Movie review - "Galaxy of Terror" (1981) **

James Cameron’s second film for Roger Corman following Battle Beyond the Stars and it clearly influenced his work for Aliens – this is another tale about a small crew who land on a deserted, windy, darkened planet and are picked off one by one. But unlike Battle (or Aliens) this has a black heart – it’s a mean film where characters are killed nastily by their own fears (a device popularized in Forbidden Planet). There are severed limbs, exploding heads, stabbings and, in a particularly notorious scene, a rape and murder. 

This last sequence was finished by Corman himself who insisted on it – for all Corman’s fine track record in promoting  women and having positive female roles on films (and his record stands up) he was very rape happy around this time. I do think he was motivated be genuine commercial concerns rather than kicks but it doesn’t make it any more fun to watch. (To his credit - I guess you could call it that - he is completely upfront about this in the featurette on the DVD.)

The other big draw abck from this film is the characters are so sketchily defined. I know there’s not a lot of time but that didn’t hurt Battle Beyond the Stars – I think it’s just what happens when John Sayles doesn’t write your sci fi epic. So despite a cast that includes Eddie Albert, Erin Moran, Zalman King, Robert Englund and Ray Waltson, it’s hard to remember anything different about them. Its also not particularly well directed either (by Bruce Clark, who is a Kiwi) and is generally uninspiring stuff. The most notable about the thing, apart from the novelty of seeing Erin Moran in a science fiction epic, is the rape sequence... but that is so not a good thing.