Galaxy Of Terror (1981)

If Battle Beyond the Stars was Roger Corman’s Star Wars rip-off, Galaxy of Terror is his Alien…

With $700,000 and two horror film icons, Kiwi exploitation director Bruce D. Clark made an infamous cult classic: Galaxy of Terror (1981). Part Star Wars, part Alien this notorious sci-fi flick is best known for only one of it’s 81 minutes of runtime, the minute which features a disgusting scene in-which a buxom blonde character is raped-to-death by a giant maggot. That got your attention… But I gotta be honest, I’m not looking forward to going through that again, it scarred me as a child. So to build up some immunity, I’m going to a safe-space for a minute…

“Where death is only a nightmare away!”

Tagline

OK… that’s a pretty good tagline.

Oh, I teased that there are two horror icons in the film, I guess I should explain that further. Well, we have a rare treat! Captain Spaulding and Freddy Krueger… in space! Sid Haig plays the shaman muscleman of the film, a character named Quuhod. I once dated a girl named Quuhod… but that’s another story altogether.

The master of nightmares Robert Englund plays Ranger, the crew’s navigator. This film also features two other famous film stars in very different roles of the film crew: Bill Paxton was the film’s set dresser, after failing to earn a role in the film’s cast. Bill worked under the film’s art director, James Cameron. In fact, Cameron made good directorial suggestions and improvised an ingenious way to animate a boring pile of live maggots for a scene using a live current of electricity. This creative-thinking impressed producer Roger Corman and lead to to an expansion of roles for the upstarting young filmmaker. Three years later, Cameron was awarded $6.4 million (almost 10x the budget of Galaxy of Terror) to make a little film called The Terminator (1984). That films success combined with his display of talent on the Corman films launched Cameron’s career. Ironically, the set designs, second-unit direction, unrelenting commitment and overall determination to production won Cameron the coveted role as director of the Alien sequel that was eventually green-lit by Fox. In other words, Cameron’s work on a low-budget Alien rip-off film earned him the director’s chair in the official Alien sequel. That’s impressive!

Also working on the film as a rookie production assistant was hack-filmmaker David DeCoteau… A.K.A. Richard Chasen… get it? Spoilers, he likes men.

Let’s do this.

A spaceship called Remus crash-lands on the mysterious planet Morganthus. ‘Planet Master of Xerces’, some kind of Galaxy-wide ruler, sends a search & rescue team to the crash site in their vessel called the Quest. The team consists of a motley crew of white people: a raucous captain with a dubious past, straight-laced but older executive officer, a clairvoyant and her boy-toy studmuffin, a hotheaded lieutenant who leads the away-team, a hulking combat expert, a jittery rookie, a boring guy and a cook.

For some reason the captain is also the helms-person and she recklessly pilots the ship from one potential disaster to the next due to her impatience and ‘devil-may-care’ attitude. How would someone that irresponsible be allowed to pilot a space-ship with a vital mission and crew of people hand-selected by the ruler of the universe? Well, anyway, she loses control and tells the commander that it’s out of her hands… then she accidentally doesn’t kill the entire crew. To her surprise, the ship doesn’t plow into the surface of Morganthus, instead the on-board computer navigation system takes control and makes life-saving adjustments. The ship crash-lands with non-life-threatening damage. Well, despite the captain’s efforts, everyone survives uninjured. Sorry, Captain… better luck next time? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Wasting no time (this IS a Roger Corman production, after all) the shaken crew don their spacesuits and embark on the treacherous expedition to the crashed Remus. The spacesuits may look somewhat familiar to fans of Battlestar Galactica (1978). Once the show was canceled, the wardrobe was sold to Roger Corman for use in this production.

The rescue team enters the decimated Remus and they immediately discover a jump-scare as the corpse of one of the Remus crew dangles lifelessly from the ceiling. Startled, they torch the body and move forward. The away team leader, Baelon, splits everyone into smaller groups to cover more ground. Cos, the rookie of the team, proceeds through the ship alone, terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought. This guy acts so stupid, so petrified by fear it’s insane. There is no way Cos was trained for deep space search & rescue or is capable of handling the mental strain of being in a high-stress situation. Someone somewhere in the system would have told him that he doesn’t have what it takes. And why Cos was sent to explore the ship alone is a clear indication that Baelon is a sadist who wants to get the young man killed. If that was his goal, mission accomplished. Cos is the first member of the Quest crew to be isolated and attacked, his head ripped to pieces by a tentacle monster lying in the shadows. Eat your heart out, Japan…

Soon after, the Quest crew find an ancient alien pyramid and decide to investigate. The commander assigns the task of entering the large structure to himself. After finding a port on the side of the massive structure, the commander tosses down a rope and repels into the void. In doing so, he exposes himself to some nasty little worm things concealed in the walls. They attach themselves to the man and I guess he dies? The rest of the crew find a safer way into the structure, but the doorway seals itself shut afterwards and they are trapped inside. Immediately, the crew begin to break and disregard their clueless leader, Baelon. Quuhod isolates himself at the entrance, to provide protection to the rest of the crew. But the troubled man starts hallucinating and cuts his own arm off. And that’s the last we see of Sid Haig… what a waste.

Meanwhile, back on the Quest, Ranger enters the mess hall and finds Kore, the ship’s cook, reading a book. It’s a cute scene because Englund’s reaction to the book is so funny: he sees it and recognizes it as something rare and unusual. When Kore notices that the ancient object has drawn Ranger’s attention, the older man offers to let Ranger examine it. Englund throws up his hands up and retreats backwards from the paper-bound object like it was about to strike at him with hidden fangs. He replies: “Oh, no. It’s OK.”

Back at the pyramid, Dameia finds Quuhod’s lifeless body and severed arm. She incinerates the remains, which they do to all the corpses they find, and is attacked by a lusty space-worm. Wow, Roger, I haven’t heard of such inappropriate sexual acts since reading the latest Hollywood casting couch testimonies. What is it with these producers? Such perverts… It’s sad, but true. But I have the backstory to this particular case, it boils down to Roger Corman living up to his reputation of being a very efficient and clever filmmaker. Corman promised the investors that the film would feature a Taaffe O’Connell sex-scene and a gruesome death-scene as-well. To save time, Corman put the two together. The actress agreed to a nude scene, but NOT a rape scene. Corman isn’t the kind of man who takes no for an answer, and after some contract renegotiation, O’Connell agreed to being raped to death by a giant worm-monster. Money… it does amazing things.

The set design is outstanding. It’s obvious they are imitating the organic/inorganic amalgamation themes from the twisted imagination of H.R. Giger and his art-design for the Alien series, but hey, it’s creepy and it works. That combination of lighting and environmental design work makes for a wonderfully disturbing atmosphere that a true sci-fi horror film needs. James Cameron knocked it out of the park!

Kore and Ranger feel the Quest shake and determine that someone is firing the ship’s weapons into space. Ranger is then knocked unconscious by Kore, who then finds the captain seated at the ship’s laser cannon control station. They talk about her past experience in space-battles… then she shows signs of space-derangement. She thinks she’s fighting something or someone, grabs a space-gun and runs through the space-halls screaming. Ranger wakes from his slumber and finds Kore… just as they see the captain on a monitor combust into flame in an air-lock… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Later, the explorers return to the Quest and everyone works together to fill in the plot to this point. Kore volunteers to go back with the rest and lend them a hand… to some protest due to his inexperience ‘in the field’. Upon return to the pyramid, the crew goes through a labyrinth of alien substructure. Baelon keeps hearing things and starts doing the whole ‘1,000-yard Stare’, which freaks out the rest of the crew, especially Alluma, the psi-sensitive member of the group. Kore figures out how to operate a control panel built into a wall next to the room’s only door. The button on the panel has two funtions, to open the door while simultaneously turning out the room’s lights. Baelon orders him to close a door behind them, which also turns out the lights. This has a negative effect on the group’s morale. Baelon needs some juice of Sapho to calm the nerves… he’s going to get everyone killed!

“It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.”

Piter De Vries

Apart from borrowing the set design from Alien (1979) this film also has similar character framework, Kore is the untrustworthy character – the Ash of the film. The Dallas character is a guy named Cabren, who is also the love interest of the aforementioned Alluma.

Fun Fact: In one draft of the Alien (1979) script, Dallas and Ripley were supposed to be romantically involved.

So, Baelon is cut off from the rest of the group, trapped in a dark room with an alien creature. On a few occasions, it reveals itself to toy with the man, then recedes back into the dark. But Baelon seems too afraid to actually fire his little laser gun at the nasty beast. Just when his ‘shoot-first’ tactics would be beneficial, he’s too scared to pull the trigger. The crew try to get the door to open back up, but not before Baelon is eviscerated and thrown down into an endless pit.

Ranger succumbs to hysteria and freaks out.

Kore disappears.

One by one, each of the remaining crew step through the triangular doorway, illuminated by a white light. They go to three different rooms. Cabren goes to a hallway where he can watch Alluma, but can’t help her. Ranger is attacked by a doppelganger, but recognizes that it’s not real when his space-gun proves to have no practical effect on the creature. He then overcomes his fear of it. Alluma is attacked by a tentacle monster, doesn’t recognize that it’s not real and basically is crushed to death… Not sure how that works, but whatever.

Ranger and Cabren reunite and move on. Along a staircase, they see Kore the cook. Ranger totally checks-out of the film, sits down and says “I’m done.” Cabren pursues the older man, alone. In a dimly lit chamber at the top of the steps, Kore reveals his true identity: he’s the ‘Planet Master of Xerces‘. That’s right, the Ruler of the Universe was serving these people Fruity Pebbles less than 24 hours ago. Cabren demands an explanation for this mess… and more importantly, why his beloved Alluma had to die.

“It’s a game.” A test for the children of Planet Master’s race. They must face their fear or die… very Spartan. And now, Cabren must face his fears – a tag-team match against all the alien creatures previously featured in the film. So, he rolls around shooting the beasts with his laser gun and they fade out of existence… then, he has to fight off his dead comrades one at a time. But wait, how is that facing his fear? Wouldn’t he be more afraid of losing Alluma or something? I mean I know she’s already dead, but her ‘death’ could have been saved for Cabren’s test. Also, he knows he’s being tested, so doesn’t that change things? I mean, all he should do is announce that he doesn’t fear what doesn’t really exist and he passes the test, right? Why does the laser gun work on these manifestations but they wouldn’t work on Ranger’s doppelganger? I’m confused.

After the special effects extravaganza, Cabren’s crotch shoots the Planet Master of Xerces, draining him of his space-magic. Look, that’s what happens… don’t ask me to explain it. They have a conversation where Planet Master of Xerces tells Cabren “You’re the man now, Dog” but Cabren is defiant, still writhing in hatred and wont accept his new Planet Master title. Not until he incinerates his predecessor, which he does. Then, Cabren’s head glows red and the movie ends.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And for no real reason, here’s Widowmaker by W.A.S.P. (Clint Eastwood version)