La Galaxie de la terreur

I recently came across the Robert Englund and Sid Haig cult classic Galaxy of Terror (1981) on MAX. The story follows a spaceship crew that stumbles upon a vessel with a missing crew. As they investigate, hoping to find survivors, they instead encounter alien creatures that begin picking off the members of their own ship one by one.

The film also stars Erin Moran (Happy Days), Ray Walston (The Stand), and Edward Albert (Power Rangers), and is directed by Bruce Clark (Ski Bum and The Hammer).

It's clear that Galaxy of Terror was aiming to capitalize on the success of Alien, which had been released two years earlier. However, the special effects and action sequences here are far from the quality of Alien, and often come off as a bit cheesy. Despite being released in 1981, the film has more of a '70s sci-fi feel. Overall, it's an average to below-average entry in the sci-fi genre that might only appeal to diehard fans of Englund or Haig. I'd rate it a 5/10.

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.

The film concerns about a team of astronauts assigned to save the outer space starship crew from a far planet . The astronauts become threatened by a weird , vicious life force as well as indiscreet , slimy aliens that embark upon a killing spree in the base and spaceship . They are unexpectedly devoured by hungry , vicious aliens intent on picking off the astronauts one by one . And an ominous monster in the form of a giant worm ; it is , in fact , a carnivorous , ominous maggot and is enormously spooky when the large slug eats a beautiful nude scream girl or when another young woman explodes . The picture contains an interesting twist at the ending.

It's a formula terror space film with tension , shocks , grisly horror , including some decent scares , graphic gore abounds and results to be quite entertaining . A lot of the special effects shots involving live actors combined with matte paintings and miniatures were done in camera . At the movie appears known actors with a future long career : The recently deceased Edward Albert (Butterflies are free) , Robert Englund (Freddie Kruger) , Zalman King (a notorious director of erotic films) , Ray Walston (famed comedy actor) and Grace Zabriskie (famous secondary actress) and Sid Haig (usual as baddie and blaxploitation genre) , the latter asked Roger Corman if he could play Quuhod as a near mute instead Corman agreed and let Haig portray Quuhod with almost no dialogue as Haig only says a single line in the whole movie . The visual production design by subsequently successful James Cameron creates a vivid sense of claustrophobic doom , enhanced further by the eerie musical score .

This disturbing and dark film was produced by Roger Corman with his New Word Pictures and tensely directed by B.Clark who managed to create shocks , generous violence and exciting horror sequences . According to Roger Corman , the film was budgeted at approximately $700,000 . The film went into production in the spring of 1981 at the Hammond Lumber Co. lot in Venice, CA, where New World's studio facilities were located. Additional sets , including the surface of the planet and the exterior of the pyramid , were built at a soon-to-be demolished Bekins Storage facility . David DeCoteau got his first Hollywood movie job working as a production assistant on this film , he was only 18 years old at the time. And followed by ¨Forbidden world¨ by Allan Holzman with Jesse Vint and Scott Paulin . It's a standard terror graphically gory, giving a paranoid dimension and turns out to be an ¨Alien¨ exploitation film , being a sloppy attempt to cash on this hit smash.

I can still remember watching this film in the wee hours of the morning at about 13 yrs old; I wanted decadent, late night cable programming, and this one delivered. Twenty years later, I still remember it for one scene: a giant maggot raping a woman. It was a completely gross, bizarre, yucky, surreal moment in cinema, but unlike anything I had ever seen. I still can't get over how weird it is and how something like that made it into a film. The rest of the film contains a few other bizarre scenes but beyond this, the film is really just a waste of time. However, the production design (James Cameron) for this film was actually pretty original and well done for the time/budget (the planet the crew is trapped on has a kind of strangely dim lighting and claustrophobic feeling).

I can't believe that people keep comparing this film to Alien. First of all, the original Alien had a budget of 11 million dollars. Galaxy of Terror was made for around 5 million. Second, Alien was "inspired" by many horror/scifi films that went before it. If it wasn't a crime for Alien why then is it a crime that this film used a currently popular genre title as inspiration? Third, Galaxy of Terror has more in common, at least story wise, with Forbidden Planet than Alien.

This has the look of a much more expensive production and it takes full advantage of it's exploitation roots. It has a fun cast, some minor gore (much less than you would expect in a film like this), and some gratuitous nudity especially during a rather nasty scene.

It's a fun diversion for fans of these types of films and can be recommended for many reasons. You get to see Robert Englund before he donned the glove, Ray Walston after he was everybody's Favorite Martian and Erin Moran after her years as Joanie. You also get to see some early effects work by James Cameron.

Sure, it gets a little confusing in spots and there's some continuity problems and more than it's share plot holes, but it's still a terrific movie to look at, great set designs and some of the monster effects are decent (and some are bad). It's all that I expect from Roger Corman with more than enough to keep me interested.

Make sure to catch the uncut print if you can!!!