Roger Corman sci-fi triple feature!

Yesterday I got to see the classic Ridley Scott's Alien on the big screen, digitally restored in all it's glory. It was an amazing viewing experience, I know that sounds corny but it was true. Out of movies I have seen in theaters vs on a tv, this has easily been one of the biggest differences I have experienced. The scope and detail of the sets is astounding, the sound of the ship filling up a dark theater, it was something else. It is still playing at The Plaza Theatre in Atlanta until after this Thursday, 7/10/14 so if you can GO SEE IT! It is easy to see then when this movie first came on the scene how people would flock to copy it and make a buck, so without further or do lets look at a couple of attempts via the king of cheap cheese: Roger Corman, who made a couple of sci-fi movies heavily inspired by Alien in the early 1980's.

Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)
Ok, so this is a rip off of Star Wars primarily, and doesn't really have a connection to Alien, but I wanted to talk about it anyway. Predictably it starts off with a long shot beneath a huge space ship, which actually looks pretty good. The interior... not so much. The big ship is full of ass holes, which apparently have nothing better to do than be all empirey and conquer people who don't appear to have anything worth taking. The wizard of oz head booms our that he is gonna take this dirt planet's harvest, because EVIL. Oh wait, the poor agrarian people are going to get some mercenaries with hearts of gold to defend themselves from evil bastards who want their crops? Never seen that one before. They actually titled the Spanish dub The Magnificent Seven in Space, and Robert Vaughn was basically the same character in both this and Magnificent Seven. The main character reminds me of Sheldon from Big Bang Theory so I hate him. But its made up for by Hannibal from the A-Team being a literal space cowboy. As they mosey around they just about trip over people who want to help fight against the evil Sador, seems like if everyone hates him they should have kicked his ass already. In addition to Hannibal and Robert All-Business Vaughn they end up with a nerd girl who fixes things, some weird white dudes, a sexy viking chick with a ridiculous helmet, and a sleestak. Its pretty cornball, but there are some nice spaceship porn shots of the exteriors. The interiors are more Flash Gordon or Star Trek OS than gritty Ralph MacQuarry or HR Giger looking. Although one looks like a flying ball-sack. Not even joking. Or maybe they're boobs, it's right there on the poster. The movies is pretty damn ridiculous, and I am not entirely sure how much of it is intentionally goofy but you will definitely laugh at something.

Galaxy of Terror (1981)
Starting off with weird new-agey sci-fi spirituality mumbo jumbo (that barely comes into play agian through the rest of the movie) you might think this movie is gonna be a different type of shit. Actually it starts to get a lot better, especially the last 2/3rds of the movie. A weird demi god being that rules an space empire realizes one his ships found some ancient alien pyramid thing, and he wants more people to check it out. even though its evil and makes weird stuff happen. So they send a crack team of misfits with their own personal demons and some dirt between them. They fly over, fuck their ship up on the way down, explore the spooky pyramid and shit goes further south as they start to get picked off by a mysterious force that seems to play on their fears. Sid Haig plays a mute, because he hated his dialogue, and he probably gives the best performance of anyone here. Robert Englund is in this too but he was kind of under utilized, they could have had him go much crazier.There are some shots in the halls of the space ship where its really obvious that they used take out containers from McDonalds to decorate the halls. There are also some shots that look really cool and some neat effects. There are also some horribly cheesy sound effects, it is really hard to suspend your disbelief when the monster is making the same slobbery goop sound used in Scooby Doo. I really did enjoy this one, but it falls a little short of being actually pretty good which is really frustrating.

Forbidden World (1982, AKA Mutant)  Anyway the plot of this one involves a research lab on a remote planet that was attempting to genetically produce high-yield food or something. But Monsanto fucked up just like ally the hippies keep telling us and produce a damn monster that runs amok through the station and eats people and steals their DNA... or something. It is shameless in its ripping off of Alien. It does however include more gore and boobies, as a good ripoff should, also some really terrible synthesizer music. That being said there are some shots in this that are really cool, and only some of them involve tits. You may notice some similarities between the other movies I have mentioned, and by similarities I mean he recycled a bunch of shit. Particularly battle footage at the start from Battle Beyond the Stars, and the Big Mac container walls from the Galaxy of Terror set. What a forward-thinking, environmentally conscious producer! Remember, reduce, reuse, recycle! According to IMDB there during an early screening of the movie one viewer laughed out loud during a scene which Corman took as an insult and hit the dude. It's a pretty enjoyable flick, what it actually lack is a little more insanity and weirdness to push it over the edge of cult classic-ness. Its pretty straightforward bug hunt, and a serviceable vehicle for action and gore beats that only really lacks in film and sound clarity and the acting. The effects aren't really THAT bad, neither are the sets despite being partially made from take-out containers. My least favorite part is the child-like voice the android, robot guy has.

Out of the three, I think I enjoyed Galaxy of Terror the most, but I can see Battle Beyond the Stars being a more enjoyable experience for a group of friends drinking and watching something ridiculous. Galaxy of Terror was really close to being actually good, if it had just a bit more production value and maybe a script re-write.

Review: Attack of the Crab Monsters

Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)
Too many sea monster movies yet? The confusing thing about this one is that barely makes any use of probably the main reason to even make a beach monster movie: chicks in bikinis. Doubly weird is that its Roger Corman who is usually not shy about showing us some ladies. Instead the cast is almost entirely dude scientists. Its not bad though, well I mean its still entertaining, and its mercifully short at barely over an hour. It starts off with this crew of people coming ashore to this island, one guy falls out the boat and we get a quick glimpse of one of the crab monsters before they pull his headless corpse out of the water. We don't even know who these people are or what they are doing (except that one of them is the Professor from Gilligan's Island) before one of them gets killed! Corman doesn't like to waste time. They seem to be far less concerned than you would expect by this, and continue on with their mission, although we still have no clue what it is. This one fat french (I think) guy starts talking about how quiet it is there, and says something about talking to the voices of the people that used to be there (foreshadowing). I'll skip ahead to the part where they tell you each one of these guys and the one gal is a scientist in a different field and they are there to study the effects of radioactive fallout left over from an H-bomb test. What a simpler time this was. There was also another team there before them but it has since gone missing. The quickly realize that apart from seagulls and crabs there are no other living animals on the island. Time passes and they start hearing strange sounds at night, and eventually disembodied voices. They start trying to investigate and realize its all coming from giant crab monsters. The rest of the movie follows suit with them trying to survive which means killing the hungry hungry crustacean. The monster effects are awesome and its pretty great how it talks to them with the voices of the dead scientists, mostly trying to mock them. Its a fun little popcorn movie, an almost textbook example of hokey 50's atomic critter flicks.

We need something quick and dirty, just like Corman would do, something like an:

Atomic Crab Claw Shot

1 oz Clam juice (I'd use crab juice but I think that only exists in the Simpsons)
3 oz Vodka
1 oz Blue Curacao
2 oz warm clarified butter

Shake the first three ingredients with ice and strain and pour into a shot glass. Pound that shit down and chase it with clarified butter before you start hearing the voices. After you vomit you can wipe it up with your ascot.