STARCRASH

Italy - U.S.A. | 1978 Directed by Luigi Cozzi Starring Marjoe Gortner Caroline Munro Christopher Plummer Color | 92 Minutes | PG Format: DVD (R1 - NTSC | 2-disc set) Shout! Factory

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Also available on Blu-ray

The all-new paperback adventures of Stella Star

		EC Home Review List Coming Soon Downloads
		Film Review by Rod Barnett DVD Review by Brian Lindsey Film:6 : DVD:10

Replaces EC's review of the 2005 S'More Entertainment edition

Among my friends I've developed a reputation as a brave explorer of bad cinema. Reports of a film's lack of quality will make me seek out the offending movie more strongly than good reviews will ever effect me. Never sure if this sad character flaw is simple mad curiosity or a slightly suppressed masochistic streak, I gave up fighting it years ago. If this is my curse then so be it. So in my role as a guide through the battlefield of terrible movies please let me throw myself on this celluloid hand grenade.

Because of its heinous reputation I'd been hunting for the legendary Starcrash for years. There was a Region 2 special edition DVD released in France but reviews reported a poor quality print and the steep price tag kept me from snagging it. So, imagine my surprise when, in 2005, I was rummaging through the cheap DVD rack at my local video retailer and spotted a disc entitled Female Space Invaders with a cover graced by Caroline Munro in her signature Starcrash outfit. Obviously this was an unauthorized release from some less-than-reputable company (which has since disappeared into obscurity); picture quality turned out to be abysmal. Happily, Shout! Factory's September 2010 edition of Starcrash is unquestionably the definitive release that bad movie connoisseurs have been lusting for.

When I watch a film with as bad a rep as this, part of me hopes for a hidden 'alternative classic' (such as Plan 9 from Outer Space) but another part hopes for a wretched, soul-deadening experience that causes me to seek solace in drink or charity work (think Van Helsing). Strangely this film falls somewhere in between. It did make me reach for beer, but at times its plainspoken lunacy made me smile.

Make no mistake about one thing — screenwriter/director Luigi Cozzi is a big fan of science fiction. The first image in this wannabe epic is of a spaceship named after Golden Age SF author Murray Leinster and the first bit of dialog is a page over that ship's intercom asking Major Bradbury to come to the communications bridge. Cozzi is such a fan of the genre that when possible he slips science fiction elements into any movie he can. This is the only explanation for the incredibly odd mechanical creatures and bizarre conversations about scientific theory in his Hercules films with Lou Ferrigno. So I can only imagine the man's joy when the huge global success of Star Wars gave him the green light to make his pet sci-fi project. I've often heard Starcrash called a rip-off of that 1977 classic but from what I've learned it appears the script was penned long before Mr. Lucas made the genre profitable — Cozzi just got lucky. The unlucky folks were the poor suckers in 1978 who were conned into seeing this atrocious mess. I know of at least one man who claims that not only is Starcrash the worst film he has ever seen but that it may have contributed to his desire to kill small woodland creatures in the dead of night. And you thought the Star Wars prequels were bad!

As with most Cozzi films the plot is a mishmash of half thought out ideas and half remembered moments from movie serials, novels and comic books. The story concerns the adventures of interstellar smuggler Stella Star (Caroline Munro, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad) and her partner in crime Akton (The Food of the Gods' Marjoe Gortner, who somehow got top billing). As the film begins they are being pursued by law officers Thor (Robert Tessier) and Elle, a sentient robot voiced by Hamilton Camp as some kind of Texas moron. They make their escape through hyperspace and find an abandoned spacecraft's launch. After rescuing a survivor from the ship they're captured by the pursuing cops and carried off to prison. Stella is forced to feed the radium furnaces in a skimpy outfit and high heels until recruited for a job by the same two cops that caught her. It seems the Emperor of the Universe (Christopher Plummer) wants her and Akton to help fight the evil Count Zarth Arn (Joe Spinell, star of 1980's Maniac). This dastardly despot has created a devastating planet-sized weapon that will allow him to rule the universe — but no one knows where it's located. The smugglers will accompany Thor and Elle on their search through the Haunted Stars and if they succeed they will be pardoned. Oh, and if they should stumble across the Emperor's son, the crown prince, they should bring him back, too. He was sent looking for the Death Star.... uh, I mean, the Count's massive weapon and he's missing. So, off they go tramping from one silly place to another hunting for the bad guys. The only stop of real interest (for me any way) is when a bikini clad Stella has to fight off a group of hot, Amazon-style women before they sic their giant, poorly stop-motion-animated robot on her. Akton reveals that he can see into the future, fake his own death and whip ass with his handy light saber... uh, I mean laser sword. Finally, of course, they find Prince Simon (David Hasselhoff!) and the correct planet, blow up the terrible weapon and then rush back to the Emperor to join in the gloriously insane battle with Zarth Arn to rid the Universe of his evil forever.

I've left out a lot of details mainly because, for space considerations, I must. This movie's script is an insane mess that feels like it was assembled in the dark from ideas jotted randomly on post-it notes. There is no logical progression from scene to scene or from idea to idea. When an explanation or solution was needed Cozzi just seems to have inserted a line of ridiculous dialog, had the characters smile at each other and kept moving. And some of the lines are priceless. Informing Stella that he can't tell her about the future because she might try to change things, Akton declares with a straight face, "Because that's against the law." Early on a character declares, "Scan it with our computer waves!" You get the idea. If an 8-year old riffed on an issue of EC Comics' Weird Science, Starcrash is what his Pixie Stix-fueled imagination would create. Luigi Cozzi is that sugar-rushing kid, bursting with enthusiasm but short on talent and money. He throws in a lot of references to classic science fiction movies including the disembodied head that leads the Invaders from Mars (1953), the radium furnaces from the Flash Gordon serials and (I swear to you) a nod to the giant, floating stone head from Zardoz! But even these bizarre touches are topped by the sight of all the male characters wearing enough make-up to pass for drag queens. This is top-of-the-line crazy cinema! Almost nothing is done well but eventually the complete lack of sense is kind of mesmerizing. Like watching slow-motion footage of car crash tests I found it impossible to turn away, wondering if the next ludicrous idea was going to make me laugh or roll my eyes. One thing I can complement is the rather impressive score by legendary composer John Barry. I give it credit for keeping things moving more often than it should have to, making some dull stretches easier to handle. It's a solid musical accompaniment to the story, even if it occasionally reminded me of passages from a few of his James Bond scores. - R.B.

With the latest title in their Roger Corman Cult Classics line, the good folks at Shout! Factory truly roll out the red carpet for Stella Star and her intergalactic entourage... Starcrash arrives in a deluxe two-disc DVD set absolutely crammed to the rafters with supplements. (It's also available in a Blu-ray edition.)

As presented by Shout!, the film itself has never looked or sounded better on home video. The anamorphic 1.78:1 transfer is blemish-free, and while there's heavy grain in some sequences (especially prominent in many of the FX shots) and certain scenes appear soft, this is inherent to the film as originally lensed and assembled. For the main audio one can choose either 5.1 Surround or Dolby 2.0 mixes, both of which compliment the visuals quite nicely; John Barry's proto-Moonraker score is particularly well-served.

The substantial extras are spread across both discs. The pair of audio commentaries by Starcrash über-fan/historian Stephen Romano — the first a general overview (influences and context), the second a scene-specific, info-packed walkthrough of the production — are, of course, to be found on Disc 1 with the film itself. The first commentary should prove fun for those sharing Romano's unapologetic love of the movie, albeit not so much for anyone less enamored. (It isn't an exaggeration to say that Romano looks at it through rose-tinted glasses. C'mon, dude... It's a deliriously silly hunk of cinematic cheese, not a sci-fi epic!) Also on Disc 1 are two featurettes: Luigi of the Stars (40 min.) captures writer-director Luigi Cozzi waxing nostalgic about his career in general and Starcrash in particular from the movie memorabilia shop he co-owns with Dario Argento in Rome, while "Mars" of Deadhouse Music discusses the film's orchestral score in Commentary on the Music of John Barry (20 min.). Extensive image galleries, TV/radio spots, and a selection of Starcrash trailers (with commentary by Eli Roth and Joe Dante, who edited the promo for U.S. distributor Roger Corman) round out the bonus features on the first disc.

Disc 2 collects an impressive array of deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes Super 8 home movie footage, featurettes and other goodies. The centerpiece of these is a 72-minute interview with the lovely and charming Caroline Munro. She looks back on her transition from modeling to acting in the 1960s, appearing in three Hammer horrors, Golden Voyage of Sinbad, At the Earth's Core and the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me during the '70s, and talks at length about her participation in Starcrash. Her fans have heard some of this before (via convention appearances and commentaries/interviews for other DVDs) but will be thoroughly delighted nonetheless.

They even included the original screenplay (in PDF form, complete with storyboards) and an illustrated booklet of liner notes. Yet another superlative release from Shout! Factory — easily the MVP of home video companies this year. - B.L. 10/02/10

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