Review of Starcrash (1978) by Zach M — 01 Jul 2011

Roger Corman's at his cheesy best with this 1979 Italian space opera that rips off Star Wars in more ways than I can count. It features Caroline Munro running around in a leather bikini, David Hasselhoff with an afro and laser eyes, and for some reason Christopher Plummer's in there somewhere.

The stop motion effects try to imitate Ray Harryhausen (there was even a deleted scene with giant scorpions) with their stop motion effects, but they don't live up to the master's work. They're not bad, though.

The opening theme by the late and great Bond composer John Barry is phenomenal, and really sets the tone for the entire movie. The film itself is a visual feast, with multi-color stars and spaceships zooming by, plus the poorly animated lasers.

There's a southern gun-slinger robot (?) that many of the film's posters portray as the villain (he does look like Darth Vader), when he's actually one of the heroes. If you love cheesy movies and have yet to see the king (or at least one of the princes) of them all, owning the 2-disc special edition of Starcrash should be in your near future.

The Sghout! Factory 2-disc release is phenomenal, with loads of extras like two audio commentaries, deleted scenes, interviews, still galleries, trailers, radio and TV spots, and more.