Mutiny in Outer Space

I watched this movie first when I visited my best friend, it´s a tradition watching a DVD-movie when we met. It was not a well-known low-price-DVD which I didn´t know yet. The effects were lousy, the actors average, but this movie has a certain charme. If only Ed Wood had worked this way...

Regards, Hans-Dieter

... from writers/directors Arthur C. Pierce & Hugo Grimaldi. In the far future of the late 1990's, the U. S. Space Station X-7 becomes infested by a fungus discovered in the ice caves of the Moon. Maj. Towers (William Leslie) wants to quarantine the station and prevent any exposure to Earthbound vessels or personnel, but station chief Col. Cromwell (Richard Garland) orders the news of the fungus to be kept secret, partly as to not tarnish his command's reputation, but mainly because the Colonel is suffering from "space raptures", a sort of cabin fever. Maj. Towers realize there may be no choice but to organize a - Mutiny in Space! Also featuring Harold Lloyd Jr.

This cheap, B&W bore features some truly atrocious miniature effects, awful acting (James Dobson as the station doctor takes the prize for worst), and a dreadful script loaded with phony "space" jargon. The fungus looks like Spanish moss mixed with something the cat threw up. The men all wear baggy space uniforms, while the women's are skin-tight. At one point, heroine Dolores Faith quietly voices her trepidation about the station's fate, prompting William Leslie to slap her in the face. Naturally, she quickly apologizes to him and asks if he'll still have her. Those were the days!

I found this to be a good science fiction movie, although the special effects were weak. It has a crew revolt, ala The Caine Mutiny as noted in another review, as they have to overcome the mental breakdown of the station's commander to combat a fast-growing deadly fungus. It has elements of realism harking back to The Thing from Outer Space and the authorities at space command actually show intelligence by anticipating actions taken by the crew, understanding the nature of the fungus, and offering a possible solution to saving the crew and station.

If you can ignore the lack of good special effects, this movie is worth the time.

On the way from the moon to the space station, a fungus breaks out on the rocket and it's alarming how quickly the stuff is spreading. Unfortunately, the Commander seems to be space sick and won't even listen to the warnings by some of his crew. Instead, he orders the ship to continue towards the station, and it ends up spreading the fungus there as well. To make it worse, the fungus kills! If the Commander doesn't relent, mutiny is sure to break out sooner or later.

This movie is a mixed bag. The special effects are pretty shabby (particularly the space footage), though that's pretty much true of ALL space films made before "2001". The dialog is pretty sexist at times...again, a product of the times. But the story itself is actually pretty good as the megalomaniacal angle was pretty good and makes the film worth your time if you like this sort of thing.

Well this movie was made just a few years prior to 2001 A Space Odyssey, it seems very much a throwback to the decade prior. I watched it with that level of suspension of disbelief, treating it like 1950s be science fiction, and found it fast-paced and entertaining. Naturally, the science is but science is never the point well this kind of movie anyway. What I genuinely admire about this little low-budget flick is that all of the actors take their roles seriously, so not only is the acting not half-bad, there are even a few moments where it seems almost to naturalistic. In addition, the screenwriter/s made some attempts at banter between the characters which actually work fairly well. Similarly, we even have a few oblique camera angles and a POV shot of the fungus crawling over the camera lens. None of these little creative flourishes would have found their way into a little movie like this if the technicians involved weren't making some effort.

Mutiny in Outer Space is not a classic, but it is a fun relic for fans of this kind of movie from that era, and it's good that it has managed to survive in the public domain.