What does the name Roger Corman mean to you? Perhaps nothing, and if that's the case, this’ll be a pertinent primer for you up-and-coming film cineasts out there. He’s one of the most prolific (and one of the only notable) of film producers. The Academy, to some controversy, gave him a Honorary Lifetime Achievement Oscar last year. This is a guy who gave some of the biggest names in modern cinema their shot, people like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Peter Bogdanovich, Jonathan Demme, Gale Anne Hurd, Joe Dante, etc, etc, etc, because the list goes ON and on. But what, you ask, what movies could he have been behind that were so wonderful to have spawned all this talent and earned the highest honor the Oscars can bestow? Of the 389 films IMDB credits him with producing (not even counting the 56 he directed himself), some memorable titles include “The Wasp Woman”, “Emmanuel 6”, “Bloody Mama”, “The Student Nurses”, “Carnosaur”....okay, so maybe he wasn’t chasing awards with his prodigious output over the years but he certainly created a memorable and important legacy. Hell, some of his stuff is out and out awesome, like his series of Edgar Allen Poe adaptations, “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School”, “Death Race 2000”, “Dementia 13” and, arguably, the series of films that Shout! Factory is re-releasing in sweet new blu-ray or dvd packages lately.

For these first two releases, coming out today, one has to approach viewing them with an eye not only for early 80’s bloody, gooey, boobs-filled science fiction romps, but in the context of examining how they were made, who was involved with making them, and what was Corman’s decision process in making them in the first place. The last question isn’t a stumper: Ridley Scott’s “Alien” had come out in 1979 and had changed the face of both horror and science fiction forever, leaving an indelible mark on culture in general, and not just sweaty geeks who hang out at conventions.

GALAXY OF TERROR (1981)

There’s no mistaking the influence of Scott’s film on this relatively speaking large budgeted (for Corman, anyway) sci-fi horror. The young production designer was told to ape those sets and the look of the bigger film and he did so with gusto, even expanding upon the Giger-esque format with some wild ideas of his own. That young production designer was James Cameron, who did such a remarkable job on “Terror” that he was bumped up by Corman to director for “Piranha 2: The Spawning” (which, you know, Cameron and everyone else agrees, is the best flying Piranha film ever made) and next thing you know....well, I don’t have to tell ya.

Cameron’s inventive and foreshadowing design for “Galaxy of Terror” is only one of the reasons to watch this wacky little movie. While the intent to capture the “Alien” audience is palpable, the movie goes off in a very strange and very different direction. We first see an old woman and a man with a head of glowing red light playing a game and arguing about his decision to send a ship and crew to the planet Morganthus, a nasty place where the previous investigating spacecraft crash landed. The crew is brought on board and given no time to settle in as the jaded and bitchy captain (Grace Zabriskie, known by geeks as Laura Palmer’s Mom on “Twin Peaks") blasts off before they’re all even strapped in. Her determination doesn’t play out real well as there ship crashes on the planet below as well. The away team finds and investigates the older crashed vessel and finds the entire crew dead and one of their own is mysteriously killed shortly after. Realizing something actually pulled their ship down to the planet, they find a large, organic looking pyramid structure which they investigate and all get their collective asses handed to them by a variety of death traps, monsters, and...um...I’m not even entirely sure what. Weird, weird, things.

This is one seriously psychedelic and surreal horror film. You’ll come for the cool effects designs and iconic cast. You’ll stay for the giant maggot raping a girl to death. Seriously. I’m never one to usually say this about rape scenes, but this is awesome. There’s no way to take it as anything but a high point in cheap 80’s horror cinema silliness at its very best/worst. You’ll stop, rewind, and watch it again, not sure if you really saw what you think you saw. Which isn’t to demean the other deaths in the film; they’re all pretty cool, but wow. Maggot rape. What a way to go. Good job, Taaffe O’Connell, you’ll definitely be remembered for that one, if nothing else. I know I'LL remember you. Forever and ever. In a way I'm not altogether comfortable with.

I can’t finish up without detailing the rest of the cast. What an oddball assortment. You’ve got Eddie Albert Jr as Cabren, the Han Solo of the group, the nice guy who gets everybody’s back when the asshole military guy Baelon, played by Zalman King (famous producer and director of tons of late-night pay-tv soft core porn) starts ordering folks around. Cabren’s girl and the ship’s resident empath is Joanie from “Happy Days”, Erin Moran, who stares bug-eyed at everything and incessantly whines about bad feelings, as empaths are wont to do. Robert Englund (yes, Freddy Krueger) is a crewman, as is the relatively mute and thuggish Quuhod, played by a ‘still not sure he was ever young’ Sid Haig. Rounding it out is silly sci-fi staple Ray Walston as the ship’s cook.

Anyone who considers themselves even mildly a fan of bad but fun cinema HAS to see this one. Not just for the movie. For the extras as well. There’s a trivia subtitles track (but, once again, no dialogue subtitles...WTF, Shout! Factory?) that can be played while watching, which points out all the talent you don’t see on screen, along with a variety of interesting facts and stories about the production. There’s an hour long making-of documentary that gets most of the surviving cast and crew for interviews with the exception of James Cameron and Erin Moran (I know James' excuse. What's yours, Moran?). There’s a commentary with the maggot-loving Taaffe O’Connell, creature effects crew, and a moderator whose first job in the industry was as a production assistant on the movie. You can also download a PDF of the original script, check out a gallery of stills, and a collection of trailers for other Corman titles being released soon by Shout! Factory. Rounding it out is a booklet with an nice essay by horror expert (and complete babe) Jovanka Vuckovic from the magazine/website Rue Morgue.

“Galaxy of Terror” is a must-own for any film fan who considers themselves well-rounded (Re: likes the bad movies sometimes too). It’s a predictably solid package and a really decent transfer to HD, although some of the dialogue is mixed rather low. It would also make a good double purchase with the simultaneously released:

“FORBIDDEN WORLD” (1982)

Perhaps Roger Corman was pissed off that “Galaxy of Terror” strayed so far from the imitative “Alien” path. That definitely wasn’t the case with “Forbidden World” aka “Mutant” which cannibalized some of "Galaxy's" sets in the course of its slavish Corman devotion to cutting costs at every corner. Of course, if boobs were what you were after more than a decent movie, this is your cheap, sleazy, exploitation sci-fi horror film.

A sort-of space cowboy, for lack of a better description (and because there was genuinely an attempt to capture some of the love that was directed at Corman’s previous and much better “Battle Beyond the Stars”), is sent to a desert planet science station to investigate an out of control genetic mutation the science team has engineered. It gets bigger, starts killing everyone...you know how it goes.

Much, much cheaper and sillier (and lamer) than “Galaxy of Terror”, even though the two are often paired together, “Forbidden World” is still worth a look. I’m going to be accused of being lascivious here (which is fair, because it’s true) but the gratuitous nudity is awesome. Here’s a future where hot chicks dig science and drop their drawers at barely the mention of a visiting space cowboy. And what chicks! This is the unbelievably hot Dawn Dunlap, who some of you b-movie dorks might recognize from the later Corman flick, “Barbarian Queen”, and the seriously sultry June Chadwick, famous for being Michael McKean’s Yoko lady in “This is Spinal Tap” and as the #2 bad lady in the original “V” TV series. Am I going to seriously recommend this solely on the nude scenes featuring these two, like the most laughably gratuitous two girl shower scene ever? Well, not solely. But I could.

The monster is way silly looking here, but has a cool modus operandi. It kills by injecting its victims with a DNA strain which removes all the gene coding and turns the still-living victim slowly into a soupy mess of protein that the monster slurps up as food. That's gross. That's cool. That's enough to edge this into the ‘worth a look’ file. Add in the decent transfer, a 30 minute ‘making of’ featurette, an interview with Roger Corman about the film, a gallery of stills and pre-production artwork, trailers, and most importantly, a second disc with the director’s cut of the film (which made things out to be more of a comedy, until Corman set his foot down and had the sillier sequences removed) with director commentary...you’ve got a movie you’ll probably want to pick up as the companion piece to “Galaxy of Terror” if nothing else. Which is to say, you really should buy both. They’ll look good on your shelf and will tell your more serious film fan friends (say that ten times fast) that you’re a person who is very serious about examining and appreciating the full gamut of film history, and will probably tell your parents that they should have made you play more sports or something when you were a kid.

CLICK HERE TO BUY Galaxy Of Terror (Roger Corman's Cult Classics) [Blu-ray]
CLICK HERE TO BUY Forbidden World (Roger Corman's Cult Classics) [Blu-ray]