Galaxy of Terror (1981)

Perfect cast and a good story

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The acting in this movie is really good.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

From the first 5 minutes you can tell this is going to be daft. The characters are fairly one dimensional (the rebel captain, the nervous noob, the old man commander), the names and setting are borderline fantasy in genre rather than hard sic fi, and the storyline is fairly silly - characters do daft things for no obvious reason. The cast is a lot of b movie and tv stars you'll recognise even if you can't name them (assuming youre the right sort of age). This is also a rip off of Alien, and might almost have been an inspiration to Aliens... But don't let the comparison fool you into thinking this is of the same quality. This is pure trash, but without having pretensions to be any thing more than that. Its just dumb fun - so just switch off your brain and enjoy the ride.

It's difficult for me to recommend this film to anyone as GALAXY OF TERROR is certainly not a "good" movie. However, among the other ALIEN clones I would say it fares the best in really recreating the "feeling" of the original. So much so, in fact, that I think it certainly helped the case for 2nd unit director James Cameron to find work directing the official sequel ALIENS.Actually, the concept for this feel feels much more in line with, say, SPHERE or EVENT HORIZON with an ensemble cast on some dark mission in the dark corners of space battling their worst nightmares on a harsh and unforgiving environment.As far as environment goes, this film captures it in spades. Considering it's a Roger Corman production with an even smaller budget than its predecessor (the previous year's BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS), GOT boasts surprisingly credible production design and special effects. The costume design reminds one of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and the sound reminiscent of "Star Trek" (complete with the same photon torpedo effects), though all given a unique gloomy atmosphere of dread thanks to its special effects department and much of Barry Shrader's resourceful, low-tech, but effective score. Jacques Haitkin's nightmarish cinematography helps a lot too, often going monochromatic blue and red further heightening the shocks.Structured like a horror movie at a slim, fast-paced 81 minutes, the film puts a lot more creative energy into staging some quality kills than setting up its characters. In fact, the gritty tone is nearly destroyed early on with some comparatively bright and cheery scenes of the human home-world (not Earth?) and its pathetic attempt to set up the universe and characters. We only get via a brief voice-over that the home planet "Xerxes" is run by some kind of omnipotent "Master" who exercises unquestioned control over space missions but we never see him do anything powerful. As one-dimensional as he is, none of the other characters come off as even slightly more interesting than The Master and we never really get to know or care about any of them, other than that they're played by an assortment of colorful recognizable B- movie and TV stars.A better script would have propelled this into the major leagues, but as it stands, GALAXY OF TERROR remains an effective cult classic with enough gore, shocks, scares, and atmosphere to provide enjoyment for less-discriminating B-movie fans.

I had never heard about this until I came across it on Netflix. I saw that Sid Haig was in it and couldn't wait to check it out and see what it had to offer. However, it didn't offer very much.Galaxy of Terror is fun movie to watch ironically. Its an odd mix of Alien and Event Horizon. The film takes place on a strange planet where your worst fear can come to life! Each member of the crew aboard the Quest is in fight for their life!Fear is the driving force behind this eighties b-movie. Every member of the crew that dies has one thing in common. The deaths are all based on the person's fear. This makes for some pretty neat kills, albeit weird and strange. But that is what I love about these movies. Even though this movie was trash, it had some really creative death scenes and with Roger Corman behind it, there was some really decent sleaze. Case in point is the maggot rape scene. Just let that sink in for a bit. The movie is chock full of cheesy effects and schlock. Girls, Guts, and Ghosts are what you should be expecting when your going into this. Just try not to judge them so harshly.This movie has great timing and a pretty decent cast. Robert Englund, Edward Albert, Erin Moran, Taaffe O'Connell, Zalman King, Grace Zabriskie, and of course Sid Haig. The problem is with the story and practicality. I know as well as anyone that you have to kind of throw those two things out the window. However, it's really hard in this case. This movie has way too many holes. It feels like it left a ton of stuff out. Characters were badly introduced or explained and because of that they never really rounded out. The story starts to lag towards the end. However, luckily it only has an 88 minute run time.

*Spoiler/plot- Galaxy of Terror, 1981. A group of scientists and corporate officials go to find a life form that is new to all. A corporate spy takes things over to benefit the corporation.*Special Stars- Erin Moran, Ray Walston. Ed Albert, Robert Englund, Sid Haig, production design-James (Titanic) Cameron *Theme- Corporate leaders are evil.*Trivia/location/goofs- Color. A poor knock-off of the 'Aliens' films. This film was Erin Moran's first appearance well before her role in 'Happy Days'. James Cameron built the sets out of thousands of McDonald's cartons for an inexpensive but successful spaceship walls appearance. A female crew member has worm like intercourse with one of the film monsters. Some topless nudity was required.*Emotion- A somewhat tired plot and theme for these sci-fi films even though being accomplished in a visually satisfying way.*Based on- Ridley Scott's 'Alien' franchise.