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Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: 9/14/2010
Director: Luigi Cozzi
Cast: Caroline Munro, Marjoe Gortner, David Hasselhoff, Christopher Plummer, Joe Spinell, Robert Tessier
Year: 1979
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The Movie:
Written and directed by the mighty Luigi Cozzi, who was requested by the film's producers to make a film 'like Star Wars' (Cozzi had never seen the movie but had read the novelized version of the screenplay), Star Crash or, if you prefer, The Adventures Of Stella Star, finds lovely Caroline Munro in the lead role. Stella Star is sort of a female Han Solo, when we meet her she and her alien friend Akton (Marjoe Gortner) are fleeing the local space police lead by a robot with a Texan accent named Elle (Hamilton Camp). One thing leads to another and before you know it, Stella and Akton have teamed up with Elle at the request of The Emperor (Christopher Plummer) to save his son, Simon (David Hasselhoff) and stop a bad guy named Count Zarth Ann (Joe Spinell) from blowing stuff up with a giant, planet sized weapon that is definitely not the Death Star. Nope. Not at all like the Death Star in any way, shape or form.
One of the best examples of 'so bad it's good' moviemaking you could care to name, Star Crash may be a blatant rip off of George Lucas' most famous creation but it still manages to be a ridiculous amount of good, goofy fun. Casting foxy Caroline Munro in the lead certainly helps. She doesn't always show the most charisma here or deliver the most dynamic performance, but she looks good in a space bikini and seems to be able to deliver her lines reasonably well (she's dubbed in this English version).
It's to the film's benefit though that she's surrounded by as interesting a cast as she is in this picture. Credit is due to Marjoe Gortner (who has popped up in everything from Viva Knievel! to The A-Team) as Akton, playing his role with the perfect amount of distance so that we know even before Stella does that he's destined for big things before the end credits role. A young David Hasselhoff (who actually did his own dubbing) is fun to watch, introduced in a scene where he runs around with a mask on shooting lasers out of his eyes and taking down bad guys left, right and center, at least showing a bit of enthusiasm for his work here. But Christopher Plummer? Really? How on earth the filmmakers ever managed to get Captain Von Trapp from the Sound Of Music to agree to this role is one for the history books, though he seems none too pleased to be gallivanting around in a shiny cape. The real scene stealer, however, is Joe Spinell, seen here at his greasiest best and sporting the most ridiculous hairdo of his distinguished career. He's obviously having a blast playing the bad guy here, and more than anyone else in this movie appears to be really and truly into his part.
Cozzi's love of Harryhausen style special effects make Star Crash interesting on a visual level. The influence of Star Wars is undeniable and plays a huge part in the look of the film but some great stop motion animation sequences almost make this one feel like a Sinbad movie set in space. Plenty of colorful sets and costumes expose the film's Italian origins, though this is a positive rather than a negative, while all manner of bizarre props and miniatures are used to create the illusion of a big budgeted feature, generally with fairly middling success.
The whole thing is set to a majestic sounding orchestral score from John Barry, which somehow manages to make the film's more ridiculous moments seem even more insane (at one point our heroine basically does the breast stroke through the outer reaches of space - what?!). Through in all manner of unexpected sexual innuendo and a fair bit more violence than its PG rating would lead you to expect and you've got a winner of a film. Is it good? Nope, it's horrible. It's cheaply made, completely nonsensical and pretty much horribly acted but there's always something happening in this film and it's not dull even for a second. There are times where, if you think about it too much, you'll run the risk of permanent brain damage but there is a certain segment of the population who know that by certain standards science fiction doesn't get any better than this.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Shout! Factory presents Not Of This Earth in a 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that looks very good. Some shots look cleaner than others, which is understandable given the effects work and all (check out the screen caps of the legs to the right to see what I mean), but generally things are quite impressive. Colors look very good, nice and bright without appearing over saturated, and skin tones appear nice and natural never once taking on a waxy tone or looking too pink. Detail is good for a standard definition presentation and black levels are generally pretty strong as well. Shadow detail isn't always perfect in the darker scenes but there's really nothing worth complaining about here, and Shout!'s transfer is a very impressive one despite some minor print damage here and there.
The Audio:
The only audio option is an English language Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix. No alternate language dubs or subtitles of any kind are provided. The audio here sounds okay, but there are some spots where the levels spike a bit. Some background hiss is also present. It's not enough to really ruin anything, but it isn't on par with the transfer in terms of quality.
The Extras:
Director and co-writer Jim Wynorski joins star Traci Lords for a full length commentary track that talks about the hurried twelve day shoot that the film was made on and explains that part of the reason it was made this way was because Wynorski was trying to outdo his producer, Roger Corman, who shot the original very quickly. Corman actually gets a lot of attention here, with Wynorski sharing a lot of fun stories about working for the notoriously cheap producer, while Lords talks about her character and some of her costars quite affectionately.
Lords also pops up in a featurette entitled Nadine's Story, a twelve minute video interview in which she elaborates a bit more on her work on this picture and how this was the last film she would ever film a nude scene for. Traci comes off as pretty down to Earth here and is amiable enough and seemingly fairly proud of her work on the picture, which is nice to see.
Rounding out the extras is a trailer for the film, a still gallery trailers for a few other Shout! Factory/Roger Corman properties, animated menus and chapter stops. No liner notes this time around but an insert includes a brief introductory paragraph from Corman as well as DVD credits and an advertisement for other Corman DVDs, while the flip side of the cover art features some foxy glamour shots of Traci looking fine.
The Final Word
Proof once again that not all remakes suck, Jim Wynorski's take on Not Of This Earth is a great mix of sci-fi, horror and comedy with enough sex appeal and wacky effects work to keep things interesting. Despite an unusually bleak ending given the film's humorous starts, it's got plenty of entertainment value and Shout! Factory has done the film justice here. Even if the audio could have been a bit better, the transfer is rock solid and the extras are quite enjoyable.