Friday, September 30, 2011

Laserblast!



LASERBLAST

Fasten your seat belts everybody, it's that time again! So this is everybody's buddy Oddcube here to say: Hi there, and welcome to the column! I know you've all been sitting in front of your computer screens waiting impatiently for my next super-insightful soliloquy. Well, it's paid off for ya, cuz I got a real humdinger of a sockaroo ready for ya this month! So with no further ado, and even less adon't, let's get this party started!

If you're new here, first of all congratulations for getting down with O-D-D! You are well on your way to becoming crazy-sexy-cool (like me)! Here's how it works: I pick a subject at random—a TV show, a movie, a book, whatever—and then, I talk about it! I know, its revolutionary stuff, just bear with me here. And then, after I tell you why you should seek it out or avoid it, I come up with Totally Legitimate Rating for the subject of the review with a Very Complicated and Highly Scientific Rating System (comprised primarily of a pair of D&D percentage dice, but more on this later). Cuz, you know, having an actual rating system makes it seem more like a real review.

This time I'm gonna talk about a movie called "Laserblast", if ya don't believe me, just check out the title! How did I come to pick "Laserblast"? Well, I'll tell ya...I THOUGHT my editor liked me. See, she said "Hey Odd! You should review a movie called "Laserblast"!" And I said, "Never heard of it! But if I can find it, I'll review it!" Boy, was THAT a mistake! Why? Cuz "Laserblast" stinks on ice and people must be warned! I'd hate to think of you fine folks wandering blindly into this like I did! Boy, am I great guy or what? Here I am, watching lousy movies so that you don't have to!

So, let's get the behind-the-scenes stuff out of the way so I can tell you what a truly terrible time-wasting travesty this movie really is. "Laserblast" came out in 1978 from Charles Band Productions. It was produced by (surprise!) Charles Band, a creator of bad B-movies and exploitation films. Assuming that "Laserblast" is an indicative example of his artistic inability as a B-movie writer/director/producer, I think I would rank Band just over Ed Wood and well behind Roger Corman. He's had about a half dozen different movie-making companies over the years, and perhaps his best-known movies are the "Puppet Master" series, the "Prehysteria" series, and "Ghoulies". (BTW I have seen NONE of these!)

The movie was directed by Michael Rae, and is his ONLY directorial job. This is NOT a good sign!

The movie was written by Francis Schacht and Frank Ray Perilli. This is Francis Schacht's ONLY writing credit and she had a cameo in the film. Frank Ray Perilli has about fifteen writing credits listed on the IMDB, and I've never heard of ANY of them! I think maybe he was a staff writer for Band's various B-movies.

The movie had a score composed by Richard Band (the producer's brother) and Joel Goldsmith (son of renowned composer Jerry Goldsmith). They both went on to compose music for more prestigious movies and television shows.

The movie features a bunch of people you've never heard of, a few people you'd recognize when you saw 'em, and a couple of legitimate stars who must have lost a bet and had to be in it. I'd like to tell you who plays the hero, but there is NO hero in this flick, just a protagonist. The protagonist is disgruntled teen Billy, played by Kim Milford. Apparently this guy Milford (full name: Richard Kim Milford) did some stage work, and a couple of movies, and a couple of TV shows and made-for-TV movies. Sadly, "Laserblast" seems to be the most prestigious part he had. What a bummer!

His girlfriend, Kathy, is played by Cheryl Smith, sometimes known as Rainbeaux Smith (no lie!). She made a career out of bad sci-fi and horror movies, and is best known for her role in an exploitation flick called "Caged Heat".

Since the flick is about a disgruntled teen killing people and blowing things up with an alien laser gun, we have a token government agent sent out to investigate the situation. This agent is played by a guy named Gianni Russo. I have no idea who he is, but according to the IMDB, he was in the first two "Godfather" films, so other folks might recognize him.

Of course, we have a town sheriff, cuz ya need a town sheriff in these sorts of flicks, to be out of his depth and provide the government agent with people who know the area. Our sheriff is played by Ron Masak, who may be remembered best as the Sheriff who replaced Tom Bosley on "Murder She Wrote". ...I guess he just looks like a sheriff.

This is the very first movie to feature Eddie Deezen (he could only go up from here!), who went on to parts in "Grease", "1941", "Midnight Madness" (read my review here!), and become the voice of Mandark on "Dexter's Lab". Get this, in "Laserblast", Eddie Deezen plays the bully's SIDEKICK! No lie!

To the amazement of all, or at least to me, they actually got a couple of real stars to be in this turkey. One of them was talented character actor Keenan Wynn! Keenan Wynn has been in all sorts of movies, including "Dr. Strangelove", "Once Upon A Time in the West", "The Great Race", and "The Absent-Minded Professor". He's also been in countless TV shows, including being a regular on "Dallas", and he was the only cop to appear in two episodes of the original "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" series (read my review here!).

The other great star to step in this flop was the estimable Roddy McDowall. You gotta know Roddy McDowall cuz he's just plain great and was in at least one episode of just about everything. He was in all the original "Planet of the Apes" movies AND the TV series, and, as I mentioned a few months ago, was a regular on "Tales of the Gold Monkey" (read my review here!). He brings a touch of class to everything, and I've NO idea how he got roped into this one. My theory is that he lost a bet with someone.

And now, I shall tell you the story of the movie so you don't have to watch it!

Some dude with a green face and a long silver tube stuck on his arm is running through the desert of the American southwest. This spaceship lands, and two aliens come out. The aliens are stop-motion and beautifully animated, they're reminiscent of Ray Harryhausen's stuff. Anyway, the aliens shoot the guy with the green face and he disintegrates, leaving a man-shaped burn mark on the ground. Then, to avoid being sighted by regular Earthlings, the aliens beat it.

Then Billy wakes up. Billy is blond, blue-eyed, tan, pretty fit and almost never buttons up his shirt. To be honest, he looks like he should be the popular jock that everybody wants to hang out with, except for the weakling nerds he picks on. But no! Oh yeah, he's supposed to be a teenager but he looks to me like he's in his mid-20's. From some angles, he looks a little like Mark Hamill.

Anyway, he wakes up and finds his Mom packing her bags into the car. She says she was invited to go to Acapulco and it was too good to pass up, but she really means "I read the script and I'm getting outta here while the getting is good!" So she leaves and wisely does not return for the rest of the movie.

So Billy gets in his van—he's got a van, cuz, you know, vans are cool, and we're supposed to think that he's cool cuz he's got one...but he ain't. As I was saying, he gets in his van and goes to see his girlfriend Kathy, but her grandfather, a retired Colonel possibly suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder, sends him away. He tries to look dejected, but he can't really pull it off, cuz he had the personality of Styrofoam packing peanuts.

Then Billy stops at what is apparently the only gas station in town. Then this convertible pulls up, driven by rival shmucky "teenager" Chuck (who has the personality of a brick) and his sidekick, Froggy (Eddie Deezen, who has the same personality in every movie he's in). They try to goad him into a street race, but their ribbing is pretty lame. Billy can't get his van to start so Chuck and Froggy laugh at him and pull away.

So then Billy goes out for a ride and gets pulled over by these two deputies that make Barney Fife look like Dirty Harry. They decide to give Billy a ticket...pretty much because he's there and they are bored. I think they were supposed to be amusing, but they were just an embarrassment.

So Billy goes out into the desert for no discernable reason and just HAPPENS to pull up next to the remains of the guy that the aliens killed. He finds the laser gun, and figures out that he has to wear this goofy-looking pendant to make it work and blows up some bushes and trees and things.

Then we cut to the aliens in their spacecraft. The aliens are pretty cool. They kinda look like the turtles in Bugs Bunny cartoons when they take off their shells. Anyway, the ETs phone home and the Boss Alien says "What's the matter with you guys? You left the laser gun there and some hairless ape is playing with it! Now go get it!" Of course, they speak Alien-ese, but you get the gist of it. So the Aliens pull a U-y, a Uey, a Uwie, a Yoo-eeee... You know what? I don't know how to spell "Yoo-eee". But that doesn't matter, despite what they say in Season 1 of "Red Dwarf", the Aliens pull a yoo-eee regardless of how close to light speed they may be going.

Back on Earth, Billy meets up with his girlfriend Kathy. I'd like to say that she has all the personality of a blow-up doll and her head seems to be filled with air just the same, but I don't know if I can get that past my editors. So instead, I shall say that she has all the personality of a store mannequin (NO offense to Kim Cattrall!). Anyway, they go to the lamest pool party the Seventies ever saw. These are the un-swinging-est teenagers I've ever seen in my life, and I'm a total SQUARE! The party is SO boring that Billy sleeps through it. He complains about being tired and there is a weird growth developing on his chest where the pendant rests, but I know it was really how boring the party was.

He wakes up and goes to find Kathy, and finds Chuck hitting on her. So Billy gets into a REALLY lame fight with Chuck and Froggy, and was winning until his stupid girlfriend stopped him (I think it was embarrassing her, and I don't blame her!). So later that night—now get this, folks—he wakes up and his face is all green like the guy the aliens killed at the beginning of the movie. He looks like the illegitimate son of the Hulk and the Mask. In this monstrous form, he returns to the pool party and blows up Chuck's car with the laser cannon. The next day, Billy no longer has a green face, and seems to have to no memory of his actions, which makes him luckier than the viewing audience.

Kathy, his airhead girlfriend, takes him to see Dr. Mellon (no relation to Dr. Bunsen Honeydew). He, of course, has no clue what the thing is in Billy's chest, but he pulls a weird metal disc out of it and plans to take it "into the city" to be analyzed. However, as he drives "into the city" that night, Billy blows him up, too, for no discernable reason other than attempting to save Roddy McDowall's dignity and credibility.

So then this government guy shows up. He's nice and mysterious, looks kinda like Bill Bixby in several shots, and you don't even know if he's with the FBI, the CIA, the MIB, SHIELD, or the Omega Sector. All you know is that he's the government guy, the federali, he has less personality than his own suit, and he's here to find out about mysterious goings-on that have occurred in the area in the past 24 hours, including the exploding car at the pool party. He talks, individually, to all the kids from the party, and finds the weird metal disc among the debris of Dr. Mellon's car. He takes it "into the city" to have it analyzed and learns that it is not of this Earth, and that we have no means of destroying it. Don't make the mistake of thinking this is some important plot point, cuz it isn't!

Billy and Kathy meet up at "their special rendezvous spot" and have a super close-up, out of focus love scene that is easily the scariest scene in the whole flick! Afterwards, she gets dressed, and finds his goofy pendant and finds that it fits EXACTLY on the weird growth on his chest, which is where she lays it down. Instantly, Billy goes all Greenface on her, and growls. She screams and runs away (which she should have done even before the movie started). He gets up--now get this--he gets up to chase her, runs into his own van and knocks himself down! It almost looks like he runs himself over! Epic Fail!


Someplace along the line (I forget where exactly, and do NOT want to watch the flick again to find out) Billy kills those two useless deputies and blows up the town's only gas station. That was some night scene. Some random day scene (definitely after his girlfriend saw him looking like a reject from Jabba's palace) he finds Chuck and Froggy with a new car and kills them. After that, it's just meaningless random destruction! He blows up cars! He blows up buildings! He blows up a pinball machine! Yes, you read that right, I said a PINBALL MACHINE!!! What is up with that?!?! I tried to tell him, I said, "Billy! You're shooting the wrong people! You should be shooting at your agent, the casting director, the screenwriters..." But he didn't listen!

So, the Federali talks to Kathy the girlfriend and they go off to find Billy, and they do find him with conve-e-e-enient ease. Monster-Face Billy is about to blow them up (in the government Caddy) when suddenly, and without warning, an alien shoots Billy from the top of a building, killing him! Then, the alien walks away, across the roof, towards his spaceship in the sky behind him. Kathy inexplicably weeps over Billy's dead body, and no one understands why.

And that's the end.

Now, your first reaction is: but you left the laser gun behind again, you stupid alien! And this time there are TWO stupid hairless apes who could end up using it! But that's not necessarily so. See, Billy gets zapped by the alien's laser beam, then we cut to the alien on the roof, then we cut back to Billy and the laser cannon is mysteriously missing from his hand. Did it blow up? I don't think so. They show every other explosion in this movie from at least three different angles, I can't believe they'd miss this opportunity to film another one. Did he drop it? We don't know! It's only one of many things that never get adequately explained.

This is the same alien who shot the guy at the beginning of the movie. So why doesn't Billy disintegrate into a human-shaped burn mark? Isn't the alien using the same gun? It sure looked like it.

You know, the worst part is that if you cut this down to most basic premise, it has extreme potential for coolness. Check this out: a bullied teenager finds an alien weapon that turns him into a monster who commits acts of sci-fi revenge in a flick featuring Keenan Wynn, Roddy McDowall, and Eddie Deezen! THAT sounds potentially cool! How did THAT turn into THIS!?

So, to make a long story short (yeah, yeah, I know, it's too late!): "Laserblast" stinks on ice! It sucks a dead giraffe! It should be avoided at all costs! It had exactly one redeeming factor: it was marginally better than "Manos: The Hands of Fate", but so is a root canal performed by a dentist with the shakes. If for some reason you absolutely have to watch this movie, try to make it the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 version, where you can enjoy at least one-out-of-four obscure references and insults that Mike and the 'bots hurl at the screen.

Yeah, I know. This is supposed to pass as a legitimate review, so I can't just say "Hey! This stinks! Don't watch it!" I HAVE to come up with a rating. So I'm gonna be fair about it, and roll my D&D percentage dice. These are just two ten-sided dice. One die is the ones place, and one die is the tens place, together they randomly determine a number between 0-1 (watching "Manos: The Hands of Fate" while getting a root canal from a dentist with the shakes) all the way up to double-0, which actually means 100 (watching original theatrical cut of "Star Wars"...on my comfy couch...eating mint chocolate chip ice cream...with *sigh* Morgan Fairchild! It CAN'T POSSIBLY get better than THAT!).

...*sigh*

What? Where was I? Oh yeah, dice! Right! Anyway, as I was saying, I give my dice a nice, random, totally un-biased, un-influenced, un-weighted roll just like this...











...and end up with a fair and un-orchestrated 11! Yup, slightly above "Manos", and slightly below "Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings". Sounds about right to me!

Of course, you don't HAVE to take my word on it (though I highly suggest that you do). You could watch it for yourself, if you're the masochistic type. This movie is out there, running wild, waiting to pounce on some poor, unsuspecting sci-fi fan who won't know until it's too late! Don't let it happen to you! Don't let it happen to your loved ones! Spread the word, link to this review, people MUST be warned!

By the way, have you seen any other movies that should be avoided at all costs? Feel free to leave a comment below telling me, and other unwary victims, the titles! In the meantime, I got nothing more to add, so come back next month to see what else I can find to talk about! Be there and be square!

------Your Buddy, Oddcube



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