Galaxy of Terror (1981)

With the re-releasing and upgrading of many Roger Corman classics I thought it would be a perfect time to dive into some of these films and see if I could discover any that match the entertainment value of Death Race 2000 and Starcrash.  The two Corman classics being released this month (July 2010) are Galaxy of Terror and Forbidden World, which are both in their own ways looked at as Alien ripoffs.  Galaxy of Terror is one I've been looking forward to viewing for sometime, and not because of all the "worm scene" hype, but because the film's trailer is awesome. 

A spaceship is sent on a mission to investigate and retrieve any survivors from a recently discovered crash on a deserted planet.  But when the crew arrives they quickly succumb to the same fate and find themselves stranded on the planet.  Quickly they realize they're not alone, and no survivors remain from the first crash.  Whatever was responsible for killing them is now picking off this crew one at a time.  Eventually they stumble upon a giant pyramid, the source of whatever dragged them down to the planet, it's also responsible for making the crew's fears turn into reality, fears that literally end up killing them!

To say I expected a lot more from a B-movie almost sounds crazy, but I actually was pretty disappointed with this film after all the Corman films I've seen up to this point have been fairly enjoyable.  Galaxy of Terror is nothing more than a bad science fiction film where someone gets killed every ten minutes and half the time you can't see much of it because the lighting is so dark.  The plot of the film is a lot like Sphere (with Sharon Stone, and Dustin Hoffman) which was made after this but is plenty close in terms of your fears killing you, only Sphere was a lot more entertaining.  Aside from that the story itself is simply a mess, there's no point in bothering to understand what's going on because I don't think the writers even had a coherent thought about it.  But this horrible excuse for an alien flick has some big names associated with it, you might recognize Erin Moran (Joanie from Happy Days), Ray Walston (My Favorite Martian), and someone named James Cameron did the production design (who might even be responsible for the worm scene), with Bill Paxton on set design.

Now onto the worm scene. The only real memorable scene in the entire film (and everyone agrees on this) is the scene with actress Taaffe O'Connell, who plays one of crew members, is molested by a giant worm.  Each crew member's death is supposedly tied in with one of their deepest fears.  She happens to be afraid of worms, so enter gigantic worm.  But this is no ordinary gory death scene, this granitic worm essentially sucks O'Connell's clothes off and then proceeds to slobber all over her in a manner that could be referred to as being raped.  But what's even more controversial about this scene to the fanboys of the film is the fact that in the final few seconds she's alive it appears she's actually enjoying it.  Personally I find the scene a little overrated, but I do see it's appeal to some of the more hardcore B-movie fans, it's 100% corny yet at the same time 100% unique and compared to the rest of this deary film is easily the most memorable scene.

Overall,  Galaxy of Terror simply didn't do anything for me.  While it definitely fits into the genre of bad movies nothing was Starcrash quality in it's absurdity, and there's nothing about this film (except for the worm scene), that remotely makes it standout among the hundreds of other alien kill-fest films.  Had the story not appeared to be written while filming by an incoherent eight year old, and the characters been minutely cohesive and interesting there might be something here worth carrying on about, but unless you're a dyed in the wool B-movie fan I don't see this impressing you.

4/10

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