Galaxy Of Terror: Roger Corman's Cult Classics

"THE ULTIMATE HORROR IN SPACE", "HELL HAS JUST RELOCATED", "PREPARE YOURSELF FOR THE ULTIMATE BATTLE". From the man who brought you, Forbidden World (1982), Humanoids from the Deep (1980), Piranha (1978), Death Race 2000 (1972), comes Galaxy of Terror...Plot: Crew members aboard the ship-Quest, are requested to voyage across a desolate planet. There mission is to investigate the disappearance of the members from the previous expedition. Only to have their worst nightmares manifest themselves, into horrible death traps.The Death Traps:A spider-creatureBody fluid sucking tentaclesA giant maggot (Actually a Mealworm beetle larva)A crystal starEvil Doppelgangerlasersa horned monsterconstricting wiresThe Victims:Robert Englund (A Nightmare on Elm St, Dead & Buried)Sid Haig (Spider Baby, The Devils Rejects)Edward Albert (House Where Evil Dwells)Zalman King (Blue Sunshine)Erin Moran (Happy Days)Ray Walston (My Favorite Martian)Taaffe O'ConnellBernard BehrensGrace ZabriskieJack BlessingMary Ellen O'NeillGalaxy of Terror, used to be regarded as trash by critics, but has grown a cult following, which it does deserve. While no major classic by any means, Galaxy does have quite a few good tings. Most of the acting is actually pretty good, while Sid Haig may only speak 1 line of dialogue, it was probably for the best. However this makes the character more mystique, & dare I say, kinda cool. Haigs character doesn't take crap from anybody. Regardless Haig still puts in a good performance. Englund also puts in a good performance, though his character is pretty much just sort of there. Everyone else puts in a decent performance, or a tad weak performance. Even though the budget is a little low, the effects look stellar, & most hold up to this day. However most of that is due to the production crew, James Cameron (Terminator, Aliens), & even Bill Paxton (Near Dark). The creature effects look cool, & the set designs are great. Parts of the ship's interior was done with McDonald's burger cartons. The optical effects look neat, except for one particular moment at the end, it only occurs for about 2-3 seconds, so it's nothing to really groan over. The writing for the most part, is decent, though most of the dialogue is cheesy. The score is also good, but nothing memorable. What also helps the film, are a creepy claustrophobic atmosphere, a foreboding mood, & its effects. Some of the characters are pretty forgettable, but most are likeable. That being said, the characters have very little depth, too. Even though it's a B-movie, it's actually pretty good, & most fans of horror & or old sci-fi should enjoy it as much as I did.Fun Facts:Alternate Titles- Mindwarp, Mindwarp Infinity, Mindwarp: Infinity of Terror.For New Worlds pictures, the budget-1.8 million, was rather high.James Cameron served as Production Designer and Second Unit Director on the film.In one scene, Cameron was able to figure out a way to get maggots to wiggle on cue by developing a metal plate onto which the maggots were placed, then ran an electrical current through the plate whenever filming began, causing the maggots to move energetically about.Corman produced a few other sci-fi films centered around space- Forbidden World, Battle Beyond the Stars, The Terror Within, Dead Space, Not of this Earth-1988, Not of this Earth-1956, It Conquered the World, War of the Satellites, & Time Walker (1982).Galaxy of Terror was made to capitalize on the success of 1979's Alien. However there's only a few similarities, "A message is sent about the vanishing of one crew, forcing the other crew to find some sort of terror/horror. Finding said terror in an old relic." That's where the similarities end. People tend to dislike the ending, but I actually like it, I felt that it really was the only way the film could end. If it ended in lets say, our hero kills the villain, then walks all the way back to the Quest, & flies away, it just wouldn't have ended well. Anyway Galaxy of Terror is a fun horror flick, there's an array of special effects, & plenty of hideous monster action.DVD Rating- 5/5 Film Rating- 5/5Disc Content:CommentaryMaking of Galaxy of TerrorTrailersPhoto galleries

In the wake of the colossal success of "Star Wars" in the late '70s, by the early 1980s sci-fi films, which were next to nonexistent for nearly a decade after Kubrick's "2001" in 1968, were again a big business. In particular, a new crop of them emerged that combined the outer space element with suspense and horror, such as British director Norman J. Warren's "Inseminoid" (aka "Horror Planet"), Stanley Donen's "Saturn 3" (both 1980), and Peter Hyams' "Outland" (1981).To me though, the ultimate crowning achievement of them all was the Roger Corman production "Galaxy of Terror," which was filmed in a Corman makeshift studio (former lumber yard) in Venice, California during the sultry summer of 1981, and released later on in October of that year.A search party from the space vessel Quest warp speed to the distant, lifeless planet of Morganthus in search of survivors of the starship Remus, which crashlanded there at some point, with some or all of its occupants now presumed missing or dead. They soon uncover strange things among the ruins of the seemingly uninhabited planet surface, including various hostile alien lifeforms that are something out of their worst nightmares.Wow! Viewing this film over 30 years on, it's inconceivable that it was produced on such a typically low Corman budget (for an estimated $700,000). But that to me is part of the fascination of Corman films and great B-movies like this in general that today's sterile megamillion computer generated CGI effects films can't touch -- the filmmakers clearly worked in the best possible way with the limited budget that they had, to astonishing results. Maybe this is due to the film crew consisting of only the most talented young prodigies in all the American movie industry at the time. Most of the special effects and production unit had worked on the previous year's successful PG-rated Corman/New World Pictures sci-fi opus "Battle Beyond the Stars," not to mention John Carpenter's "Escape from New York." One of my favorites was Aaron Lipstadt, who served as production manager on "Galaxy" and the following year's Corman take on the slasher genre, "Slumber Party Massacre," and he also went on to direct "Android" (1982) and the U.S. post-apocalyptic entry "City Limits" (1984). Perhaps the most famous member of the crew who managed to give "Galaxy" its trademark brilliant futuristic set design was a young James Cameron (of "the Terminator" fame and countless others), who served as production designer and second unit director. So it's no wonder that "Galaxy" turned out to be such a triumph; its filmmakers worked on some of the other best sci-fi and horror films of the early '80s, or perhaps of all time for that matter.Nearly every scene is visually a feast to behold for the eyes of committed sci-fi/horror fans; some of the best bits include a rotted corpse being ignited with a laser beam, an arm being severed off by a throwing star (and consequently becoming subject to crawling, squirming maggot infestation), and the now classic highlight, when one of the maggots metamorphoses to gargantuan proportions and rapes one of the female crew members. The actress in question is the breathtakingly beautiful Taaffe O'Connell, whose performance as the sexy tech officer Dameia is one of the film's best features. If I have any complaint with the movie (and really I don't), it's only that it kills her off a little too early, but that's just a small qualm for a film as cool as this one."Galaxy of Terror," as explicit as it is (it just missed getting the dreaded "X" rating by the MPAA), really only saw a limited theatrical release in 1981, rarely played on late night cable TV after that, and by the early '90s even VHS copies had become scarce. So it has that cult reputation and following because of this, but in this case that following is well deserved. Other than a couple of shaggy early '80s hairstyles on some of the male crew members, the film has not dated one bit and looks at least as or even more recent and state of the art as an episode of "Star Trek: the Next Generation" or "Babylon 5" from the '90s.Shout! Factory has really outdone themselves with this magnificent 2010 DVD reissue, which features a sterling remastered HD transfer and an 11-page collectors booklet, not to mention a fascinating and informative one hour featurette about the making of the film. This release completely blows the cheap bootleg import copies (that were mere VHS transfers) that were selling for outrageous prices on the internet in the years prior to the Shout! Factory reissue, clean out of the water.All in all, after languishing in relative underground obscurity for almost 30 years, it was high time that "Galaxy of Terror" got such stellar DVD treatment as this one that will likely give it the rabid cult following of new fans that it justly deserves. Highly recommended to sci-fi/horror/B-movie fans, as well as a personal favorite.