Mind Breakers

Err, what messy rubbish. A dull one too. The storyline starts off interesting (well it read more interesting on the back cover on the video case) to only succumb to a plodding, unimaginative peepshow in outer-space of gratuitous soft-core acts and icky effects. What starts off is a collection of stock footage integrated together, and we learn that a group of six have been chosen by an alien race to use in a breeding experiment as the earth has been destroyed in a nuclear blast. But someone or something on the ship is killing them, but still they find enough time to "procreate" before facing the problems at hand, and figuring out just what is happening. The way the characters are introduced to us is obviously taken from other films, and is quite laughable. Well that's some nice promotional work. Even the social commentary card is over-used and too blatant it just made me cringe. Watch out for the animal rights activist sequence! The script is torpidly tepid and convolutely penned with a weak bunch of characterisations and muddled motivations. This is where I would say that the clunky story just got in the way of simple fun in its attempt to be clever. This Roger Corman production goes on to present the usual staples found in these quick, cash-in, bare bones b-features. Director Fred Gallo's clumsy execution is just slipshod and repetitive. As for the jaunty editing, it's complete shambles. As many sequences are all over the place, and look ridiculous. Few visuals work, and the racy T&A (and while you're at it. Smile as Englund has you on candid camera) added some much needed spice. Phoney sets, and shoddily crude effects don't damaged it, but far from make it any more enjoyable. Looking at the cast; Robert Englund floats on by with little interest and Adam Baldwin pretty much does the same thing. There is some stunning buxom in Kate Rodger, Gretchen Palmer and Jeannie Millar. Jerry Trimble pretty much over-kills it, but at least there was someone who wanted to enliven the show. His one-on-one combat with an android provided some kinetic zip, but his action-character felt rather odd in the mix.

Cheap, uninteresting Sci-fi / Horror.

The best thing about Starquest 2, or Galactic Odyssey, or whatever, was definitely the Ed Tomney soundtrack. I was intrigued by the appearance of Adam Baldwin, who made a lasting impression on me during his run on the classic "Firefly" TV series. Though the acting isn't too bad, nobody could have saved this film.

This is an extremely low budget sci-fi film with a lot more ambition than ability. This film is about a group of humans that wake up to find themselves aboard an alien spaceship monitored by video cameras which double as weapons, and being carted off to an unknown destination for an unknown purpose. They are arranged in opposite sex pairs (which might have given any intelligent primates some clue about the aliens' purpose, but never mind, there aren't any intelligent primates to be found). There is a lot of shouting, fighting and sex, and it appears that some of the humans are, in fact, aliens. No sense in continuing, the rest of the plot has to be seen to be disbelieved.

The basic premise is not bad, but the execution and the script are off-the-scale. There are too many continuity problems and absurdities to list.

More or less randomly interspersed with the main narrative are a series of war scenes, which were probably found on the cutting room floor, as they rarely seem to have anything to do with this film and only once show people who are actually in the film. I can just imagine how this happened

***

Bartender: Hey it could be worse. That film you're working on couldn't possibly be as bad as the one I was in.

Drunken Studio Exec: You were?

Bartneder: It was a kick-boxing movie and I had to fight a whole bunch of guys off for some reason - never did have much of a plot. they wanted me for my martial arts skills.

Drunken Studio Exec: Really? What was it called and when was it released?

Bartender: Oh I don't think they bothered with a title, it died in production. In fact, I have some of the original footage at home in my scrapbook. Want to check it out?

***

Unfortunately, the plot is too thin for a feature length film, and the creators decided to fill in the gaps with randomly occurring totally unnecessary sex scenes. The film would have been better as a single episode of a Outer Limits or the Twilight Zone. Even with the exceedingly low budget, most TV franchises could have done a better job with the special effects. There is nothing special about the effects in this one, except for their complete lack of quality.

It would be difficult to find a reason to recommend this, so I won't bother. I gave it a two because it's almost harmless, and therefore not as bad as a lot of what passes as entertainment these days.

Starquest II (often run on TV as "Galactic Odyssey")is yet another Roger Corman quickie, and regrettably from the producer's very late - and utterly, irredeemably awful - period.

Corman is a legendary producer who has never been all that concerned with quality in his films, but he is famous for giving hundreds of young directors and actors/actresses a fair chance to break into the movie industry by financing their efforts, and so he may be justly credited with the discovery of many great - or at least solid - talents from James Cameron to Helen Hunt. In addition, in the '70s, '80s, and early '90s he also managed to release - among hundreds of other films - quite a few decent B movies across the entire spectrum of escapist entertainment, often with pretty decent sf/x and almost acceptable scripts.

Beginning some time in the mid-'90s, however, Corman started releasing 'montage' movies. These films were literally spliced together from his previous movies, the disjointed sequences glued to each other with a flimsy storyline (usually stuffed with dream sequences and such) and 30-40 minutes of original footage where the action takes place on one or two sets. As an added bonus, these movies feature tons of big-name performers who have no control over what the director does with the footage of their previous appearances. Insidious.

Starquest II is one of the worst examples of this: there is really no story to speak of, nor acting, nor even any consistency. Corman had run out of shame by the time he reached this travesty of celluloid. You will find the by-now-customary starwars-like sequences from his Battle Beyond the Stars (ALL of them...), followed by footage of battles in the Vietnamese jungle that are followed by shots of attack scenes in a North American stone quarry, then sequences from various monster- and cop movies, as well as many other cheapo shots from sci-fi action flicks. Just so you can prepare for the horror: there is, for example, a scene where the aliens talk about how some of their people rebelled against their empire, and the narrator states that these alien rebels behaved not unlike some animal rights activists - and you suddenly find yourself watching scenes from another (circa 1980) movie where HUMANS are releasing animals from their cages!!!

It is not merely a bad movie - IT IS NOT A MOVIE, just a collection of stock footage. It has one redeeming quality, though: there are plenty of - from a North American perspective very explicit - sex scenes, and the starring ladies seem to exhibit less than the usual tonnage of silicon. Strangely enough, in this unnatural beast there are many nice and natural boobies...

After Nasa stock footage, recycled Roger Corman space FX (BATTLE BENEATH THE STARS...again!) and an incomprehensible collage from various Corman productions, then the "story" begins. Eight people who awaken aboard a spaceship are being used in "procreation" experiments to eventually host an alien species. People start to die and no one knows what the hell is going on (or how they got there) but still make time to have sex while secret video cameras tape them. A blue energy beam zaps people, an "android" in the wall squishes a guy's head until blood pours out of his ears and an alien finger is thrust into his eyeball in close-up.

The new gore FX are pretty good and the cast looks good, too, in the sex scenes (which seem to have been trimmed from the cable version, called GALACTIC ODYSSEY), but this is still a cheap, pointless waste of time carelessly slapped together by the same guy who directed the equally terrible DEAD SPACE (1990). Maria Ford and Shauna O'Brien are seen in old footage from other movies thrown into the mix in the form of flashback. So is Trimble, in lengthy scenes from one of his old kickboxer movies. Corman was the executive producer and this was part on the ROGER CORMAN PRESENTS... Showtime series.

Score: 2 out of 10 (for the redeeming T&A only)

Back in 1976, Roger Corman gave two of his trailer editors a few bucks and a chance to make a film. Joe Dante and Allan Arkush turned out "Hollywood Boulevard" by utilizing reels of scenes cribbed from other Corman films. Because the two directors were talented (as their later films would confirm), they managed to create a crazed, outrageous little parody of low-budget movie-making.

Roger tried it again with "Galactic Odyssey" (a/k/a "Starquest II", not that it matters, as there is no relationship to "Starquest"). Alas, writer-director Fred Gallo shows no sign of talent in either trade here.

The resulting splice job is cheap, incomprehensible, and should be an embarrassment to all who participated. Sets are strictly high school drama club. Acting is stilted. And the Swiss-cheese plot seems to be designed solely to use as much footage from other films and stock agencies(there's that mushroom cloud again)as possible while incorporating a handful of soft core sex scenes and a few gore effects.

Even bad film buffs should ignore this one. Even for free.