Die Todesgalaxie

There's very little good to say about this turkey. A generally laughable piece of dreck, this film goes from bad to worse with one of the most anticlimactic endings I've ever seen. It was certainly unexpected, but that doesn't mean it was good. While I am a big fan of cheesy horror and sci-fi, I really can't recommend this unless you just have to see every B-movie that's ever been made. Don't waste your time with this boring loser.

In the year 2032, a mysterious, oddly-shaped rock is retrieved from just underneath the Mars surface. It turns out to contain a crystal and a pile of slime that slowly evolves into a predatory life form (named Gar!). Gar causes lots of damage before eventually terrorizing the five astronauts adrift in a shuttlecraft, a long ways from civilization.

If it weren't for the final act, which this viewer wasn't expecting, he would have been prepared to just write this one off. It's amateurish on almost every level (especially in terms of acting and writing), and director Lance Lindsay isn't capable of producing a sufficient amount of tension from the familiar, tired plot. (This, despite the fact that all the rooms on this ship are connected by long, winding, dark tunnels which the astronauts have to CRAWL through.). Ultimately, the story gets just a little too cute, which flies in the face of the nastiness that came before.

The characters are by and large inane, although the last two astronauts standing finally become a little more tolerable as they face off against Gar. The performances are absolutely nothing special, and in fact can be pretty abrasive. That said, the obligatory "first victim" in this is a hoot in her crankiness. Gar itself is a reasonably amusing creation; the creature effects (and especially the gore on the victims) is actually not all that bad. The electronic score adds a bit of atmosphere.

This isn't a B genre flick that this viewer would really recommend, although he couldn't bring himself to completely hate it.

Four out of 10.

I rented this movie expecting it to pretty much be a waste of time. I liked the description on the back of the box so I thought what he heck. It turned out really, really good! A group of people set off in this space ship and encounter a strange life force, and of course they all start to get killed by it. Let me just say the the end is NOT what I was expecting! I was very pleased how this movie was done. Not bad special effects for the time either.

Ah, the 80's...They brought us such wonders as Power Ballads and the Rubix cube. However, one thing from the 80's didn't survive the changes between decades, and that was SCi-fi horror (aliens not included).

Star Crystal seemed to start as a typical sci-fi, but quickly provided an initial plot twist. Not to say the story was confusing, because it was blatently obvious. In fact, the thin plot allowed you to take wagers on who'd get hacked next. The bets were up on the second placer, but the house appeared to win.

The cast of this movie was like a convention of people trying (and failing) to get into movies. Not that the poorly written dialog could ever enable them to lift off the pad.

While B-movie fans (such as myself) will enjoy the exceptionally bloody and gooey deaths, and the bucketfuls of slime everywhere, the movie does lack any kind of female scream (which is a necessity in B-movies).

The movie was a half decent horror flick until the morals took a severe 180 that nearly broke my neck. The change in the tide was the nail in the coffin that ruined something that was nearly a waste of time to begin with.

Being a connoseur of B-movies, I recommend this for B-movie-athons. (an excellent performance by someone named "The Gling")

Oh this wasn't good. Far from it! The problem here is that isn't entertaining and it seems to get worse as it goes along, but 'Star Crystal' is a hard one to get your head around. Everything looks bare bones… and it is. But what does it in, is that it just lounging about… aimlessly. It was completely dull and uneventfully drawn out. Wooden performances, drably second-rate sets and vapid dialogues in the mould of 'Alien (1979)'. Truly routine, but a z-grade rehash! We get some tentacle action as the meagre crew are quickly picked off when they encounter the threat. So it's the survival of the fittest, with some minor hopeless diversions. Then it spontaneously changes course in the last 10 minutes (you'll see), and I don't know what the film-makers were thinking. It was so unhinged and ridiculous; you could be mistaken in asking "Was it the same movie?" However talk about cheese… super cheesy and laughable! 'can we just get along?' And wait for the sweetly weeping closing song about crystal… Oh why? Saying it was goofy is an understatement, but hey you can't see this one coming.

The special effects must have received top-billing, (no it did, but scrap the meteor shower sequence) with few icky inclusions and dashes of blood, but it's still a spotty display. The creature is mixture of a slug and fluorescent E.T., as we watch it morph from a puddle that dripped off some outerspace crystal. The score has that dreamy, soft edge that seems to meld in quite well.