Look, there is no way in the universe that a movie starring Edward “Stare as Blank as Empty Space” Albert and Joanie Cunningham (er, Erin Moran) is going to be quote-unquote good. So know that going in, lower the bar on your entertainment value, and you might find the B-movie schlockfest Galaxy of Terror to be a guilty pleasure of modest proportions.
Marketed as an Alien rip-off, but thematically closer to Forbidden Planet, Galaxy is your typical Roger Corman cheapo that drops a gaggle of mismatched space personnel onto a planet where every fear is made real. If it is at all prescient, peoples of the future will be solely afraid of goopy rape-worms and giant leeches, with a modicum of psychological self-doubt thrown in. But only a modicum, as no audience pays to watch Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger of the Nightmare on Elm Street series) do battle with himself. Bring on the rape-worm!
The real pleasures here are half-inadvertent and half-inspired. Future soft-porn dynamo Zalman King (Wild Orchid) apparently understood “acting” to be “yelling.” The sexual dynamics between Albert and Mr. C’s daughter have a creepy brother/sister vibe. The rape-worm scene is disturbing for all the wrong reasons, obviously thrown in to give some unwarranted nudity to undiscerning pervs who don’t mind that the object of their fetishization is GETTING RAPED BY A GIANT WORM! As much as I’ve tried, I actually cannot make the whole of the plot make any sort of narrative sense. I’ve probably given it more thought than the screenwriter.
True pleasure comes from veteran Ray Walston (TV’s My Favorite Martian), bringing his usual twinkling charm to his scenes and providing the only watchable performance. And substantial kudos go to future powerhouse James Cameron for bringing an unexpected sense of style in his work as production designer. The landscapes are suitably dark and brooding (echoing his work just five years later in Aliens); the sets are fairly intriguing; and on the whole, the movie looks a hell of a lot better than it really deserves.
And you have to love Twin Peaks‘ Grace Zabriskie as a maverick, disaster-haunted space pilot who has my vote as the worst pilot of all time. Her ship loses power mid-flight; she hits some switches for two seconds; then slouches forlornly as she says, “Well, I’ve done all I can do.” I haven’t laughed that hard in years. It’s all in the delivery. —Corey Redekop
Remember seeing this on the big screen (under the title Planet of Horrors) on a double bill with Chu-Chu and The Philly Flash (of all things). The audience broke out laughing during the Rape Worm scene.