Review of Starcrash (1978) by Allan C — 28 Mar 2014

Roger Corman produced low budget space opera following the success of George Lucas' "Star Wars." Taking it cues mostly from Lucas' film, the story involves a smuggler for hire, former Bond girl Caroline Munroe, sporting Barbarella-like outfits, and her alien sidekick begin hired by the Emperor of the Galaxy, Christoper Plumber (who shot his part in one day), to rescue his son, prince David Hasselhoff, and recover a secret weapon.

The Darth Vader figure is the evil Count Zarth Arn, played by the oddly cast Joe Spinell. I'm a huge Spinell fan and it's a kick to see him playing a Ming the Merciless-like character, very different from his usual New York hoodlum roles.

Spinell even drops his very familiar New York accent, which is fascinating on it's own. There's also a good score by, of all people, A-List composer John Barry, who reportedly the filmmakers did not want to show him the film for fear that he'd drop out of the film.

Corman reportedly got involved in this film to see if there was a market low budget space operas, which was a good thing because following the success of this film, he made the highly enjoyable and far superior "Battle Beyond the Stars," which was an outer space version of "The Magnificent Seven," right down to Robert Vaughan recreating his same role for this remake.

But back to "Starcrash," it's a silly campy affair, but it's definitely entertaining. I especially liked some of the Ray Harryhausen-like stop motion sequences, which kind of gave the film a Sinbad in space kind of a vibe, that actually worked pretty well.

Definitely worth watching if you find Corman's cheap productions charming. If you're not a fan of low budget camp, probably don't both with this one.