so one of the crew goes out to take a look. I'm pretty sure putting on a pressurised space suit and getting into and out of an airlock takes a little longer than seven minutes, but anyway. Actually the fully-space-suited guy steps out of the airlock and into the cargo bay with five minutes to the launch. It only took him two minutes? Bloody hell, this guy's good! It usually takes me that long just to get my underpants on the right way round in the morning. Anyway our super astronaut finds the fault with the satellite and fixes it no problem. Just as they're about to launch the satellite, the two guys inside the shuttle see something going ballistic on the radar screen. Or maybe they just got bored and decided to have a quick game of Pong, I don't know. They launch the satellite and... BOOM! It hits an alien spaceship and blows up. The two guys inside the shuttle see the body of their spacewalking friend go floating by. It appears that his head has decided to part company with his body after being hit with debris from the satellite.

The guys in mission control have the alien spaceship on their radar too. It appears as though the ship is coming down to earth to make a crash landing after being hit by the satellite. Many government and military agencies are scrambled. A military helicopter hovers over the crashed ship. The ship is saucer shaped with many flashing lights on it. Your average looking flying saucer really. The military guy at mission control and the flight director have a private meeting. The military guy tells the flight director that they're in possession of an alien spacecraft. He wants the flight director to take a team and go and investigate. Of course this is all top secret stuff. The military guy then goes to meet the president's chief of staff at the Whitehouse. The chief of staff is played by Robert Vaughn, the only actor I recognised in this film. The military guy tells Vaughn that they are in possession of a flying saucer. He says it's been moved to an air force base in Texas called Hangar 18. Vaughn says that there's an election just two weeks away, and they need to keep everything under wraps until it's over. The military guy agrees. Especially seeing as how the rival contender for the presidency has said that he'll slash the defence budget. It's agreed that they should be ready to discredit the reports of the two astronauts should they decide to talk about what they saw. Vaughn says they should "keep an eye" on both of them.

The two astronauts read the paper the next morning. The headline reads "Shuttle death blamed on NASA crew". Obviously they're not best pleased. But the two men can prove that the satellite hit something by reviewing the radar from the mission. But shock horror, the alien craft has been removed from the radar recordings. They go talk to the flight director. But of course there's now a new flight director. He says the other guy has been re-assigned and that it's all classified and top secret. So the two astronauts are at a bit of a loss. Then one of them remembers that there's a remote flight monitoring station that still might have the undoctored telemetry.

At Hangar 18 the flight director guy assembles his team. He instructs them that they must live and work at the hangar and have no contact with the outside world. Then the flight director and a couple of his team don protective suits and go and have their first proper look at the flying saucer. Cue the obligatory shot of a door opening, lots of dry ice, and a walkway extending down from the saucer. They venture on board and through what they believe to be the engine room. There's another deck above them which they access via a lift. As they reach the upper deck a couple of chairs spin around to reveal two dead "aliens". Although they're quite human looking aliens, apart from their eye colour and they're lacking a bit in the hair department.

Meanwhile the two astronauts have reached the remote tracking station. The guy there indeed shows them a radar image complete with flying saucer. The astronauts ask if they can have a copy. But the guy tells them there's no chance, he'd lose his job for sure. They ask him if he can at least project where the flying saucer came down, so he does. And hey presto, the projection shows a small area in Arizona. Back in Washington, Vaughn learns that our astronaut friends are on their way to the crash site. He asks that he receives constant updates about what the two men are up to.

Back at Hangar 18, they discover that they no longer need to wear their protective suits inside the saucer. They bring in a couple of stretchers and take the dead aliens away for examination. Flight director guy is mooching about the saucer and discovers the body of a woman. The medical team ascertain that she's still alive, but just barely and that she's in a deep coma. The medical team at the hangar don't have the facilities to treat her, so she's moved to a nearby hospital. At the hangar they're still poking around on board the saucer. They discover recordings of earth's tv; mostly news and current affairs programmes. So it looks as though the aliens have been monitoring earth closely.

The astronauts land at an airstrip near the crash site. They hire a battered old pickup truck from a local guy and then set off, closely followed by two suits in a black car. They reach the crash site, which has obviously now been cleaned up. They do however manage to find a small piece of molten rock on the ground, which would indicate that it had been subjected to an extremely high temperature. The two guys in suits appear and demand that they hand over the rock. The astronauts punch the guys and take off in the pickup. The guys in suits are quickly on their tail. There's a bit of a car chase, but the guys in suits lose control of their car and it crashes off the top of a bridge and explodes.

At the hangar, the language expert has managed to match symbols found inside the saucer with ancient symbols carved into the deserts on earth. He's also found matches with symbols found inside ancient pyramids. So he concludes that the aliens have been hanging around earth for thousands of years. The results of the alien autopsies have found them to be almost identical to humans.  Sadly however they have been unable to determine exactly how they died. Meanwhile the astronauts make it back to their plane. They set off to see a professor friend of theirs in the hopes that he can analyse the rock for them. Our astronaut friends visit the professor guy, but he tells them that sadly all they have is a rock that has been subjected to a great deal of heat. He says if they want to clear their names they're going to need substantial evidence that the military are in possession of a flying saucer. Then it suddenly dawns on our astronaut friends that Hangar 18 is the closest facility of its kind to the crash site. The astronauts set off for the desert once again. At the hangar, the language expert has deciphered the alien language, including a very detailed report. The report says that the aliens lived with ancient humans and that the humans regarded the aliens as gods. It also says that the human females found it a great honour to bear the children of the aliens/gods. And so modern man evolved from aliens.

Our astronaut friends hire a car, but they quickly discover that the brakes have been tampered with. It looks like someone isn't too keen for them to get to Hangar 18. They crash, but thankfully they're uninjured. Suddenly though two suits appear and start shooting at them. Our astronaut friends manage to escape in a petrol tanker. They're closely pursued by the suits. One astronaut (the one that's not driving, obviously) climbs out of the cab and makes his way to the back of the trailer. He turns on the tap at the back of the tanker and allows some petrol to spill onto the road, but very wisely turns the tap off again after. The suit guys, realising what he's trying to do shoot him, but he still manages to ignite the petrol. The suit guys drive into the burning petrol and their car blows up. Sadly though our astronaut friend dies. Bummer. Our remaining astronaut vows to continue on to Hangar 18.

Meanwhile at the hangar, they have determined that the aliens were asphyxiated. They deduce that a couple of vials of chemicals broke and mixed together when the satellite hit the saucer in orbit. The flight director guy is listening to a local radio station on board the saucer and learns that one of our astronaut friends has been killed in a "car accident". He also learns that the astronauts have been accused of causing the death of their colleague in space. Having been cut off from the outside world this is the first he has heard of it. He of course knows that this is completely untrue and makes an angry phone call to the military guy. He threatens to leave the project and go to the press. In Washington, Vaughn and the military guy have decided things have gone far enough. They can't let the secret get out. So they plan to fill a plane full of explosives and crash it into Hangar 18.

Our astronaut friend makes it to Hangar 18. The flight director guy takes him on board the saucer. Everyone is inside the saucer glued to the view screen. The language expert has determined that the aliens are coming back in large numbers as he's been able to find lots of designated landing sites. But suddenly there's the sound of a jet overhead and BOOM! A massive explosion as the plane hits the hangar. It looks like the government have got their way. But as the smoke and fire clear, in the middle of what used to be the hangar, we see a perfectly in-tact and unscathed saucer. Then we hear the local radio report that tells us everyone in the saucer survived. And oh yeah, flying saucers are real. The end.

This film isn't all that bad. Especially when you consider it was made in 1980. I'm guessing that this was probably one of the first government cover up/conspiracy type films. It's a little slow paced by today's standards. There's far too many 'old men in suits sat in offices discussing things' scenes for my liking. Robert Vaughn's character is very one dimensional and unimaginative. In fact you could say the same thing about all the characters in this film. The acting, while competent was never going to win any awards. There aren't exactly many special effects in this. The space scenes look okay for their time. The shuttle, both inside and out looks passable. Mission control looks good and is probably pretty accurate for the time. The flying saucer looks like it was designed by a three year old. But it's a saucer and it has lights. What more do you want? The aliens are just two bald guys, so there wasn't much call for the effects department there. I'll just mention again though, the guy getting suited up and out into space in two minutes was ridiculous.

The plot is okay, but then again probably a bit naive by today's standards. I don't think the government would really have two of its astronauts running around the country causing all kinds of problems for them. I'm not saying they'd be killed off or anything that sinister. But I can well imagine they'd be detained for two weeks for "quarantine and debriefing" or something like that. I'm sure keeping two astronauts out of the way for two weeks wouldn't be all that hard. I'm a bit confused by the woman found on board the saucer. That didn't really do anything to advance the plot and once she was taken to hospital there was no mention of her again. Still, overall it's not a bad effort really.

Strangely this film was really popular at the time among the Soviet youth. It was one of the few American films to be shown in the Soviet Union. There wasn't much in the way of action or sci-fi for your average Soviet kid to watch, so it kind of caught on. Considering some of the dross I've reviewed I think the Soviets got off lightly.

IMDb currently rate this at 5.3 out of 10. I think that's about right. It's a very average film with some very average performances. But it's competently average. And it doesn't do anything shockingly badly. If (like me) you have literally nothing better to do with your life then it could be worth a watch.

Starcrash

The year is... Actually I'm not sure what the year is. It's either a long time ago or the distant future. It doesn't really matter. However it is definitely far, far away. So that's good to know. The film begins with a Star Destroyer... er, I mean a big-ass spaceship flying overhead, filling the screen and flying away from us. The spaceship is travelling through "The Haunted Stars" looking for the "secret fortress of Count Zarth Arn" or some such bollocks like that. And yes, that's Zarth with a Z, not a D. They reach a planet that they suspect is home to the evil Zarth. It's a completely barren ice planet. We're not told its name, but I'm guessing that it's probably called Zoth. Suddenly some red blobby thingies surround and attack the spaceship. They look like a cross between the Mysterons and the contents of a lava lamp. The crew writhe around in agony. Three escape pods are launched and then the ship explodes.

Now I had a bit of a problem. There's an opening scroll at this point (a la Star Wars) but in the version I watched it was in bloody French. My French is sadly lacking, but fortunately my googling is first class. So apparently the opening scroll says:

"In a time before time, life existed in the Outer Galaxies. Vast star nations prospered under the kind rule of the Star Emperor until... The rise of the evil Count Zarth Arn, arch ruler of The Haunted Stars. In the secrecy of his hidden domain on the phantom planet the Count created the ultimate weapon, a weapon designed to destroy the very minds of those who would oppose him. Knowledge of this weapon soon reached the Star Emperor. An Imperial starship was sent to locate the Count and confirm the existence of such a weapon. The starship was destroyed. It was an easy victory for the Count and proved that his Dark World was invincible, that the dark forces of evil could rise again and ultimately dominate the galaxy. From the Haunted Stars to the Edge of the Universe, Count Zarth Arn would spread his terror and treachery. The time had come for rebellion".

So er, now you know. Yes, it all sounds very Star Wars. Then we cut to outlaw space babe Stella Star and her sidekick Akton. They're in their ship, being pursued by the Imperial Space Police and police robot Elle. Elle has a bloke's voice so I'm assuming he's a boy robot, although we never get to see any groinal attachments so who knows. Stella and Akton manage to evade the Space Police. They end up at the edge of The Haunted Stars and find a ship adrift in space. Stella space walks over to take a look. She finds one lone survivor and brings him back to her ship. The survivor keeps talking about red monsters and insists that they must alert the Emperor. In the meantime the Space Police have caught up with Stella and Akton and have them surrounded by ships. Stella decides to surrender. Akton is sentenced to 220 years hard labour. Stella is sentenced to forced labour for life. Bummer.

We then see Stella in the labour camp. She's changed into thigh-high leather boots and a leather bikini. I'm guessing they must be standard prisoner issue or something. Although strangely none of the other female prisoners seem to be wearing the uniform? There's a bit of a kerfuffle between the prisoners and the guards and so Stella uses this as her opportunity to escape. She finds a ship outside waiting for her. She goes onboard and finds Elle and the Space Police there. Elle says they've come to free her as her sentence has been cancelled. Akton's too apparently. Elle says they've all been assigned to a top secret Imperial mission. So they go pick up Akton and then catch up with the Imperial Flagship. The Emperor appears on Stella's ship via hologram. (So they go to the trouble of flying to the Imperial Flagship and the Emperor can't even be arsed to meet them in person.  Nice). Anyway, the Emperor says that Stella and Akton are the only ones who can help him.  He says that Zarth has created a weapon of awesome power, so vast that it can only be concealed by an entire planet (kind of like a Death Star, maybe). So they have to find the Count's secret planet and destroy it. Nothing too tricky then. He also asks that they search for the Commander of a missing Imperial ship as "He was my only son" he tells us while some soppy piano music plays.

So Stella, Akton, Elle and some green Space Police bloke all fly off together into The Haunted Stars. They locate one of the escape pods on a planet, so Stella and Elle take a shuttle down to the surface. They land on a beach and find the crashed escape pod close by. It's in pretty bad shape though so they don't think that anyone would've survived. However they decide to take a look around. Stella and Elle soon run into the "Amazon" women who inhabit the planet. The Amazon women capture Stella and Elle. They kill Elle and take Stella to see the Amazon Queen. The Queen orders the women to put Stella into the "mind probe" but just before they do, a non-dead Elle appears and holds a gun to the Queen's head. The Amazons release Stella and she and Elle make their escape. They have to deal with a giant but extremely poorly animated robot first. But the robot looks as though it can barely stand up on its own, let alone pose any real threat. Back in space there's a battle between our friends and the Amazon's ships, but it all looks a bit naff and our friends are the victors.

They find the second of the escape pods on an ice planet, so Stella and Elle set off to investigate once again (seems like Akton has it pretty easy to me). They find the escape pod, but sadly it just has dead bodies in it. Back on board the ship the green police dude whacks Akton over the head. He calls up the evil Zarth on the view screen. He says he's killed Akton (wouldn't he want to check that?) and taken control of the ship. Zarth asks about Stella and Elle. The green police dude says that the planet's harsh environment will take care of them. Zarth says "Good. Then I await your immediate arrival". How can you await something that's immediate? Oh well, whatever. Green police dude tries to take off but the ship's computer says that there is a malfunction somewhere. Stella and Elle make it back to the ship, but of course green space dude won't let them in. It's getting cold, so Elle tells Stella to lie in the snow next to him and hold his hand. He says he can use his energy to keep Stella alive, but she'll be in a state of suspended animation.

Back on the ship the not-very-dead Akton comes to and has a fist fight with green police dude. Green police dude fires his laser gun at Akton but it has no effect. Akton has been developing his "special powers" which are a bit like the Force or something. Akton deflects the laser beams back at green police dude killing him. He lets Elle and Stella back on the ship. They have to slowly defrost Stella, but she's fine. Akton admits that he sabotaged the ship so that green police dude couldn't take off. So yes, he can see into the future too by using the For... sorry, his "special powers". They take off and go looking for the third escape pod.

They reach orbit around the planet where the escape pod is located, but they're attacked by the Mysteron/lava lamp thing. However they manage to survive unscathed. Akton says that they've just survived an attack from the "most powerful weapon in the entire galaxy". (I didn't know lava lamps were that dangerous). Anyway, they land on the planet and once again Elle and Stella venture out to investigate. They find the escape pod in a large crater and Elle goes down to take a look. Suddenly Stella and Elle are attacked by cavemen. The cavemen bash Elle to bits and tie Stella up. They carry her back to their camp. They're about to have Stella for tea when a guy appears wearing a mask that can shoot laser beams from its eyes. He sends all the cavemen running and rescues Stella. They take shelter in a cave. Stella asks the guy who he is. He takes off the mask and BLOODY HELL IT'S DAVID HASSELHOFF! Okay, I admit I already knew he was in this. But I was starting to have my doubts as it's 55 minutes into the film before he puts in an appearance. The Hoff says that his name is Simon. And that he's the lone survivor of an Imperial ship. Simon and Stella run into a spot of bother with the cavemen again. But then Akton appears with a lightsabre (there's no other word I can use, it's a lightsabre alright) and he gets them out of trouble. Akton tells the other two he's worked out that this is Zarth's secret planet. He says they must find the weapon and destroy it.

They travel deep within the planet and find Zarth's underground complex. They find massive networks of computers. Apparently the computers are used to beam projections of the Mysteron/lava lamp monsters directly into people's brains and drive them mad. Or something like that anyway. Basically it's all controlled by computer and the monsters don't actually exist. They head over to the computer's control panel and Zarth appears, along with his guards and a couple of creepy looking clockwork robot things. Zarth says that the planet will be blown to shit with our friends on it. And the Emperor too, as he's been informed that Simon is on the planet and is coming to collect him. Yes, shock horror, Simon is the Emperor's son. Wow, I never saw that coming. (There maybe a hint of sarcasm there. Maybe). Zarth instructs the creepy robots to stop our friends from leaving the room, by killing them if necessary. Zarth laughs maniacally and then bogs off. Akton whips out his lightsabre again and defeats the robots, but sadly he's mortally wounded. He tells Stella not to worry and that he'll live forever. Then he disappears, kind of like Obi-Wan, but with a bit less style.

Simon's dad arrives. Simon tells him it's too late as they're all just about to be blown to shit. But the Imperial Flagship apparently has a laser beam on it that can freeze time, so that's okay then. It's only good for three minutes though, so they still have to get a bit of a lick on. They get back to the Imperial Flagship and fly away, just as the planet is blown to shit. The Emperor then orders an attack on Zarth's headquarters. There then follows a very Star Wars-like space battle. Well kind of like Star Wars, but shit. The bit where I did actually laugh out loud was when the Imperial Flagship started firing missiles at Darth's ship. But then the missiles crash through the windows, open up, and two soldiers get out!  You really need to see it.

After a rather long and confusing battle between the soldiers, where you're not quite sure who is supposed to be shooting who, sadly the Emperor's men are defeated. They think all is lost, but the Emperor has one last trick up his sleeve. He plans to crash his floating city into Zarth's headquarters. Simon and Stella head for the floating city in a spaceship. We're told that the city has already been evacuated and that it has been wired to explode. Simon wants to stay with Stella and pilot the floating city, but Stella says he must stay onboard the spaceship and be ready to rescue her. Simon insists she's not to go alone through. So cue a freshly rebuilt Elle. Stella and Elle set the floating city on its collision course and then make a quick exit. The city successfully crashes into Zarth's headquarters and blows it to shit (cue a lot of cheap plastic models and pyrotechnics). Simon picks up Elle and Stella. The Emperor proclaims the galaxy to be a peaceful and happy place once again. Hooray. The End.

This film is bad. But it's bad in a good way, so that's okay. This film is so hammy and cheesy you could put it between two slices of bread and call it a sandwich. It was released in 1978 and very blatantly and unashamedly tried to cash in on the success of Star Wars. The plot, while convoluted and off its tits, is very similar. You have good and evil forces battling against each other, a bad guy hell bent on ruling the universe, planet-sized weapons of mass destruction, faithful sidekick robots, light sabres, mystical forces, etc. etc. I mean, it's all there. And try watching the Emperor's performance and not think of Obi-Wan Kenobi, I dare you.

We of course already know that The Hoff can't act for shit. You only have to watch an old episode of Shite Rider to realise that. But he doesn't look out of place in this, as none of the others can act either. Caroline Munro who plays Stella definitely can't act, but I couldn't give a toss. She wears a leather bikini and thigh high leather boots for the vast majority of this film. And boy does she wear them well. She's way hotter than Princess Leia and she's got a decent hairdo as well. So our heroine is called Stella Star. But doesn't Stella mean star too? So her name is actually Star Star? Then again, Luke Skywalker is a pretty dumb name if you really stop to think about it (but maybe not quite as dumb as Luke Starkiller).

What the cast lacks in acting ability they certainly make up for in enthusiasm. I think they enjoyed making this and it shows. The film has a whole 'naff 70s disco' quality to it, and I like that. Maybe it's the fact that they have different, brightly coloured stars in their universe, or maybe it's the outfits and the perms on the guys. The special effects are quite Star Wars like, but there's a cheap, plasticky look to the models. Basically you can't help but notice that they're actually small models, and not giant spacecraft travelling through space. However I'm guessing this was made with a fraction of the budget of Star Wars. There's a bit of a Star Wars like quality to the music in this film too. And I have to say in places it's actually pretty bloody good, especially for the climactic battle.

IMDb currently rates Starcrash at 3.9 out of 10. If you consider the overall naffness of this film then I guess that's a fair reflection. But for me it's that overall naff quality that makes it so good. It was done badly, but with style. I think sometimes it's difficult to convey exactly what differentiates a shit film from a brilliantly shit film, and I'm not sure I've done a very good job of it here. Most low-budget Star Wars rip-offs make me angry, but there's just something about Starcrash that I can't help but love. I think Starcrash teaches us an important life lesson; if you're going to make a shite Star Wars rip-off, make sure it has a leather-clad space babe in it.