Film Review: Galaxy of Terror (1981)

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(source: tmdb.org)

Among the films that are important for reasons that have little to do with their quality stands Galaxy of Terror, 1981 science fiction horror film directed by Bruce D. Clark. The film was produced by Roger Corman, legendary B-film guru, as a quick and cheap way to exploit the success of Ridley Scott's Alien. In the end, he would indirectly pave the way for some of the future blockbusters belonging to that genre.

The plot begins on a planet Xerxes where mysterious Master orders a space ship called "Quest" to go an rescue mission on isolated planet Morgenthus and try salvaging the crew of another vessel. The crew is led by slightly mentally imbalanced veteran pilot Trantor (played by Grace Zabriskie) who neverthless brings the ship on the destination before the schedule. There they found the wrecked ship and find some bodies of the crew killed in incredibly gruesome ways. Soon, its own crew begins to suffer the same fate before they realise that it all might have to do with a mysterious pyramid. Crew goes there, but it is again killed one by one, but in the end surviving member Cabren (played by Edward Albert) finds out that the monsters have more to do with themselves than the planet.

Script by Clark and Mark Siegler very intelligently mixed basic plot of Alien - mysterious monster killing astronauts – with the concept used in science fiction classics like Forbidden Planet and Solaris. However, in this film it is used for the series of scenes in which various characters are killed in very inventive in gruesome ways by various monsters. Nothing, however, tops the scene in which character of buxom technical officer Dameia (played by Taaffee O'Connell) gets overwhelmed by giant maggott, violently disrobed and raped to death. Controversial and very graphic images barely passed through MPAA censorship, but they did the trick Roger Corman was hoping for. Controversy and word of mouth about "maggot rape" scene helped Galaxy of Terror at the box office.

The film had solid and diverse cast, ranging from veteran Ray Walston (star of popular sitcom My Favorite Martian) to young Robert Englund, future Freddy Kruger in Nightmare on Elm Street horror series. But the most important name was behind the camera. Young James Cameron worked as a production designer and special effects supervisor and his talent has put very low budget of this film to good use, with unusual "otherwordly" sets creating atmosphere of mystery and dread. Cameron would obviously use some of the ideas, concept and general style of Galaxy of Terror as a template for his genre masterpiece Aliens. But such quality is still very far away from Galaxy of Terror. This film has problems with awful script, one-dimensional and usually forgettable characters which are given too little exposition. Some of the killing scenes are badly directed, and the ultra-fast pacing even allows for some unresolved plot issues. Galaxy of Terror can be recommended only to those less demanding viewers or more enthusiastic fans of exploitation cinema.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

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Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/28893-galaxy-of-terror
Critic: AA

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