Galaxy of Terror (1981)

As is the case with a slew of Roger Corman-produced films, this flick underwent several title changes -- Mindwarp: An Infinity in Terror, Planet of Horrors, Quest - before settling on the worst choice. When I picked it up, I actually thought it was an old '60s film, as the tape-cover aped some old-school EC sci-fi comics with the names `Ray Walston' and `Edward Albert.' I immediately assumed it was Eddie Albert of `Green Acres' fame, not his son, along with Walston, fighting space invaders in their plundering youth. I was wrong. very wrong. Instead, I got a rip-off of Alien (1979) with a heaping portion of David Hewitt's 1965 snooze-a-thon Wizard of Mars (aka Horrors of the Red Planet), though Walston is no John Carradine! Likewise, Galaxy of Terror is peppered with the `guard duty' slant from The Sentinel (1976) and the Jedi theme of the Star Wars films (seen here as `The Master'), as there's some sub-plot about a long line of guardians or protectors that make a rite-of-passage through the planet's funhouse. There may have even been a narrative of some sort surrounding 'symbolic salvation' at one point before all the gratuitous violence was jostled in! As is the case with Wizard of Mars, our astronauts land the Goodship Quest only to discover the remains of an ancient civilization replete with an ancient pyramid-like structure and horrible, horrible aliens (a giant sexually-charged mealworm, an arachnid, some self-propelling leeches, and an extra-terrestrial that looks like the masked assailant in George Romero's Season of the Witch). The cast is a mishmash of TV personalities, actors past their prime, a few Corman/New World regulars, and a few up-and-coming stars (a trend that arguably began with disaster films like Earthquake and Airport). Erin Moran of Happy Days is fairly good here as a telepathic `biosensor' (and fairly sexy too), as is pre-Freddy Krueger Robert Englund (perhaps the highlight of the film). Nevertheless, our cast is picked off one-by-one by an unknown force that preys on fear (personified in physical form). Most of the kills are pretty lame, and Taaffe O'Connell's big scene with the mealworm is ineffectual as well. Still, the crew is every bit as good as the one in Alien, though there's no Sigourney Weaver here (big difference). Unbelievably, this film helped launch the careers of Englund (who would have become a great actor had he not lapsed into Elm Street limbo) and James Cameron who was the production designer here (perhaps prepping him for Piranha II: The Spawning). Perhaps to Cameron's credit (I guess), the Martian landscape is convincing and the sets and visual effects are great, even if it steals sets from other films (Corman's Forbidden World). Plus, it has a few scenes of cool stop-motion photography (now a thing of the past) courtesy Brian Chin. On the bad side, it's too dimly lit (though the water-slide caverns and Tron-like wall of lights are well captured) and has inappropriate music (which you didn't get in Alien). Lastly, the characters have great names like Cabren, Alluma, Kore, Ilvar, Baelon, Quuhod. It's too bad this film didn't take off and spawn licensing deals, as this crew would have made great space-soldier action-figures, as their back-packs already look like Cobra Commander accessories! All in all, a operative film, albeit not the best I've ever seen.

Fmovies: The crew members of the Quest (Edward Albert, Erin Moran, Ray Walston, Robert Englund, Zalman King, Taffee O'Connell, Grace Zabriskie, Sid Haig, Bernard Behrens and Jack Blessing) are sent to a rescue mission on the barren planet Morganthus hoping to find the missing crew members of a previous mission. But their innermost fears on that planet comes alive to attack on their weakness. They must come face to face with their darkest fears or they will die.

Directed by Bruce D. Clark (Hammer, Naked Angels, The Ski Bum) made an entertaining, trashy, science-fiction horror film in the wake of "Alien". But the premise tries to do something different, the movie actually has something to say about fear. Produced by Roger Corman (Bloody Mama, The Intruder, The Little Shop of Horrors), he produced this movie on a budget of $700,000! Although the movie seemed to cost more than that. Imaginative designed by Three-Time Oscar Winner:James Cameron (Terminator 1 & 2, Avatar, True Lies) and Two-Time Oscar-Winner:Robert Skotak (Aliens, House on Haunted Hill "Remake", Titanic). Which oddly enough, the look of the movie does look like "James Cameron's Aliens" at times!

The Blu-ray has an sharp if occasionally grainy 1080P anamorphic Widescreen (1.85:1) transfer and an good PCM 2.0 mono sound. The Blu-ray also includes an informative and humorous commentary track by David DeCoteau, Robert Skotak, Alec Gillis and Taaffe O'Connell. The Blu-ray also includes an entertaining documentary of the movie with the new interviews by the cast & filmmakers, Photo Gallery and more.

"Galaxy of Terror" is occasionally silly and flawed in places but it is entertaining and the movie doesn't waste time to get the thrills. The film is infamous for the giant maggot-rape sequence! Also the picture could have used some fleshing out for the characters, especially the supporting characters like Walston and Zabriskie. As a fan of B Movies, this is worth checking out. (****/*****).

A spacecraft travels to a distant planet to rescue the crew of another space ship that has crashed. The craft has damages in the landing and needs to be repaired. Baelon (Zalman King) commands the rescue team formed by his rival Cabren (Edward Albert), Alluma (Erin Moran), Dameia (Taaffe O'Connell), Quuhod (Sid Haig) and the rookie Cos (Jack Blessing). While looking for survivors from the former expedition, Cos is murdered and they do not find any survivor. However they cannot depart from the planet due to an electromagnetic field. Commander Ilvar (Bernard Behrens) joins the team to search for the cause of the interference in the spacecraft. Captain Trantor (Grace Zabriskie) stays in the craft with the technician Ranger (Robert Englund) and the cook Kore (Ray Walston) but soon one by one of the rescue team members is killed in weird situations, created by the materialization of their own fears.

"Galaxy of Terror" is a great sci-fi B movie with a story with good premise, although having many clichés of the genre. The menaces of the planet are nothing but the fruit of the imagination of each person, projecting their inner fear. Further, this movie has probably one of the most erotic scenes I have ever seen. Dameia, the character played by the sexy Taaffe O'Connell, has a great fear of maggots, being a kind of "worm-phobic" person. When she meets the huge maggot, she starts screaming for help, while the creature with many legs rips her clothes off and rapes her. Her naked body is covered and lubricated by slime, and her initial panic becomes into a very intense multiple orgasms. Other good attractions are the names of James Cameron (as unit director in the bottom of the credits), the later soft porn director Zalman King ('Wild Orchid') and Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund in the cast. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Galáxia do Terror" ("Galaxy of Terror")

Note: On 18 October 2014, I saw this movie again. Note: On 18 March 2018 , I saw this film again on DVD.

Galaxy of Terror fmovies. I loved this film. It's got all the things you could ever want to see in a B-film -- fairly good actors chewing scenery, convoluted but interesting plot, some violence, a fast pace, and the strangest scene of all time! If you can find it, you should definitely check it out.

The film concerns about a team of astronauts assigned to save the outer space starship crew from a far planet . The astronauts become threatened by a weird , vicious life force as well as indiscreet , slimy aliens that embark upon a killing spree in the base and spaceship . They are unexpectedly devoured by hungry , vicious aliens intent on picking off the astronauts one by one . And an ominous monster in the form of a giant worm ; it is , in fact , a carnivorous , ominous maggot and is enormously spooky when the large slug eats a beautiful nude scream girl or when another young woman explodes . The picture contains an interesting twist at the ending.

It's a formula terror space film with tension , shocks , grisly horror , including some decent scares , graphic gore abounds and results to be quite entertaining . A lot of the special effects shots involving live actors combined with matte paintings and miniatures were done in camera . At the movie appears known actors with a future long career : The recently deceased Edward Albert (Butterflies are free) , Robert Englund (Freddie Kruger) , Zalman King (a notorious director of erotic films) , Ray Walston (famed comedy actor) and Grace Zabriskie (famous secondary actress) and Sid Haig (usual as baddie and blaxploitation genre) , the latter asked Roger Corman if he could play Quuhod as a near mute instead Corman agreed and let Haig portray Quuhod with almost no dialogue as Haig only says a single line in the whole movie . The visual production design by subsequently successful James Cameron creates a vivid sense of claustrophobic doom , enhanced further by the eerie musical score .

This disturbing and dark film was produced by Roger Corman with his New Word Pictures and tensely directed by B.Clark who managed to create shocks , generous violence and exciting horror sequences . According to Roger Corman , the film was budgeted at approximately $700,000 . The film went into production in the spring of 1981 at the Hammond Lumber Co. lot in Venice, CA, where New World's studio facilities were located. Additional sets , including the surface of the planet and the exterior of the pyramid , were built at a soon-to-be demolished Bekins Storage facility . David DeCoteau got his first Hollywood movie job working as a production assistant on this film , he was only 18 years old at the time. And followed by ¨Forbidden world¨ by Allan Holzman with Jesse Vint and Scott Paulin . It's a standard terror graphically gory, giving a paranoid dimension and turns out to be an ¨Alien¨ exploitation film , being a sloppy attempt to cash on this hit smash.

Early eighties Roger Corman sci-fi flick featuring a cast of b-grade actors on a mission to a distant planet to investigate a dying signal from a doomed space vessel. Once they arrive on the planet they soon discover that the crew is no more and that a black pyramid draws them in mysteriously. The cast's worst nightmares are manifested into reality as they are picked off one by one. But by whom exactly? If you were stumped as to who it was might I interest you in some low-property tax swamp land.

I have never been much of a Corman fan but this is one of his most ambitious and entertaining films. The fact that this is considered one of the 50 worst films of all time is not only silly but calls into question the bad movie credentials of whomever listed Galaxy of Terror. Have you even seen War of the Robots? Any movie that dispatches Erin Moran by crushing her skull and features the Hentai-like mutant worm raping to death a very buxom Taaffe O'Connell deserves cult status damn you! This is my third Zalman King film reviewed on this site, through no fault of my own mind you, and his limited range as an actor leaves little wonder why he made the move to directing light porn. Edward Albert is not very engaging as the male lead Cabren while I hope Sid Haig was paid by his screen time rather his amount of dialogue. Robert Englund, Ray "I've been old for 1000 years" Walston and Grace Zabriskie, who was great in Twin Peaks, round out the cast. If you happen upon this movie give it a watch. It's sure to entertain.