La Galaxie de la terreur

When i saw the trailer for galaxy of terror i knew it was going to be good,as a roger Corman produced b-movie it is a wild ride.sort of like alien on a lower budget.it stars Eddie Albert Jr.zalman king,Sid haig, ray walston(my favorite martian)Robert englund(nightmare on elm street) Erin Moran(Joanie on TV's happy days)and grace zabriskie(twin peaks) its bizarre science fiction horror about a group of space travelers on a rescue mission encountering terrors of all sorts,a women is raped by a giant worm,now thats bizarre.James Cameron was involved in the production.critics bashed this and it was one of the movies on the DVD 50 worst movies of all time,sorry i don't agree.its the best of the alien rip offs.7 out of 10

Following a failed voyage to the planet Morganthus, the spaceship Quest is dispatched from the Planet Xerxes for a rescue mission. Once there, the crew discovers the remains of the crew of the doomed voyage as well as a strange pyramid containing unspeakable horrors.

Galaxy of Terror is a 1981 sci-fi/horror film from producer Roger Corman. The film saw him attempt to cash in on the success of Alien much in the same way Battle Beyond the Stars was his answer to Star Wars. Once again using the talents of James Cameron who provided the impressively improvised effects, with Cameron hired as an art director and effects supervisor alongside Robert Skotak. The movie has carved quite a legacy for itself (one of infamy as well as curiosity) and while I can't say much for quality of its writing, from an atmospheric and technical perspective it's undeniably memorable.

Starting off, the writing of Galaxy of Terror is often very confused and muddled with the nature of elements such as Xerxes' "Master" or the borderline Darwin Award behavior of the some of the crewmembers making it pretty obvious plot is not this movie's strong suit. Rather than creating a streamlined narrative Galaxy of Horror is mostly a showcase of impressive effects work in both creature design and gore work and both the curiosity factor of seeing James Cameron's humble beginnings as well as the grotesque nature of the kills and creatures has given the film a lasting legacy (such as the forceful nonconsensual sexual escapades of a certain giant worm).

As far as Alien rip-offs go Galaxy of Terror is certainly memorable in its exploitation and nastiness value even though with its thin characters and borderline nonexistent story that's the only real selling point. Depending on what you're looking for Galaxy of Terror might satisfy those trashy cravings we all deny having in spite of our knowledge to the contrary.

I first saw this in the early 90s on a vhs n had a solid wtf reaction regarding the notorious rape scene of the buxom babe. Revisited it recently. The plot is basically a rip off of Alien but the film has some well known horror veterans, Sid Haig n Robert Englund. It also has erotic film director Zalman King. Inspite of the film being a Roger Corman production, it has some well done effects due to the involvement of a very early James Cameron. Cameron must be laughing at the thrusting movement of the giant worm.

Early eighties Roger Corman sci-fi flick featuring a cast of b-grade actors on a mission to a distant planet to investigate a dying signal from a doomed space vessel. Once they arrive on the planet they soon discover that the crew is no more and that a black pyramid draws them in mysteriously. The cast's worst nightmares are manifested into reality as they are picked off one by one. But by whom exactly? If you were stumped as to who it was might I interest you in some low-property tax swamp land.

I have never been much of a Corman fan but this is one of his most ambitious and entertaining films. The fact that this is considered one of the 50 worst films of all time is not only silly but calls into question the bad movie credentials of whomever listed Galaxy of Terror. Have you even seen War of the Robots? Any movie that dispatches Erin Moran by crushing her skull and features the Hentai-like mutant worm raping to death a very buxom Taaffe O'Connell deserves cult status damn you! This is my third Zalman King film reviewed on this site, through no fault of my own mind you, and his limited range as an actor leaves little wonder why he made the move to directing light porn. Edward Albert is not very engaging as the male lead Cabren while I hope Sid Haig was paid by his screen time rather his amount of dialogue. Robert Englund, Ray "I've been old for 1000 years" Walston and Grace Zabriskie, who was great in Twin Peaks, round out the cast. If you happen upon this movie give it a watch. It's sure to entertain.

As is the case with a slew of Roger Corman-produced films, this flick underwent several title changes -- Mindwarp: An Infinity in Terror, Planet of Horrors, Quest - before settling on the worst choice. When I picked it up, I actually thought it was an old '60s film, as the tape-cover aped some old-school EC sci-fi comics with the names `Ray Walston' and `Edward Albert.' I immediately assumed it was Eddie Albert of `Green Acres' fame, not his son, along with Walston, fighting space invaders in their plundering youth. I was wrong. very wrong. Instead, I got a rip-off of Alien (1979) with a heaping portion of David Hewitt's 1965 snooze-a-thon Wizard of Mars (aka Horrors of the Red Planet), though Walston is no John Carradine! Likewise, Galaxy of Terror is peppered with the `guard duty' slant from The Sentinel (1976) and the Jedi theme of the Star Wars films (seen here as `The Master'), as there's some sub-plot about a long line of guardians or protectors that make a rite-of-passage through the planet's funhouse. There may have even been a narrative of some sort surrounding 'symbolic salvation' at one point before all the gratuitous violence was jostled in! As is the case with Wizard of Mars, our astronauts land the Goodship Quest only to discover the remains of an ancient civilization replete with an ancient pyramid-like structure and horrible, horrible aliens (a giant sexually-charged mealworm, an arachnid, some self-propelling leeches, and an extra-terrestrial that looks like the masked assailant in George Romero's Season of the Witch). The cast is a mishmash of TV personalities, actors past their prime, a few Corman/New World regulars, and a few up-and-coming stars (a trend that arguably began with disaster films like Earthquake and Airport). Erin Moran of Happy Days is fairly good here as a telepathic `biosensor' (and fairly sexy too), as is pre-Freddy Krueger Robert Englund (perhaps the highlight of the film). Nevertheless, our cast is picked off one-by-one by an unknown force that preys on fear (personified in physical form). Most of the kills are pretty lame, and Taaffe O'Connell's big scene with the mealworm is ineffectual as well. Still, the crew is every bit as good as the one in Alien, though there's no Sigourney Weaver here (big difference). Unbelievably, this film helped launch the careers of Englund (who would have become a great actor had he not lapsed into Elm Street limbo) and James Cameron who was the production designer here (perhaps prepping him for Piranha II: The Spawning). Perhaps to Cameron's credit (I guess), the Martian landscape is convincing and the sets and visual effects are great, even if it steals sets from other films (Corman's Forbidden World). Plus, it has a few scenes of cool stop-motion photography (now a thing of the past) courtesy Brian Chin. On the bad side, it's too dimly lit (though the water-slide caverns and Tron-like wall of lights are well captured) and has inappropriate music (which you didn't get in Alien). Lastly, the characters have great names like Cabren, Alluma, Kore, Ilvar, Baelon, Quuhod. It's too bad this film didn't take off and spawn licensing deals, as this crew would have made great space-soldier action-figures, as their back-packs already look like Cobra Commander accessories! All in all, a operative film, albeit not the best I've ever seen.