Star Crash (1978)

Star Crash is what all Star Wars rip-off fans have been searching for: Everything one loves about Lucas' epic is here, except multiply that by a hundred, and make it extremely cheap! Lightsabers, space battles, and even a whiny, nervous sidekick robot (with a Texan accent!) are all here -- right alongside some of the best perms, egg-carton model work, and the worst that 1978 Italian special effects had to offer! As a precursor to the glossy and surreal productions of his later Lou Ferrigno Hercules movies, director Luigi Cozzi fills each frame with as many garish colors as humanly possible. Creating a virtual assault on all the senses through super-sexy costumes, space-age sets, and extreme sound effects, Cozzi fills the frame with enough eye candy so that as little attention can be payed to the barely comprehensible plot that his gorgeous leads all work their way though -- and what thespians they are! Look up "charisma" in the B-movie handbook and sure enough, one would find Marjoe Gortner! With every appearance, his fiery eyes and pearly white teeth light up the screen as he chews up every terrible line of babble with enough gusto to kill a large elephant. And how about that dialogue? Endless cheesy lines are spewed out in scene after scene of this magnificently charming film. In fact, the dialogue and dubbing are so over-the-top in Star Crash, it's amazing that Luigi Cozzi managed to convince real-deal actor Christopher Plummer to even be in this flick! And just what is he doing here anyway? Hard to say, but it's just another reason that this terrible sci-fi opera is so great. Look out for TV hunk David Hasselhoff in an early role as he battles two stop-motion robots with his trusty lightsaber and feathered hair. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide