Galaxy of Terror

A low-budget sci-fi flick, at first glance heavily inspired by (and in many ways blatantly copying) Scott's Alien, and produced by B-movie guru Roger Corman, which is interesting today for perhaps only three reasons: first, it was ranked among the 50 worst films of all time in a poll of film critics three years ago; second, the then-unknown up-and-comer James Cameron was responsible for its production design and set design; and I'll save the third remarkable thing for last. It has to be said that those sets, which oddly enough also look expensive in a few shots, are the only well-crafted things in the entire film. The other ingredients belong somewhere in the galaxy alongside Ed Wood, Bert I. Gordon and other non-artistic legends. But taken through the eye of a B-movie enthusiast, it's also quite unintentionally funny at times, especially some of the inventive killings. Chief among them is the death of one of the crew – a black astronaut armed with ninja stars (while his colleagues wield laser guns) – he’s killed by his own severed hand, which crawls across the ground, picks up one of the stars, and knocks the poor black man down with a deadly throw. Had it been over-the-top like Raimi's Evil Dead II (which this scene reminded me of), it wouldn't be paradoxically as ridiculous as with Galaxy of Terror, which is deadly serious. However, Corman’s production does have one virtue: it is undoubtedly the alien-clone only film where the alien kills one of the crew members, or rather a female crew member, by rape in a rather explicit manner. Watching an alien monster from a galaxy far, far away hornily rip the spacesuit off a poor female astronaut is a truly unusual sight for the genre. (11/28/2007)

Galaxy of Terror has actors who have become quite legendary in the horror genre, but their time was yet to come, and their status built up gradually. It is perhaps thanks to them that the film isn’t quite forgotten, although it is more so a hodgepodge of everything possible. And it doesn't really work when it’s all put together. But you will definitely enjoy the special effects that are done in the classic way. I always prefer such effects to CGI. (02/26/2018)