Gripping story with well-crafted characters

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

BEAST IN SPACE is probably the most bizarre science fiction movie I've ever watched. Italian trash director Alfonso Brescia is known among cult circles for his work on a wacky quintet of ultra low budget sci fi offerings in the late '70s, purely designed to cash in on the success of STAR WARS, and this is the last one of that series. Not content with reworking the same themes as in the other films, Brescia also decides to rip off an erotic drama called THE BEAST, about a woman in love with a monster, and this tells virtually the same story while relocating to another planet.The two halves of the film sit at odds with one another. On the one hand we get the usual cardboard sets, silly looking costumes and poor actors pretending they're piloting a spaceship, avoiding asteroids and going after a guy who's clearly supposed to be Han Solo. Once they land on a planet, they're once more pursued by a huge, rubbishy looking cardboard computer and they also find themselves up against an army of blond-haired androids who appear to be left over from the Brescia-directed peplum film CONQUEROR OF ATLANTIS.Thrown into the mix are a series of fairly explicit sex scenes that were spiced up with hardcore inserts for foreign markets; it's this XXX-rated latter version that's recently surfaced on DVD. No doubt to Brescia's delight, the actual star of THE BEAST, Sirpa Lane, was paid enough to appear in this as well. Supporting her is Greek leading man Vassili Karis, who had already starred in a couple of these sci fi yarns like COSMOS: WAR OF THE PLANETS, although he must have wondered what he'd got himself into when he saw the sex stuff in this one. The guy wearing the pan outfit is a hoot especially as the edge of the hairy legs he's wearing is visible throughout.Anyway, this is trashy stuff in the extreme, worthy only because it's a complete oddity even given the varied, anything-goes standards of Italian exploitation cinema.

A starship captain is sent on a mission to a distant planet to find a rare element called Antalium. He is accompanied by a team that includes a disproportionately high number of sexy women. When there they encounter Onaph, the planet's overlord, and his servants, all of whom resemble Brian Jones from the Rolling Stones. It seems that the planets true ruler though is a giant ancient computer.But mostly it's about people having sex.The Beast in Space is directed by Alfonso Brescia who seems to have been a bit of a specialist in cheap Star Wars clones, such as War of the Robots (of which I am sure it shares some footage, specifically the scenes of the Brian Jonses fighting with laser swords). This one is another in this genre, except it is a porn version. George Lucas certainly never went here before. It stars vixen Sirpa Lane, who also starred in Joe D'Amato's ultra-trashy Love Goddess of the Cannibals. This one is quite good fun for the most part but it does do that thing that most of these sexploitation films from the era do and that is that it features seemingly endless soft-core fumbles that get tedious quite quick. Bizarrely, you actually want more of the actual plot. Having said all that, this one really goes into hyper-drive with the scene where Onaph reveals himself to be a space-satyr with an enormous erect penis. He then engages in an animalistic sex scene with Shirpa Lane. It's certainly memorable and it's what ultimately sets the film apart from others of its genre.

This is yet another trash film. I think it's worth noting that, at least to me, trash designates merely films with incredibly low production values. Often these films also press hard on the exaggeration of sex and/or blood. Not violence though. Mostly, and this film is no exception, these films work as parodies of other serious films. Not fully intentional as parodies, but as ways to capitalize on the success of other films. That's why here we have cardboard light sabers, 3 years after the original Star Wars came out.I come to films like this once in a while, first for the sheer fun of sharing its makers self- referential passion, enjoying the consented flaws as much as i appreciate the good things. But also, i come here to enjoy interesting concepts and sometimes subtle layering that often come up in pieces like this film. Usually, the disgrace of every aspect of filmmaking, from sets to acting, from blocking to framing, ruins the experience. But still, you can often find interesting things to consider, on the narrative level. Such is the case with this film.Check how this is built. A crew with the mission to go to a distant planet to collect some precious material. One of the elements (the sex star) of the crew has been dreaming about a place she doesn't know, where she is repeatedly raped (in the dream) by a beast, half human half goat (with a human penis). In the meantime she screws the leader of the mission. On the planet, interesting stuff happens. The planet is controlled by a machine, with power to enable sexual fantasies on its inhabitants, basically placing the crew under the illusion of consented sex with each other. This is made by the computer to enable its avatar, the half man half goat beast, to reach the girl and make her live the dream she'd been having. A final battle happens, the computer is destroyed, they leave the planet.What works fine for me is how we get buried deeper in the layers of the story. We supposedly start in the real universe of those characters. Sex between both of them makes her reveal her (sex) dream and we submerge one level below the reality of the world of film. The distant planet is itself the descent into a different buried world. The dreams induced by the computer, the initial illusion that we have that those are not dreams, that takes us to a different level. And the final doubt on whether the "real" rape was real or yet another computer induced illusion, that's interesting. Sex surrounds everything of course, as the producers need it in order to sell the film. So the premises are clear about what you'll see here. But how it is done can be appreciated, despite the trashy feel of the whole thing.My opinion: 2/5http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com

Relatively young and uncontrollably horny space fleet commander Captain Larry Madison (Karis) takes a break from seducing bar-girls and getting into drunken fistfights with rivals to actually do his job i.e. a space mission.On the mission to an unknown world he particularly notices amongst his new crew is one Lt. Sondra Richardson (Sirpa Lane), (a woman who looks like Radha Mitchell with a hangover). He enjoyed a brief tryst with her after a bar pick-up and didn't call. Now things are awkward especially since they have to work together on a potentially dangerous mission.In real space missions, crews train together for years and form bonds of professional trust which limit the possibility of one of them running into a casual encounter and having to get past personal stuff that has no place on a mission. They are seldom captained by guys who get into drunken bar fights and use their status to pick up women or staffed with female crew who bed down with a potential crew-mate. But the crew seen here just meets and takes off together right after making introductions.The captain's unprofessional adventures in bars have not only caught up with him as it relates to his work colleague. No sooner are they off into the cosmos than a ship with some of the guys he beat up in a bar attack the vessel and damage it to the point where it has to go on a unscheduled emergency detour to an uncharted planet.On the planet they are hosted by a seemingly benevolent raconteur (Hundar) who treats them to a sumptuous dining experience after which they engage in frottage then full on coitus.Low-budget sci-fi from around the same time like the infamous Inseminoid (1981) are similarly hastily assembled malignant crossbreeds of the respective Star Trek and Alien franchises.You get the typical depiction of computerized instrumentation that the screen gave audiences of the time. Metallic boxes with lots of flashing lights and phony levers and gauges and instruments that look like they are doing something but are in fact just flashing on and off. The sets were less important than the acting.But the inexplicable pornographic tangent this particular title goes on, while not unexpected given the opening scenes, does start rather abruptly and without much subtlety or proper pacing by showing the crew watching a couple of horses having sex and then begin touching themselves. Quite frankly it was more than the tackiness of it all that made me feel slightly nauseous.I can only wonder if the actors knew they were going to be in a production with a pornographic tangent. The cast assembled here has people who were, in several notable cases, generally known for soft-core sex films even though this looks like, for the most part just typical b-movie sci-fi.