Star Slammer

This is a prison girl movie in space, a prison without a shower. One bad guy wears pink, another had Fabio hair. Sandy Brooke changes her top twice. Expected cat fight was lame, special effects were camp. 2017 Edition has a Fred Olen Ray commentary option. Guide: No swearing or sex. Nudity

There is a leech-eating scene.... need I say more? At one point, during the requisite prison cafeteria food-fight scene, several of the actresses literally crack up and start giggling during their lines. One of the actresses, a doctor, was actually not half bad (in comparison), and I felt very sad for her; the rest of the actresses didn't seem to take the script seriously at all, and who can blame them? They were probably coeds promised free beer if they showed up and read from cue cards. This movie is so very bad that it's actually hysterically funny.

SEE. . . John Carradine, in a cameo even more pointless than the one from ICE PIRATES. SEE. . . footage from DARK STAR and BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS repetitively incorporated into the proceedings. And DON'T see any T&A, beyond the lovely Ms. Brooke's two (just two?) topless shots. Yep, it's a 'women-in-prison' flick, in space no less, that doesn't work in the communal shower, or the kinky pecking order, or any degrading 'initiation' rites. What a shame. What a shame indeed. At least Ross Hagen's in it, wearing Jared-Syn's old body armor. And I got a kick out of the 'episode' titles... a junky below-B-movie that gives its self dramatic structure, now how often do you see that? About as often as promised but undelivered sequels, which is to say often enough. "See the continuing adventures of Taura in- CHAIN GANG PLANET!" Or not.

The beginning is awful: trying to convince us that we are on an alien planet, Fred Olen Ray shoots everything through a red filter - it worked in "The Angry Red Planet", it's a pain on the eyes here. But soon enough the action moves in the Prison Ship of the title, and the film turns into a cross between sci-fi and WIP - and furthermore, the kind of WIP I like: less focus on torture and humiliation, more on catfights (there are 2, both very good) and the final escape. The special effects are enjoyably cheesy, though I, for one, would prefer to see as a climax a hand-to-hand fight between the heroine and the female warden instead of the laser space battles we do get (some of them apparently lifted from other sources). The girls are pretty sexy and put a lot of spirit and energy into their roles, especially Sandy Brooke who should have had a longer B-movie career. (**1/2)