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.

Doom

The year is 1993. A young, extremely handsome guy is working in I.T. somewhere in England. A computer game called Doom is released by a company called id Software, and said handsome guy's mind is blown. He learns how to network computers together, solely for the purpose of playing the game with his work colleagues located in different areas of the building. The game is a "first-person-shooter", a term he's not heard before. He could play the game with his work colleagues, all working together toward one common goal; to defeat the monsters. Or he could just blow his work colleagues to shit; that worked too. After Doom, the world of computer games would be changed forever.

Fast forward to 2005 and a film is released called Doom. It claims to be based upon the game of the same name. Fast forward again until 2014 and the older, but still extremely handsome guy who played Doom all those years ago watches the film. He is underwhelmed.

Okay, so I'm going to run through the "plot" of this film for you. There isn't really much of a plot to speak of, mainly I suspect because this film is based upon a video game where you just run around corridors shooting the crap out of anything that moves. But anyway. So there's this scientific research facility on Mars. And as is customary in these types of films, something has gone massively tits up there. The workers are slowly being killed off by monsters. There is a teleport thing underground somewhere in the Nevada desert that can beam people directly to the research facility on Mars (and back again). So the marines are called in to try and kill off the monsters, and obviously stop any of them teleporting back to earth.

So our group of marines is assembled. We have the main hero guy, his superior who's played by The Rock, and a few other token guys who will eventually become monster fodder. They teleport up to Mars and immediately meet Dexter Fletcher. I was taken a bit by surprise seeing him in this to be honest. Dexter's top half is completely normal, but from the waist down basically he just has a set of wheels where his legs should be. We're told that this is because Dexter went through the teleport several years ago when it was less reliable, and sadly his bottom half never made it. Then we're introduced to Sam. She's one of the scientists. She also happens to be hero guy's sister. We're supposed to believe that there's a big rift between the two of them, because Sam followed in her father's footsteps and became a scientist whereas hero guy, John, decided to shoot at shit for a living instead.

They find one of the scientist guys still alive, but he's in a bad way. He rips off his own ear, so clearly he's having a bit of a bad day. They take him to the medical lab so that Sam can run some tests on him. A couple of the marines get chomped by monsters and The Rock stars getting a bit pissed off.  I guess he's not having a very good day either. The scientist guy who's in a bad way slowly mutates into one of the monsters. So it turns out the monsters aren't monsters at all, they're just mutated staff from the facility.

The Rock, who's still rather pissed off, concludes that they need more firepower and so heads to the armoury (why does a research facility have an armoury?). Anyway, The Rock finds a big-ass gun there and is a bit happier for five minutes. But a few more marines get chomped as he's pissed off again. He thinks that Sam knows more than she's letting on. Eventually she admits that they've been conducting genetic experiments on humans. Basically they inject them with stuff and they either become super-human and able to heal themselves, or alternatively they turn into raging mutant monsters. She laughably says that which way they end up depends on a gene they've discovered for evil. I must admit I zoned out a bit at this point as it just seemed like nonsense to me. The Rock is still in a pissy mood and he doesn't buy that any of the people they find won't turn into raging monsters at some point. So he basically orders his remaining men to kill anyone they find.

Sadly one of the monsters manages to teleport to earth and the marines follow it back down. They find loads of dead bodies back at the underground facility. The Rock orders his men to shoot each one in the head to make sure they're dead so they can't mutate into monsters. The rookie marine of the group finds a room full of women and children who are hiding. He refuses to shoot them and so The Rock shoots him in the head. It's pretty clear that The Rock has gone full-on mental trousers at this point, but then he gets dragged off by a monster himself. Hero guy John tells his sister Sam to sit tight, and what follows is a scene where we see the action first-person from John's perspective as he goes around shooting monsters. There's no real point to this scene, but for me it was the best scene in the film. One of John's victims includes a mutated Dexter Fletcher. We know it's him because bizarrely the monster still has wheels for legs. John encounters The Rock, who's clearly starting to mutate. They have a gun battle for a while but then The Rock tells John they should go man-on-man in a fist fight instead. And stupidly John agrees. (Why the bloody hell didn't John just shoot The Rock when he was unarmed? Some macho bollocks I suppose). Eventually John manages to send The Rock back through the teleport with a grenade and blow him to shit. John carries Sam to the lift and they ride up to the surface of the facility. The end.

This film is bollocks. I dearly wanted to love it, just as I had loved the computer game, but I just couldn't. It didn't really stand much chance of working for me to be honest, because quite frankly I can't stand The Rock. He has no discernible acting talent whatsoever. They'd have been better off using an actual rock. He's just angry in this film, and nothing else. Karl Urban plays John (yes, McCoy from the Star Trek reboots), but again he's not really required to do much in the way of acting. His acting in Star Trek is far superior. In another league.

I can't really accuse this film of not following the plot of the game, because there isn't really one to follow. But apart from one short scene I wasn't reminded of the game at all. I think they could've done a better job of being more faithful to the look and feel of the game, especially as they didn't have a plot to worry about. Unsurprisingly the scene that worked best for me was when we get to go first-person view with John. That obviously looked most like the video game, but it was well executed too, and the monsters were pretty faithful to those in the game. The other bit that worked for me is the end credits (no, seriously). There's a 3D animated scene that looks like what I imagine a 2014 version of Doom would look like. One sin for me which is totally unforgivable is that they didn't use the door opening sound from the game! If you've played Doom then you know exactly what I'm talking about. And that sound has since been used in quite a few sci-fi films. So why couldn't they use it in the bloody film that's supposed to be based on the game? It would be like having a Star Trek film without the door opening sound from the Enterprise.

This film had none of the tension of playing the game. The game was quite an immersive experience at the time. But I think a good film can be an immersive experience too. Sadly this wasn't. But okay, if we take the title of the film and what it purports to be out of the equation, what then? Is it any good as a film in its own right? On balance I'd have to say not really. There's just not enough plot there to keep you engaged. So it doesn't work as a film based upon Doom and it doesn't work as a film in isolation. Bottom line is it just doesn't work. However that's just my opinion and it seems that many other people view this film quite favourably. I guess I'm just not seeing whatever it is that they see. On IMDb it's currently rated 5.2 out of 10. As a standalone film that's probably about right, if maybe a little on the high side for me personally. But as a film based on the classic computer game, for me it would have to score much lower.

Alien Uprising

The year is whatever. Pick a number. We see a spaceship reaching orbit around the prison planet of Rove 12. On board the spaceship the crew are in stasis. The ship's computer begins to wake the crew up, by rather annoyingly saying "It's time... time to wake up" in a female voice, over and over again. The crew consists of several young, fit female women and some blokes with beards and tattoos, but I didn't really pay much attention to those if I'm honest. We discover that these young men and women are a military unit. The ship's computer, referred to as Fred, reminds the waking crew that there is also a civilian on board. The blond babe in charge of the unit summons the civilian guy to the bridge to speak to her, as she's been told nothing about who he is. The guy says he's a representative of the private contractor that runs the prison. They haven't heard from the prison staff in over a year and apparently there's been some sort of prisoner uprising. The military unit has been sent there to restore order and sort it all out.

It turns out that one of the young women didn't do so well in stasis and she's not expected to survive for very long, so she's kept sedated in the ship's sick bay. The remaining crew and the civilian guy prepare to take a transport down to the prison. Blond babe tells the crew that there are no weapons in the prison, and that each prisoner is implanted with a "pain device" which can be remotely activated by prison staff at any time. We're told that of the 1500 prisoners only 189 are now left. Or at least there were 189 before they lost contact a year ago. Fred tells us after performing a scan of the prison that all the prison staff are dead. Blond babe reminds them that their mission is to secure the prison and provide civilian guy with access to a network node so he can do some computery shit. Civilian guy tells us the prison has an anti-matter reactor, which because of lack of maintenance has now become unstable. (Damn those troublesome anti-matter reactors. Nine volt batteries are far safer, plus they tingle if you stick your tongue on them). One of the babes quite reasonably asks why they can't just let the prison blow up. After all they're just convicts. Civilian guy says that sadly there's a chance the resulting explosion could send shit towards earth.

They land on the planet and enter the prison. They quickly encounter some of the prisoners armed with guns. There's a gunfight and one of the marines is killed and another injured. One of the prisoners is still alive, but only just, so they take him back to see blond babe in charge. She's with civilian guy who is moaning because he can't do any computery shit until the power is turned back on. Blond babe wonders how the prisoners got access to guns. She begins to suspect that civilian guy knows more than he's letting on. Blond babe asks the surviving prisoner where he got the guns. He tells her he found them on the dead bodies. She asks what dead bodies. He says the dead bodies of the soldiers that came before them. He says he didn't mean to shoot at them, he just thought they were... the monster. Ooh. If you're beginning to think this is all sounding a bit Alien-like then hold that thought, it will serve you well.

Finally civilian guy manages to get the power back up. A group of the marines encounter the "monster" and things start going tits up. Blond babe in charge grabs her gun and is about to go help, but the second-in-command brunette babe says no, she's in charge and must "run the show". The two of them then kiss, which is a bit more than a good luck peck on the cheek. Blond babe tells brunette babe to "Be fucking careful" and then brunette babe goes to help the other marines. While blond babe is out of the room civilian guy uses one of the remote things to fry the dying prisoner's brain to make sure he dies a bit quicker.

An old guy prisoner appears in front of the marines with his hands above his head. He says he came to talk, and that the only way they'll survive is if they join forces and work together. The old guy says they must shut the power back down immediately. Civilian guy disagrees and uses the remote thing again on the old guy, but blond babe steps in and takes the remote off him. The old guy shuts the power down and everyone follows him as they try to make their escape. Blond babe says she wants a shot at the monster before they run (why?). We see the monster, or at least its mouth, looking remarkably like the mouth of the alien in Alien. It spits acid at one of the marine babes and she's badly injured. She lasts a while longer but eventually expires.

We learn from old prisoner guy that the monster used to be one of the prisoners. But the prison started using the inmates as guinea pigs for genetic experiments and our alien... sorry, our monster friend was the result. The old guy says that earth isn't in the blast path of the prison planet at all, and that the maintenance for the reactor is completely automated, so in fact it's absolutely fine. Civilian guy is beginning to look more and more suspect at this point. Blond babe orders one of her marines to stay with civilian guy and not to let him out of his sight. Civilian guy says he needs to go for a poo. The marine goes with him and waits outside the cubicle. But civilian guy comes out and bashes him over the head with the bog seat and then escapes.

Old prisoner guy tells blond babe that civilian guy is really here to collect all the data about the monster because the company he works for want to replicate it. The recently bog-seated marine comes around and goes to apologise to blond babe for screwing up. Blond babe and old prisoner guy conclude that the best thing to do is just blow the whole planet to shit. Blond babe tells the ship's computer not to let anyone back on board without voice authorisation. Old prisoner guy says that he and blond babe can take care of the reactor. Blond babe tells brunette babe to get everyone else back to the ship, and that if they see civilian guy they can either cuff him or shoot him, she doesn't care which. In the meantime civilian guy has got back to the transport and managed to override the security and get on board. He begins preparing for launch. Blond babe gets to the transport but can't get in because civilian guy has changed the access code. The ship's computer is powerless to ignore civilian guy's instructions, however it does wake up the dying woman in sick bay from earlier and she comes to the bridge and knocks civilian guy out with a wrench. Then she finally dies.

Back on board the transport, blond babe learns that the monster took brunette babe. Blond babe decides to go back for her alone. She tells the others that they should launch in 25 minutes whether she's back or not. And that they can do what they like with civilian guy. Blond babe encounters the monster and manages to stuff a grenade in its gob and blow its head off. She then finds brunette babe alive. Alive but naked, because of reasons. As she finds her we see the prison's computer showing a wire-frame animation of the creature, its head slowly being reconstructed (wire-frame animation is cheap compared to special effects). Blond babe gets brunette babe back to the transport. In the meantime they've dumped civilian guy outside somewhere. Civilian guy gets chomped by the re-animated monster and the transport successfully takes off to rejoin with the ship. We see the ship fly off, leaving an exploding planet behind it.

Blond babe and old prisoner guy go to visit brunette babe in sick bay. Old prisoner guy says she's been lucky because she wasn't bitten. He asks blond babe what will happen to him. She says she doesn't know. She says they "Know too much" and that if they go back to earth they'll probably all end up "disappearing". So they both conclude that they should head for another planet somewhere. So they're all put back into stasis. Then we get the "It's time... time to wake up" thing bloody all over again. Blond babe and old prisoner guy go to visit brunette babe. They both have a look of horror on their faces. Old prisoner guy says "Now we know why she wasn't bitten" and we see that brunette babe has a huge belly and is very much "with monster". Although sadly we're deprived of seeing said monster bursting out of her insides. Aww dammit. The end.

You know a film is shite when it takes you 10 minutes of googling to find out what it's even called. I found this little gem on YouTube under the title "Alien Movie" which is about as nondescript and generic a name as you can get. At the opening of the film the words "Pandora Machine" appear on the screen. So I initially thought that was the name of the film. And sure enough there was indeed a film released in 2004 called Pandora Machine. The description on IMDb for this film says "Space Marines attempting to recapture escaped convicts must join forces against monstrous aliens" so that seemed to fit fairly well. However upon googling images for this film they bore absolutely no resemblance to the film I had just watched. A bit more googling and I discovered that Pandora Machine is actually the name of a production company. The same production company involved in the making of the film of the same name. Confused yet? Pandora Machine (the production company) also produced a film in 2008 called "Alien Uprising" and this is in fact the name of the film I had just watched. However Alien Uprising should not be confused with a 2012 film called "U.F.O." which changed its name to Alien Uprising in 2013. After all that my brain hurt. This film reviewing shit's hard.

What I think I'm trying to say here is that this film isn't very good. It's a blatant Alien rip-off and a pretty poor one at that. Not even the sexy marine babes could save this film, although maybe they do help a little. If you're going to make an Alien rip-off then you need to make a bloody good one, otherwise what's the point? It's been done before. And way better. In this film there's a lot of running around dark generic corridors with guns drawn while swearing profusely. And when I say dark corridors I mean dark. This film is so dimly lit you have a job to see what's going on half the time. Maybe the dim lighting was supposed to help disguise the low-budget?

With regards to acting, well the cast aren't exactly asked to do much to be honest. Running around and swearing doesn't really call for the full gamut of human emotions to be displayed. The special effects (what there are of them) are okay I suppose, but nothing outstanding. I would say they look about as good as those from a film from the early 90's. The exception being the effects for the guns firing. They were just awful. Star Wars did it better in 1977. Another problem is the last 15 minutes of the film. It's just 15 minutes where nothing happens. In that time they successfully dock with their ship, go into stasis and arrive at a new planet. And that takes 15 minutes? A lot of that time is spent with the unbelievably repetitive "Time to go to sleep" and "Time to wake up" from the ship's computer. It just wasn't necessary. There are lots of other things I could pick at, like for example the fact that the film is called "Alien Uprising" even though there's no alien in it. But I won't. Oh, I just did. Oh well.

The IMDb rating for this film is 3 out of 10. I think that's probably just about right. This film is nothing new and it does nothing new. It's got nothing to offer, not even for the most avid sci-fi fan. Watch Alien instead, it's a far superior film in every way. Plus you get to see a young Sigourney Weaver running around in her pants. What's not to like?