Year: 1978
Directed by Lewis Coates (Luigi Cozzi)
Caroline Munro, Marjoe Gortner, David Hasselhoff, Christopher Plummer, Robert Tessier, Joe Spinell, Judd Hamilton
Music by John Barry

You may have noticed I have been a little light on for posts lately. Well I have had a dose of the flu and been a bit out of it, but sometimes that can work in your favour. During my feverish state I watched Star Crash, a film that had slipped by me all these years. And, it probably has to do with my delusional fevered state, but I believe Star Crash to be one of the greatest films ever made. Sure, It’s a Star Wars rip-off, but Star Wars has dowdy white robed Princess Leia as a heroine. Whereas Star Crash has Caroline Munro in a black leather bikini. That in itself should be enough for most of mankind, but the film also has space ships, amazons, troglodytes, stop motion monsters, and special effects that look like they could have been take directly from Barbarella. Then we have Marjoe Gortner as some kind of energy guy who can see into the future. And it has Christopher Plummer as the Emperor of the Universe. Plummer once again proves that a decent actor can be given the most atrocious script to read, and still make the words resonate. Oh yeah, Hasselhoff’s in it too. But the movie is really about Caroline Munro in skimpy costumes.

The film starts with an imperial space cruiser searching for a secret planet in the haunted stars. This hidden planet is controlled by the totally evil Count Zarth Arn (Joe Spinell). And as the cruiser gets closer, the ship is attacked by red monsters. These aren’t your average monsters. They’re more like the bubbles in your red lava lamp, but they drive everyone on the ship mad. Well, almost everyone. The cruiser has three escape launches, and these are fired before the ship, well it sorta dies. It doesn’t really do anything. It just floats there.

Then we cut to our heroes. Stella Star (Caroline Munro) is a superb pilot, and Akton (Marjoe Gortner) is a superb navigator, but these two in the past, have breached the law. On their trail are two super space cops. The first is Thor played by Robert Tessier. You may remember Tessier as the bald header bruiser in Charles Bronson’s Hard Times, and many other 70’s action films with Bronson or Burt Reynolds. Here he is painted blue. The other cop is a robot cop (or Robocop if you prefer), named Elle (Judd Hamilton – voiced by Hamilton Camp in the English version). Elle is a pretty determined sort of character and never gives up. When Stella Star and Akton attempt to escape by flying blindly into hyperspace, Elle and Thor follow after them.

When Stella And Akton leave hyper space, they are in the Haunted Stars and are quite close to the drifting Imperial Cruiser. Stella goes for a space walk over to the cruiser and finds one man left alive, he is dehydrated and rambling about red space monsters. Before Stella and Akton can report the ship, Elle and Thor turn up and arrest them. And for their crimes, each of them is sent to separate penal colonies.

Meanwhile news of Stella and Akton’s discovery of the cruiser is relayed to the Emperor (Christopher Plummer). On board the cruiser was his son, Simon (Hasselhoff), and he wants to know happened. So he arranges for Stella and Akton to be released, and teamed up with Thor and Elle. Now all four and working on the same side, they set about tracking down the three launches that were fired from the Imperial Cruiser just as it was attacked.

Okay, I may have been a bit lavish in my praise saying this is one of the greatest films of all time, but it certainly falls into the ‘so bad, it is good category’. If you have a cold or flu, or a simply feeling a lit bit out of it, my prescription is one shot of Star Crash. It won’t cure you, but somehow you’ll feel a lot better.

Labels: Science Fiction