Starcrash (1979)

No mere description of this movie will ever do it justice. You just have to see it to believe it. It's basically 'Star Wars' if that movie had been made in Italy by a movie loving Italian businessman who had not idea how to make a motion picture.

Surprisingly the script for this movie was written years before Star Wars ever came out. Only after the global impact of Star Wars was the director Luigi Cozzi able to get the funding he needed to make his masterpiece. In those days EVERYONE was looking to make the next Star Wars. It was a goofy time in cinema.

The crappy stop motion effects are Harryhausen's work. Let that soak in for a second. Obviously the INTENTION was to make a good movie if Luigi sought out THE guy for your stop motion effects.

Good actors like Christopher Plummer are involved. Caroline Munro (who never got her proper due as a sex symbol) is great at flashing her cat eyes to full hypnotic effect. I can appreciate the skimpy space fashions she wears. Like Barbarella only on mushrooms.

The effect are cheesy, the actors are genuinely horrible and what passes for a script makes no sense. But that is what you watch one of these clunker for - everything that makes you laugh about bad, BAD, films.


Yeh, that's David Hasselhoff in one of his first roles. He was even stupid back then - stupid helmet hair and his stupid ass face. I have this image in my head about he and Plummer spending hours discussing hair care and hair care products.

I will be honest with you. Five minutes into this one I wanted to turn it off and move on to something else but I JUST COULDN'T. It's a goofy little piece of pop culture nostalgia that is worth your time. It's better seen with friends or small children who will no doubt follow the plot better than you will. Those Italian goofballs started out to make a 'Star Wars' and dammit if they didn't just do that.

10/10 - for reason you either understand or you don't.

The following trailer will let you know all you need to about this gem.



Brother Jaquandor did a great review of this movie over at Byzantium's Shores.