Star Crash - perhaps the best movie ever made

So, a coworker and I are working on a “bad movie night” podcast. This sprang from how much fun we had just having bad movie night over here (I have an incredible collection of stink) and the “real” podcast project we’re working on.

Friday night was a double feature of Barbarella and Star Crash. Barbarella was alright, and we got some laughs out of it… but then Star Crash arrived.

Ho-lee-shit.

For those who aren’t familiar, here’s the quick rundown:

Some guy who looks like Greatest American Hero on meth and Caroline Munroe (from the 60s Sinbad Voyage movies etc.) are partners in crime, on the run from the law. There’s a robot cop who looks like Darth Vader crossed with a marital aid and he speaks in a cowboy twang. They’re also being chased by Thor, a little bald guy painted green and wearing leather. Thor looks exactly like a D&D goblin.

The movie opens with this spaceship that looks like a pile of plastic trash that was slapped together doing a flyby in a rip-off of the Star Wars opening scene. There are obvious tank wheels, pringles cans, sprues that nobody took model parts off of, and some model railroad trash on this thing. It is promptly attacked by a lava lamp. Everyone aboard dies of SPACE MADNESSSSS!! except for 3 lifeboats that escape. One has the “Emperor of the Universe’s” son aboard.

Christopher Plummer phones it in as the Emperor. Seriously. Hologram style. He has a badass throne though. His son turns out to be none other than DAVID HASSLEHOFF. You get to see him fight cavemen with a laser-eye mask, and then fight two stop-motion robots with a light saber!

Caroline Munroe is absolutely smokin hot in this movie. She runs around in a variety of space vampirella costumes, and if you’ve never noted her in a movie before, she looks like she was invented by Boris Vallejo. However, her acting skills don’t disappoint. Oh man.

In a ludicrous scene, they get taken to “space prison” where she has to dump giant white orbs into a reactor thing for the rest of her life. She is oddly the only prisoner wearing a leather bikini. Don’t ask. Anyway, she decides to escape, and she starts a shootout with the guards and runs away to let the rest of the prisoners fight and die. How she gets outside we don’t know but in like 2 seconds she’s out running across the countryside. Good thing because one of the prisoners shoots the reactor and it explodes killing probably a few thousand people.

At that instant, a ship lands in front of her. It’s the cops, and they say “Yeah, we decided to come spring you out of jail to help rescue the missing heir, m’kay?” and she’s like “Okie doke!” and hops aboard. Pay no mind to all the people who just died for no reason 30 seconds ago.

The movie goes on to rip off Star Wars, the Sinbad movies (there is a stop motion animated Colossus for god’s sake!), Forbidden Planet (The Krell machine, no shit) etc.

Oh yeah, and the evil maniac’s space station? Shaped like a giant claw. YES. And when the Empire attacks they shoot flash-gordon shaped rockets IN THE WINDOW (with a crash and tinkle of glass) and a bunch of dudes climb out and start shooting. They then repeat this same footage no less than 6 times. In a row. Shamelessly.

They also take the footage of a ship flying to a planet and play it in reverse when the ship leaves the planet. They take off backwards you know.

I’ll stop there. It’s absolutely the best movie you could possibly sit down and watch with people who love a bad movie.

Here’s a sample:

My god, I might just need to own this movie…damn, even Amazon doesn’t have it…

Only place you’re going to find it anywhere is right here:
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4999448/Starcrash_(1978)_with_MST3K_style_commentary

I suggest not messing with the optional MST3K commentary, at least until you’ve watched it once without.

YouTube trailer.

Good lord.

(the name of the movie is “Starcrash”, btw. Not “Star Crash”.)

Also, the guy who put up the torrent of the full movie also has it split into 10 minute chunks on his youtube channel. However, there’s no option to shut off his commentary.

I only know of Star Crash because I happen to have the John Barry soundtrack (it was coupled with the Black Hole on a bootleg). Good to know someone’s finally seen it :)

Oh yeah, Caroline Munroe was the other hot chick in The Spy Who Loved Me. The Vallejo art piece comparison–very apt.

— Alan

From 7th Voyage of Sinbad.

Caroline Munro:
Had a pinup in Starlog.
Was the hot chick in the Adam Ant video for “Goody Two Shoes”
And I’m pretty sure she hosted the Science Fiction awards on the night that Shatner sang “Rocket Man”.

She also dressed up in sexy sci-fi costumesin a time before the internet.

God bless you Caroline Munro.

Her latest blog post:

The trailer looks pretty damned good for that era, I’m sad to say. The model ships didn’t bounce on the wires at all, plus plethora of space amazons!

H.

Wow, that one seen with the light saber in the cave reminds me of the original book cover to Splinter of the Mind’s Eye.

— Alan

Truly, a classic.
I believed it has been mentioned before in Qt3, always in reverential whispers. I saw it, and was blessed.

You had me at Hasselhoff.

I saw this at the drive-in as a very small child in my home town. I could never figure out the name of it, until the OP mentioned the dudes launched into the plate glass windows from space in torpedoes stolen from the Imperial Japanese Navy. Thanks!

Or perhaps the other way around, with her inventing Boris Vallejo, so to speak.

Hot damn; link please? I tried googling, but the first entry was your post…

God bless you Caroline Munro.

Amen!

I couldn’t find it online. As I remember it she was dressed up like Ursula Andress in the Bond Bikini.

Oh God, she was in the Phibes movies as well…

Damn, I was hoping my googling was weak! I guess I’ll have to settle for The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.

That’s from Golden Voyage, actually. The princess in 7th Voyage was Kathryn Grant.

I can’t argue with the original poster – Starcrash is probably one of the seminal moments in my childhood, the movie that set me on the path of B-movie fandom for life. I was a lucky child in that my grandmother often took me to Sunday afternoon matinees of (what I realize now are) just random junk. I saw the Godzilla films, some movie about a descent in a diving bell to Atlantis, and a movie where Martians invade and force some housewife to slit her own wrists – traumatic to my young mind.

But there was Starcrash, and man did it ever deliver. It stays with me to this day, Marjoe Gortner (think I spelled that correctly) had one of the most amazing true life stories; he was a child faith healer who, after being exposed, moved naturally enough into the movies. Christopher Plummer as the Emperor, who has a spaceship that can ‘halt the flow of time!’ The Texas sheriff robot who pursues the heroes. And finally, Hasselhoff. Just too much good times packed into one movie.

Really all I can say is, if you see only one cheesy Star Wars rip-off, Starcrash should be the one.

I remember seeing it in its original release when I was, what, 11? I remember absolutely loving it and realizing it was kind of terrible at the same time. The image of the hand-shaped space station has always stayed with me. Doesn’t it close into a fist at one point?

I too loved this when I was a kid. I remember the giant robot thing more than anything else.