Galaxy of Terror (3/10)

 

    "Galaxy of Terror" is an American Sci-fi/horror film from the year 1981. It was directed by Bruce D. Clark who apparently got a reputation for making these sorts of "B Movies" - ones that were lower budget and rarely the main attraction when attending a double feature. I was looking for less mainstream horror films to watch for the month of October and this weird little thing happened to be on Amazon Prime. 

    It... It was a film. XD It had a beginning and a middle and an end - but I don't feel like they made as much sense as they could have.  

    Honestly though, it's kind of sad. There was some definite potential here, it just - got fumbled. Not sure why. 

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SPOILERS

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    The whole premise seems to be "crew on spaceship picks up distress call and goes to remote planet to investigate. They find this mysterious pyramid that seems to bring their worst fears to life."

    Like, that has a lot to work with. Plenty of stuff to explore there. But so many of the fears confused me. 

    The old man Commander Ilvar wants to check out this big hole in the ground on the mysterious planet and the scouting team lowers him down and he gets grabbed by this tentacles and drained of his blood. I'm not really sure what his fear was supposed to be here, or if he "didn't count" because he didn't even make it to the pyramid. 

    The two female characters who go exploring the pyramid have very straightforward fears. 

    Alluma is very claustrophobic and afraid of tight spaces and the concept of getting stuck or crushed in them. So of course she gets stuck and crushed. 

    And Dameia is afraid of worms, things that crawl - so she gets got by a giant worm. 

    (Gotta pause here just to mention the whole Worm Scene. It was so out of pocket. The giant worm like, descends on her and pins her down, and I fully expected it to eat her. Just slurp her down whole like a python. But it - just wiggles on top of her? And it seems to secrete some sort of oil or fluid that dissolves her clothing?? And she screams and thrashes and we later just see her naked and dead on the floor.

    I know 80s films are known are being very h0rny without a whole lot of warning, but this was quite the surprise and stuck out like a sore thumb when I looked at the film as a whole. It seems they just had to get those slick, oiled up t!ts in there somehow, as per the 80s Horror Movie requirements.

    Upon further reading, it seems the scene was supposed to be even more graphic and obscene. The Worm was intended to full-on assault her to completion, on screen, and she was going to "O" so hard that she died. But that would have given the film an X rating so they chopped that scene up and took out the naughtiest bits and that was what was left after.

    She's just lying there naked in the hallway, dead, and her crew members are like "Oh no! She's dead too!" and go about their quest without any sort of attempts to shift her to a more dignified pose or put a sheet over her or anything. I feel like they barely even studied her body for any clues or anything at all, to even confirm that she was dead. It was so quick and unceremonious. 

    Apparently she was afraid of worms AND sex/intimacy. I must've missed that second part... )

    Quuhod throws crystal shurikens and he gets - attacked by a crystal inside the pyramid?? I don't know if that was some lesson about being greedy and wanting too many crystals or what. It digs into his skin and he cuts his arm off to prevent it from going any further into his body. And his severed arm on the ground lifts its own shuriken and hurls it right into his chest, killing him. Was he afraid of the violence his weapons of choice were capable of creating? Was he afraid he would be bested by another crystal thrower?? I'm really not sure.

    Ranger is attacked by a double of himself. Being your own worst fear is a neat concept, I guess. But he is not killed by said double and I don't recall seeing him escaping or anything after he outwits his clone. That's quite the loose end to leave hanging, a whole other character still in the Pyramid somewhere with Cabren (main character.)

    Baelon gets into a scuffle with some reptilian shadow creature and he falls to his death off of this ornate, treacherous scaffolding along the outside of the pyramid. I guess he's afraid of monsters?? That tracks, I guess??

    Everything was just so unexplained. 

    Cabren bests the current Master of the Pyramid, some ancient entity that has been testing him and his crew. Seeing all of the dead crew members was super neat, watching him have to physically and mentally overcome all those that had died before him - all those people HE had failed to protect. And then HE defeats the Master and becomes the new Master. 

    The film really had so much potential.

     But it also had weird squishy squelchy sound effects for the blood-sucking tentacles that got the Captain near the beginning. The kind of noises you hear in children's cartoons from YEARS ago. Like, a good ol' Hanna Barbera "Squalsh" if I've ever heard one. REALLY broke any feeling of terror or immersion in the scene.

    The whole film was so dimly lit ALL THE TIME. They had these cool backpacks with headlights on their shoulders but those still weren't enough for you to keep track of what was going on and which character was where. It makes the movie poster so ironic, considering it's so brightly lit. 

    The Worm. The - The whole Worm Scene. It was just so out of place and so unexpected. It could have just eaten her and been scary that way. I just - I don't understand. 

    But hey, I loved a lot of the props/costumes. The crew's body suits were cool, like long underwear with circuitry, and all of the space tech they carried with them was neat. Felt a little like how the Ghostbusters look with their massive backpacks, the whole team all in uniform to go face the supernatural. There were a lot of practical effects, so that's always a win in my book. The ever changing architecture of the Pyramid was also super cool to see. 

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    So yeah. An interesting watch, for sure. Made me laugh more than it made my scream, but it's not like I regret watching it or anything. It was one of James Cameron's earliest credits in his film-making career, which is certainly some historical significance in the grand scope of cinema. Nowadays it seems to be a cult classic, and I can see why. There is a lot to love, between the honestly-good horror elements and the much more absurd sequences of events (cough cough Worm cough.) A strange juxtaposition indeed.

    If it was a bit more polished and pulled together, it could have been REALLY GOOD. But maybe in a weird way, it wouldn't be itself anymore. 

3/10

Thanks for reading! More reviews on the way.