Prepare to be horrified. Prepare to be terrified. For you are about to enter!
GALAXY OF TERROR (1981)
Dispatched to a distant world to rescue the spacecraft Remus, astronauts aboard the starship Quest instead find their comrades gruesomely slaughtered.
This beauty of a picture was produced by legendary producer Roger Corman. If you recognize the name you’ll know how this review will go. Corman is legendary for producing bad movies on a shoestring budget. Infamously legendary. His films are so notoriously bad they border on phenomenal. Galaxy of Terror is no exception. It’s bad. Like, hideously awful.
We open to a man with a glowing head and an old woman playing chess. In voice over the woman explains how she’s an oracle or something. It has no relevancy to the story. I guess it’s suppose to set up the larger universe in which this story is set. Anyway, the man with the glowing head is called the 
Master. I guess he’s like President of the Galaxy or something. A ship has gone missing and he’s eager to find out why. He orders Commander Ilvar (Bernard Behrens) to get a ship together and that he’ll select the crew personally.
The crew of the spaceship Quest head off on their search and rescue mission led by the extremely unstable Captain Trantor (Grace Zabriskie). She’s a war veteran and is constantly having Vietnam style flashbacks. She is someone who you clearly don’t want piloting a spacecraft. I don’t care if she was the last surviving whatever.
We quickly arrive on a planet where the Remus is located. Immediately this film stinks of Alien. From its cinematography to its matte painted backdrops. It is blatantly obvious, one can only imagine they borrowed the sets and filmed on the same sound stage. Anyway, the away team led by the hot -headed team leader Baelon (Zalman King) search for survivors. But they find only bodies. In normal military operations, when on a search and rescue mission and you come across dead comrades, the dead are bagged and tagged. But not in this fictional future. With their space rifles they incinerate the corpses. They don’t even check for a pulse. They just shoot first and don’t bother asking questions later.
It’s not long until the crew of the Quest start to be picked off one by one. Something is lurking in the shadows. Something alive but not alive. This is all the ship’s Diana Troy, Alluma (Erin Moran) can give. Given up hope for finding survivors they turn to rescuing themselves. A strange force is keeping them grounded and this calls for more investigation. Cue the giant pyramid.
GIANT PYRAMID! This is the source preventing them from leaving. What is it? No one knows. And no one seems to care as they wander about its intricate hall structure. More people are killed off including the mute warrior guy Quuhod (Sid Haig), by his own hand no doubt. And by his precious ninja star crystals. He literally cried when they broke. Then cried again when they reformed. And cried one last time as his severed arm threw one into his torso. At least that was an honorable death, I suppose. It’s much better than being raped by a giant worm, like poor Dameia (Taaffe 
O’Connell) suffered. I’m not even sure she died from that. But when Baelon found her naked, slimy body, he didn’t waste time in blasting her out of existence. Maybe he thought she would be better off this way.
We eventually reach the center of the pyramid (one can only assume) and it’s Cabren (Edward Albert), the handsome hero of the film, Ranger (Robert Englund), and Kore (Ray Walston) left. But Kore has betrayed the group. He is in fact Master and he has been looking for a replacement. But not just anyone can replace him. No, the person needs to be free of all fear and emotion. That’s what the pyramid was built for, as a training ground for potential Master’s. After Cabren fights all the fears that his dead shipmates manifested, he is worthy of becoming Master. What does this entail? I don’t have a frakking clue! Cue credits!
Galaxy of Terror provided me with many laughable moments, too many for me to spoil. Although, I did learn something about this film; two interesting facts actually. Bill Paxton worked on it as a Set Dresser and James Cameron (future Aliens director) was a Unit Director. It has nothing to do with the movie itself but I thought it was fascinating.
Best Line: “I live and die by the crystals.”
Best Moment: Quuhod cries over his stupid smashed crystals, several times.
2/10
