Giochi erotici nella terza galassia

Escape From Galaxy 3 is also known as Starcrash II, which—if you've seen Luigi Cozzi's disco-era Italian sci-fi—should give you a pretty good idea of just what to expect from this film by director Bitto Albertini: multicoloured starscapes, funky music with laser sounds, some of the dumbest dialogue in the history of cinema, amazingly stupid outfits, a pitiful villain, dodgy special effects, unconvincing space battles, and a major space babe in a revealing outfit. Like Luigi Cozzi's film, Galaxy 3's sheer awfulness is the key to much of its appeal.

However, what gives this particular piece of Euro-garbage the slight edge over Cozzi's film is its beautiful female star Sherry Buchanan. Not that she is sexier than Starcrash's Caroline Munro (who would be very hard to beat in the sexy stakes) but simply due to the fact that unlike Ms Munro, Sherry gets her kit off and experiments with sex in what is otherwise a PG-rated space fantasy, something that proves hilarious and hot in equal measures!

Sherry plays Princess Belle Star, who escapes the destruction of her home planet by evil baddie Oraclon (Don Powell in an outfit that would embarrass Ming the Merciless) on a spacecraft piloted by curly-haired hero Lithan (Fausto Di Bella). The fleeing couple eventually find refuge on a strange blue planet (no prizes for guessing that it is Earth) where they befriend the primitive people who live there. It is here that Belle and Lithan experience the pleasures of procreation (as well as the joy of food and the visual and aural delights of formation disco dance routines) with lovely Ms Buchanan stripping off for a series of close encounters with various men.

Princess Belle in the altogether is most definitely the highlight of this unintentionally hilarious film, although writer John Thomas (*snigger*) deserves a special mention for coming up with the movie's incredible technical space jargon, which includes such priceless gems as 'hyper solar missile systems', 'mega degrees', 'equitonic tangents', and my personal favourite, the 'megamethmic teleprobe'.

I saw this film when I was quite young, my folks had no idea what they were renting for me. Seeing as it was slightly saucy, my memories of this flick are fond ones! ;-)

I remember the F/X being dodgy, and the film being dubbed I think. Infact, the only thing I can remember vividly (apart from a sex scene) was the stuff about the Aliens (I say aliens... they just looked like pretty people in loin cloths!) not knowing what water was!

Although i'm sure if I watched it now... i'd probably laugh all the way to the Eject button!

"Star Crash 2" is one of the most hilarious trash flicks I've ever seen. Even the evil tyrant wears a colorful costume with lightnings painted on the legs (instead of black like a proper tyrant), because he knows it's all just fun. The first ten minutes with the epic space battle are looking like a party for New Year's Eve. The hero says: "We have to use plan Y" which basically means "run and hide", I guess. During their escape, they discover the planet Earth which is full of strange things ("Water? Don't touch it, it could be dangerous") and very stupid inhabitants who can't decide whether to love the visitors or hate them. After the first 10 minutes it becomes less spectacular; too much running around in the forest of Earth. But it was ridiculous enough to be of one of those flicks which are so terribly bad you can actually enjoy them.

In the early 1980s, i.e. after the huge success of "Star Wars", many producers thought the public would love anything (anything!) with space-ships in it. Otherwise you can't explain movies such as "Galaxina", "Galaxy" (aka "Galaxy Destroyer") or said "Star Crash 2". Director Ben Norman is Adalberto Albertini who also shot "Black Emanuelle" (as Albert Thomas).

The most astounding and even downright perplexing observation regarding "Escape from Galaxy 3" is that all the many cast members and extras - and I assume these were all mentally sane people - deliberately agreed to walk around in ridiculously infantile costumes and speak the most nonsensical lines aloud! Were they not embarrassed? Did they not fear their relatives and friends would make fun of them for the rest of their lives? Or could it be they were genuinely believing they were part of something great? Maybe some sly Italian producer persuaded everyone this would become ten times more successful than "Star Wars"...

Although I'm not sure it's official, "Escape from Galaxy 3" is often referred to as sequel to Luigi Cozzi's "Star Crash". I don't remember a lot about that one, except that it was also an utterly deranged George Lucas rip-off, but a lot of fun to watch and starring a handful of stellar names like Caroline Munro, Christopher Plummer, and - oh yeah - David Hasselhoff. The wannabe sequel hasn't got any famous names, and even less budget.

In a galaxy far, far away (obviously the synopsis must begin like this) two interstellar tribes are at war. The evil tribe is led by a black guy with a golden beard, a preposterous costume, and a sort of Nazi henchman. The amiable tribe has a king with an oversized crown and an unearthly beautiful daughter named Princess Belle Star (she sure is!). The horrible war is illustrated through a lot of pew-pew with lasers and miniature toy-spaceships flying in front of colorful backgrounds that must have been drawn by the kindergarten class next door to the film studios. Since the tribe with the nice people is losing, the king sends his daughter and 1st commander away on a mission to seek allies in the galaxy. However, the two end up on Earth which was supposedly extinct after a nuclear war many centuries ago. Purely coincidental, I reckon, the duo does land amidst a tribe of human survivors that live primitively, and for some strange and inexplicable reason only hot women and hunky blokes live here. Belle Star and her boy learn about the joy of kissing and caressing, and they forget about their mission. In the end, sex saves the galaxy!

If the plot sounds absurd and idiotic, I can assure you sitting through the movie is actually worse! "Escape from Galaxy 3" must be one of the dumbest and mind-numbing movies I ever watched, but somehow you keep gazing at the lovely lead actress Sherry Buchanan in her hypnotizing outfits and forgive all the goofiness.

OK so this movie isn't the greatest, but it's still far from uninteresting. The only real connection it has to Luigi Cozzi's superior STAR CRASH is the use of certain special effects shots. They appear to use some of the same models & spacecraft, which would of course be cheaper than building new ones for this film, or better yet just recycle the same footage. Nobody will notice.

Most movies are about two or three things. First there is the story or plot -- this time out two mis-matched intergalactic lovers land on a planet populated by castoffs from "Buck Rogers In The 25th Century" and discover sex. This includes an eye-opening scene where the film's heroine/lead actress goes for a naked swim in some sort of erotic oasis. I say "eye opening" not just because she is a delightful little morsel, but because the content of the scene is so at odds with the form that the movie takes: It looks to have been made for kids, but has tits. Huh.

And that is the second thing that this movie is about: Mixing low octane erotics with Star Wars inspired (or maybe FLASH GORDON would be more likely considering Don Powell's Parliament/Funkadelic Space Tyrant costume: wow!!) juvenalia. It's an exploitation film taking on the appearance of a science fiction adventure to lure in the kids, plus some bared flesh -- kept to a minimum, just a tad beyond the tease level -- to keep their parents occupied. The film is also equal opportunity in parading about a little space strumpet for the guys to ogle as well as an astronomical Adonis for the ladies to swoon over. Or vice versa: you never can tell about some people these days.

The third thing this movie appears to be about is how the European cult genre film craze -- dating back to the Gladiator movies that much of the film resembles -- had pretty much worn itself out by 1981. The Italians always were the most imitative of the Euro filmmakers and by the time STAR CRASH 2 was made they were imitating their own forms. Like FLASH GORDON and YOR, HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE this is essentially an updated Peplum saga with laser guns instead of javelins, and illustrates how by 1981 Italian B cinema was finally forced to find it's own voice after stuff like this stopped working at the box office.

The Italians went from Peplums to Gothic horror to spy thrillers to Spaghetti Westerns to war movies to Gothic horror to crime thrillers to car racing movies to Star Wars ripoffs and then back to the horror genre again for the 3rd wave of Fulci, Argento, Lamberto Bava and Joe D'amato. STAR CRASH 2 was directed by the occasionally brilliant Bitto Albertini, who participated in all of those prior genres and was on the tail-end of his career, and while this certainly isn't his best film his name is the big draw here: Bert Albertino movies are rather hard to come by, but unlike his ZAMBO or THREE SUPERMEN films there isn't much to recommend this one, aside from the kitschy 80's sci fi production design and the sex.

I happen to like kitschy 80's sci fi production design and sex so I got a kick out of this one. You certainly won't find the likes of it made today, and for fans of the Alfonso Brescia Star Wars ripoff school of film-making this movie will be a welcomed addition. Anyone else be forewarned though: There be Italians in disco robes dancing in this movie, and unless you are used to stuff like that you will probably find it to be somewhat silly, and maybe even a little on the erotic side. Welcome to Italian cult genre film-making, we hope you enjoy your flight.

5/10