Schlockarama: VHS/DVD Grindhouse

After the release of Star Wars, many different filmmakers and movie studios rushed to make the next science-fiction epic. Some were all right and some were just bad. 1978’s Laserblast was really bad. Most of the film makes no sense and some of it you just have to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. A very corny sci-fi film produced by Charles Band who later on started Full Moon Pictures and made some more bad films. (Well, some stuff from Full Moon was good; i.e. Puppet Master and others; but they did produced some flops as well.)

Basically the story is about some aliens coming to Earth and one looks like a skinny Incredible Hulk with a cardboard looking laser cannon on his arm and the others are these E.T. looking (I know E.T. wasn’t out yet at this time, but they still look like him.) lizard aliens. Actually the lizard looking aliens were clay animation and were kind of cool for back then. Anyways, these two kinds of aliens are battling it out in the desert and the lizard guys fry the Hulk looking dude leaving only his necklace and the laser.

Later on in the film, some guy, Billy, who looks like a cross between Mark Hamill and Chris Atkins, finds the alien’s laser and his necklace. He puts on the necklace and grabs the laser gun and becomes somewhat possessed by it and he starts to run amuck all over his small town. The other aliens see that Billy took the laser and try to track him down and destroy him.

Like I said before, most of the film is laughable and the moments that stand out for me are ones the filmmaker probably doesn’t want to remember. There’s a part where Billy is watching his mom, packing luggage into her station wagon and it looks like he’s checking out her ass as she bends over. Then he has this sad look on his face and says “Mommy do you have to go?”, it’s so bad. There’s also a part where there’s this door in some lab and the doorknob is up way too high. Then the scene that always sticks out is a shot of a van going down the road and you see the camera rig on the side of it. Also, there’s a part where Billy passes by a Star Wars sign and fires at it. I guess they were trying to say Star Wars was nothing and this is the real shit. Yeah, it’s shit all right.

Laserblast also features some familiar faces in the horror/sci-fi/b-movie scene. Roddy McDowall actually wasted his time by being in this film. Good thing for him he didn’t appear in it too long because his character gets killed off early on in the movie. Other actors in the film are Keenan Wynn (Orca), Ron Masak (Land of the Lost, Wonder Woman), Dennis Burkley (The Doors, No Way Out), and the king of the nerds, Eddie Deezen (Zapped!, Critters 2). It’s funny, because they have Deezen playing some kind of tough guy stooge.

Actually, Lasterblast is a much better film when you watch the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version. I first saw the film on there and that version is a classic. I only seen the original film a few times and it is hard to watch. If I were to rate the MST3K version, it would probably be three stars. There’s some great lines from the MST3K version like every time when Dennis Burkley is on the screen they shout out, “Are you ready for some football!”, because he looks like Hank Williams Jr. a bit. Also there’s a line from a doctor when he starts to say, “You’re gonna think I’m crazy…..” and the MST3K crew finish it off with “…..I have grasshoppers taped to my back.” I know it makes no sense, but that line always sticks out for me every time I see it. Then during a scene where Billy is having sex with his girlfriend, they keep showing a close-up of his girlfriend’s back getting rubbed down and someone in the MST3K group says, “Two things I get out of this movie, sheet cake and back fat.” The sheet cake reference is to a scene earlier in the film where there’s a birthday party and everyone is stuffing their face with cake.

My suggestion to everyone is to watch the Mystery Science Theater version and skip the original. It is more entertaining and hilarious to watch and is one of the best MST3K episodes. If you really want to watch the original, be warned, but you will still get some laughs out of it at some moments throughout.