HOME |  CULT MOVIES | COMPETITIONS | ADVERTISE |  CONTACT US |  ABOUT US
 
 
 
Newest Reviews
American Fiction
Poor Things
Thunderclap
Zeiram
Legend of the Bat
Party Line
Night Fright
Pacha, Le
Kimi
Assemble Insert
Venus Tear Diamond, The
Promare
Beauty's Evil Roses, The
Free Guy
Huck and Tom's Mississippi Adventure
Rejuvenator, The
Who Fears the Devil?
Guignolo, Le
Batman, The
Land of Many Perfumes
Cat vs. Rat
Tom & Jerry: The Movie
Naked Violence
Joyeuses Pacques
Strangeness, The
How I Became a Superhero
Golden Nun
Incident at Phantom Hill
Winterhawk
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City
Maigret Sets a Trap
B.N.A.
Hell's Wind Staff, The
Topo Gigio and the Missile War
Battant, Le
Penguin Highway
Cazadore de Demonios
Snatchers
Imperial Swordsman
Foxtrap
   
 
Newest Articles
3 From Arrow Player: Sweet Sugar, Girls Nite Out and Manhattan Baby
Little Cat Feat: Stephen King's Cat's Eye on 4K UHD
La Violence: Dobermann at 25
Serious Comedy: The Wrong Arm of the Law on Blu-ray
DC Showcase: Constantine - The House of Mystery and More on Blu-ray
Monster Fun: Three Monster Tales of Sci-Fi Terror on Blu-ray
State of the 70s: Play for Today Volume 3 on Blu-ray
The Movie Damned: Cursed Films II on Shudder
The Dead of Night: In Cold Blood on Blu-ray
Suave and Sophisticated: The Persuaders! Take 50 on Blu-ray
Your Rules are Really Beginning to Annoy Me: Escape from L.A. on 4K UHD
A Woman's Viewfinder: The Camera is Ours on DVD
Chaplin's Silent Pursuit: Modern Times on Blu-ray
The Ecstasy of Cosmic Boredom: Dark Star on Arrow
A Frosty Reception: South and The Great White Silence on Blu-ray
You'll Never Guess Which is Sammo: Skinny Tiger and Fatty Dragon on Blu-ray
Two Christopher Miles Shorts: The Six-Sided Triangle/Rhythm 'n' Greens on Blu-ray
Not So Permissive: The Lovers! on Blu-ray
Uncomfortable Truths: Three Shorts by Andrea Arnold on MUBI
The Call of Nostalgia: Ghostbusters Afterlife on Blu-ray
Moon Night - Space 1999: Super Space Theater on Blu-ray
Super Sammo: Warriors Two and The Prodigal Son on Blu-ray
Sex vs Violence: In the Realm of the Senses on Blu-ray
What's So Funny About Brit Horror? Vampira and Bloodbath at the House of Death on Arrow
Keeping the Beatles Alive: Get Back
   
 
  Galaxy of Terror Fear Is The Key
Year: 1981
Director: Bruce D. Clark
Stars: Edward Albert, Erin Moran, Ray Walston, Robert Englund, Bernard Behrens, Zalman King, Grace Zabriskie, Taaffe O'Connell, Sid Haig, Jack Blessing, Mary Ellen O'Neill
Genre: Horror, Trash, Science FictionBuy from Amazon
Rating:  4 (from 1 vote)
Review: A previous expedition to the planet of Morganthus has mysteriously disappeared, so the Master has ordered another one out to the barren world to take its place. The crew of the spacecraft Remus assemble and their Captain (Grace Zabriskie) is eager to set off, so gives them a thirty second countdown to get to their seats and strap themselves in. They just make it, the ship blasts off into space, and that's not all, as the Captain almost immediately sends the Remus into hyper-jump to reach the planet all the faster. The crew grumble, but are aware of her past experiences as the only survivor of a disaster in space and put up with her behaviour. Soon they are close to Morganthus and ready to attempt a landing...

Written by the director Bruce D. Clark and Mark Siegler, Galaxy of Terror was one of the last productions from producer Roger Corman's New World which had been so successful throughout the nineteen-seventies. But now the era of home video had dawned, and most of the future Corman presentations were to be found there. This film was obviously inspired by the success of Alien, but where that had just the one creature wandering around picking off the crew, this film has a whole host of ways for its crew to die, not just the more traditional threat of rubber monsters so it's in no way a rip-off, perish the thought.

That crew don't get much in the way of characterisation to handle, so can be broken down into the tough ones, the scared ones, the one who just might know what the hell is going on, and so forth. The Rebus crash-lands on the planet's inhospitable surface and they spot the wreckage of the previous ship through the gloom, so go off to investigate - the budget evidently didn't stretch to spacesuits, so presumably the atmosphere is just fine on Morganthus if you're thinking of holidaying there. Once on board, they find what crew there is dead and no clue as to how they died; they also have a habit of blowing up any bodies they stumble across - haven't they heard of post-mortems?

Whatever killed the last crew is still around, as we see when a jittery individual is eaten by something in the shadows. Quite a lot of this film takes place in the shadows, either to step up the creepy ambience or to hide the cheapness of the sets, as the actors walk down the same corridor for the umpteenth time, pretending that it's a different one. The sensible thing to do would be to leave as soon as possible, but with some people unaccounted for, they must stick around to be killed off in increasingly unlikely ways. Then they discover the huge pyramid nearby and realise that whatever the secret of Morganthus is, it must be housed there. But will it be revealed before they're all dead?

Will it be revealed at all, for that matter? Galaxy of Terror aims for a mysticism it doesn't earn, as it's plainly a showcase for special effects. Some of the cast have cult status such as Robert Englund (who, amazingly, doesn't die here) or Sid Haig which gives the film points of interest, along with featuring early work by James Cameron, and a few of the deaths are unusual enough to be memorable, including flying tentacles, Joanie from Happy Days exploding or a rape courtesy of a giant maggot, but the overall gloom offers no reaction but "So what?" It turns out that it's the crew's own fears that are their downfall, a development that wouldn't have been out of place in an episode of Star Trek, but here simply demonstrates the paucity of imagination. And what the significance of the final sequence is, could be anybody's guess, it looks as if there was a scene missing. Music by Barry Schrader.
Reviewer: Graeme Clark

 

This review has been viewed 11494 time(s).

As a member you could Rate this film

 
Review Comments (0)


Untitled 1

Login
  Username:
 
  Password:
 
   
 
Forgotten your details? Enter email address in Username box and click Reminder. Your details will be emailed to you.
   

Latest Poll
Which star probably has psychic powers?
Laurence Fishburne
Nicolas Cage
Anya Taylor-Joy
Patrick Stewart
Sissy Spacek
Michelle Yeoh
Aubrey Plaza
Tom Cruise
Beatrice Dalle
Michael Ironside
   
 
   

Recent Visitors
Mary Sibley
Enoch Sneed
Darren Jones
Mark Le Surf-hall
  Louise Hackett
Andrew Pragasam
Graeme Clark
  Desbris M
   

 

Last Updated: