Galaxy of Terror

For a long time, it irked me that Galaxy of Terror was considered a rip off of Alien. I often wondered if those who claim this ever watched Galaxy of Terror. This little New World B-movie indie maintained a nice cult following among us low budget sci-fi horror aficionados. I actually own a VHS copy I rented numerous times and before that I watched a second hand recording from my uncle (he recorded it off of late night HBO, I assume) on multiple occasions. This isn’t a movie where a decent budget was available, and Corman didn’t necessarily equip filmmakers with a lot to work with. I think that is an endorsement for Galaxy of Terror because despite of the limitations, I think this has a rather interesting premise and with all that darkness and the nightmares unleashed, the film at least appears inspired.
****

This is the B-movie cast we fans can only dream of. Zalman King isn’t known for his great acting, but his asshole is just fun to watch here (Second in Command as he informs Edward Albert). A B-movie excels with a good antagonist. Quite frankly, I’ve always enjoyed King’s overacting (while his face stills seems frozen in a state of apathy), and if he is to perform that better to be in a movie like Galaxy of Terror. He is basically just a jerk who throws his weight around and makes damn sure every one of the soldiers know he’s in charge.

Edward Albert is the all-smiles (well, for a while) and charismatic (I liked him) as the well-liked (except by King who considers him a rival) member of the landing party who seems to be a better candidate to lead a team into a dangerous situation than Zalman King. When he and Sid Haig (he with the bad-ass crystalline throwing stars) are looking for survivors (and surveying the damage of the ship which downed on a planet distant from their home world), it is obvious he has the wherewithal and good sense needed when on a mission with a wealth of risk for all involved.

 

I guess Alien is thrown around when Galaxy of Terror is mentioned for the basic skeleton of the plot. In regards to the suits and weapons, I think the crew dress closer to Battlestar  Galactica than Alien. The Master (a type of leader) orchestrates a rescue mission to a distant world when a ship goes down on it. Nine were on that ship, with five dead and four missing. We follow the humanoid crew as they search for survivors (although, it appears as if there are none) and fall prey to what killed them…right out of their nightmares does the “evil” attack them. This could very well be a “test” to see if any of them can be strong enough to face their inner fear, overcome it, and perhaps secure a destiny awaiting them. Really, to me, the only real similarity to Alien is the mission to a planet and a crew unaware of the real intentions behind why they are there. The evil aren’t alien creatures but the monsters from our deepest fear.

Some of the gore sequences leave much to be desired from the point of being horrifyingly effective. They are more unintentionally funny, which doesn’t seem to be what was expected as a result. The first victim is one of those green, easily-frightened (he’s basically shitting in his pants when their ship leaves their home world) junior officers (like a scared ensign). He is sent by Zalman King (one of the first signs he’s not cut out to be a lead officer) on his own to investigate the wrecked ship on the distant world and it’s obvious there was no reason for him to be alone as quivering-in-his-boots he was. But his death makes little logical sense because you’d think once King tells the team to leave the ship, this kid would be the first to get the hell off of it. Yet he is the last on the ship, hears a noise (still, you’d think he would haul ass the moment a turned can made an echo), looks towards where it comes from, picks up his laser pistol, stares, and then decides to turn tail and try to get off…too late, because this monster wraps its tail and tentacles around his body, chowing down on his skull…give it to the actor he can scream like a banshee!!!

Sid Haig’s thing is his “crystals”. His daggers are his life. They are like appendages. He doesn’t even use a laser pistol…refuses to. When he tries to stop a door (in the HR Geiger-stylized mountain where a signal emanates and the team plans to investigate; it has details of an elaborate ship) from closing with both his daggers and they shatter into dust. He reacts as if he lost a loved one. He never recovers. The “evil” uses his dependency on the crystals to kill him. They suddenly reappear in whole only for one of them to stab Haig in the arm, a piece breaking off and crawling under his flesh (yikes!!!). This is a really cool effects moment. Only to top that, Haig delivers a karate chop that takes his whole arm off (I didn’t make that up), and the severed arm hurls the second dagger which stabs him in the chest. Really wild, unpredictable kill scene that might be a little silly but damned if it doesn’t rock.

Bernard Behrens, as the commander of the mission, suffers a death that made me chuckle. It was the use of squirt/splat cartoon sounds as the “suction appendages” attach to him that gave me a good laugh. To say this was ill-advised, I would agree. His loss was unfortunate, but his decision to rope into the center of the mountain (later to be explained in more detail as to what it truly is) without listening to his two younger officers (Albert & Taaffe O’Connell) regarding how better equipped they are instead of him to climb in there, and basically seals his doom accordingly.

Speaking of O’Connell, her death certainly put a whole new spin on the emergence of the monster from latent fantasy. While a worm crawling over the severed arm of Haig morphs to gigantic size, it decides to rip her suit off and hump her silly. Spending a few moments screaming, eventually O’Connell kicks the bucket while in a state of erotic bliss! All naked and slimy, O’Connell bites the big one with science fiction borrowing from 70s exploitation.

 

 

 

The crew’s ship has been damaged by a force that dragged them to the world, leaving them to not only investigate as the mission required but to await repairs and get the fuck off this hellhole planet they’re currently stuck. All the wreckage you see (the planet favors a large junk heap with twisted metal as far as the eye can see. The atmosphere is polluted and dark; this isn’t tourist friendly).

Grace Zabriskie has been in a little bit of everything (Twin Peaks, anyone?) and her commander in Galaxy of Terror has more than a few screws loose. There was one poor mission that forever haunts her and it will be the end of her. Opening an air lock after packing a laser rifle as if on the task of engaging the ultimate enemy, she loses. Her face’s flesh gone; this is a really cool “shriek” moment. I have to be honest: I’m a lifelong fans of the Knotts/Conway Holmes/Watson spoof, Private Eyes, and Zabriskie will always come to mind because of that movie even though I’ve seen her in a lot of stuff. As certifiable basket case, she’s fun to watch in GoT. Her part isn’t much (she doesn’t have a lot of screentime), but she makes the most of it.

I was thinking of a way of describing the inside of the mountainous “source of the force field” where the signal came from that drug our team’s ship to the surface, and I think it is sort of like entering the body of a life form. Along the walls you see “nerves” and there are “port holes” that resemble chute-like passage-ways that could lead anywhere. Like the human body, this triangular mountain is a complex organism.

Erin Moran of Happy Days is a big name in the cast although her television prestige had only limited mileage. Eventually, she had the same problems a lot of child stars do. I like her edge to the character in GoT. She doesn’t take shit from King although he treats her with contempt. She portrays a sensitive who psychically reads lifeforms. She has claustrophobia and her fate is probably, next to O’Connell’s, the most memorable. The tunnels of the mountain are the perfect horror show for someone with claustrophobia. Moran is vocal and tough, but she’s no match for the evil that preys on her deep seeded fear of being confined in a tight space. That she would be “compressed” by it is something to experience. Joanie exploding as a description to see GoT sells itself, doesn’t it? She balks the whole time about returning (or going in there at all) to the mountain, knowing it houses something troubling and dangerous. No one listens [natch].

Zalman King basically falls prey to a monster. Most of us have a nightmare monster/boogeyman that could manifest itself if so allowed. It wasn’t like he would be missed. He had a darkness about him that never quite received proper development (getting that in a movie like this shouldn’t be expected). We know that he took his rank seriously and was a scoffing cynical prick. Not a nice guy.

Fortunate for Robert Englund, there was already one guy who filled the role of skinny young adult fraidy-cat (that being Jack Blessing, the first to go, besides the opening victim who was the sole surviving crew member yet to be destroyed by his fear), so he had a chance to live a little longer. Hell, those writing the script might have felt a little generous towards him, allowing him to survive. His battle with his dark half could go either way.

There’s no horror here we don’t create ourselves.

Okay, so the finale kind of fills in some cryptic details earlier fed to us in a “game” played between the Master and an old woman who has some control over the game. She understands the Master’s role, but he isn’t willing to listen to her when he foretells “his end”. The game is later identified when Albert (I guess Englund served his purpose just to make it past his fear) makes it through the mountain (soon to be called the Pyramid, an ancient toy from an ancient race) and comes in contact with The Master, learning that the race created the Pyramid to test (initiation) for a new replacement who could lead. The one currently serving as Master (Ray Walston; Fast Times at Ridgemont High; My Favorite Martian; Picket Fences) is old and ready to turn it over to someone else deserved to take this unwanted position. To govern their world, be in charge, and not let it spiral into chaos, the Master is of vital importance, but what it takes to secure it (whether voluntary or involuntary) is quite a toll. Albert seeing Moran’s body horribly mutilated, and having to face his undead crew, in exact condition (except Moran, because this was to trick him momentarily into affectionately embracing her only to nearly die at her hands) when killed by their fear, it all provokes an anguish that leaves him in woe.

Walston does his part. I think he always has this air of mystery about him; even when he is “just a cook” on the ship, and the crew treat the job with such little regard, I think many or most viewers will feel he’s more than what he appears. Especially when talking with Zabriskie. Englund sets the machine in motion when he begins to suspect Walston, telling others not to trust him. Englund just confirms what I think viewers will already surmise…that Walston’s role rises beyond just a lowly cook on a ship with a mission of futile rescue.

Albert’s making it to the end wasn’t that much of a surprise. What was a pleasant surprise was seeing Englund survive. I guess he won’t perish, although the Pyramid “lights up” and Albert’s body transforms into the Master, so whether or not Englund makes it off the planet alive is up to his new leader. I think the rather daft overall twist isn’t as much of an importance as the journey through the Pyramid and the fear terrors that attack each character. Wild kill scenes, imaginative and warped as they are, and a cool cast of familiar faces (actors at various stages of their career) are what I take away from it. I am part of the cult following. I can imagine many sci-fi horror junkies like yours truly had spent many a Saturday night taking this movie in late with a bucket of popcorn. I haunted many a rental store looking for stuff just like this. It shouldn’t be a surprise that I own a VHS copy, should it? Many of my peers who grew up with this probably do.

The sets may be piecemeal and redressed (Corman wouldn’t let sets go to waste, even as they were to be torn down in days time), but I think the Pyramid, especially, and wrecked ship investigated (when Forbidden World is viewed, I can only imagine anyone who has seen GoT will immediately compare the two) are eye candy for the likes of me. Designs where a ship seems to have been torn apart with giant claws that hacked away at its insides or carry resemblances to actual lifeforms carry a lot of weight with me. I feel rewarded when the effort is there, and I think GoT had some bright minds behind the scenes. Names like James Cameron and Bill Paxton are used as trivia for GoT (Can you believe these two were behind the scenes for this film?), as to further prove Corman's worth as a "discover of talent" is too easy to resist when reviewing something like this, so I left down here at the end. It is neat to know that everyone starts some place. GoT is quite a ride, that’s for sure.