Planet of horror
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Planet of horror |
| Original title | Galaxy of Terror |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1981 |
| length | 81 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Bruce D. Clark |
| script |
Marc Siegler , Bruce D. Clark |
| production | Roger Corman |
| music | Barry Schrader |
| camera | Jacques Haitkin |
| cut |
Larry Bock , RJ Kizer , Barry Zetlin |
| occupation | |
| |
Galaxy of Terror (AKA Galaxy of Terror ) is an American science fiction - horror film from the year 1981 . As a producer had Roger Corman and directed by Bruce D. Clark .
action
A human civilization is ruled by an omnipotent master , whose head glows bright red and does not reveal any facial contours. When he is told that a spaceship has crashed on the distant, inhospitable planet Morganthus and all contact with the occupants has broken off, he repeats the name of the planet meaningfully and seems to have to make a difficult decision. Eventually he orders one of his senior military commanders to lead a rescue mission. He tells the commander to put the crew together himself.
The ten-man crew set out and after a turbulent hyperspace jump, reached their destination. On the approach to the planet, however, the ship gets into turbulence again, which forces the pilot to make an emergency landing. It turns out that the crash site of the missing ship is within reach, and the crew members are on their way. Once there, they encounter terribly disfigured corpses in the shipwreck. While part of the rescue group is pushing to leave the planet again, as there are obviously no survivors, Bealon, the leader of the team, insists on searching the area.
The crew discovers a mysterious pyramid that seems abandoned. Inside, however, the naked horror awaits them: bizarre, nightmarish creatures and invisible forces brutally bring the individual crew members to death. The survivors, above all the experienced and serene spaceman Cabren , realize that individual, subconscious fears materialize in the pyramid and that only the fearless can survive. The ranks continue to thin until Cabren finally discovers that the mission's aged, nondescript-looking chef, Kore, is the master who mingled with the crew without being recognized .
Kore reveals to Cabren that the pyramid is a training building for an ancient, extinct alien population, where the beings' children should learn to face their worst fears. He himself became a master here . Cabren, who feels hatred for Kore because he knowingly drove the crew to their death, is subjected to a final, tough test until he finally confronts the defenseless Kore. Cabren shoots him and Kore goes down. Before he dies, he tells Cabren with a meaningful smile that his power has now passed to him. The final shot shows Cabren's fatalistic facial expression giving way to a bright red glow.
background
The film premiered in the USA in October 1981, in Europe it was released in 1982 and in Germany on New Year's Day. The B-Movie was u. a. inspired by the successful and style-defining science fiction horror film Alien by Ridley Scott , which was released two years earlier . The cost of producing the film was only around $ 1.5 million. At the box office he grossed around twice as much.
The later world famous director James Cameron , who was involved in the film as production designer and second unit director and who had previously worked on productions of Corman's “New World Pictures”, drew attention to himself during the shooting with imaginative equipment and effects. A much-cited anecdote has it that Cameron had the task of filming a close-up of a severed and - according to the script - populated by "teeming maggots". Since the maggots on the dummy arm did not move, Cameron energized the dummy, which achieved the desired effect. These and other ideas, which quickly got around, led to the fact that a directorial offer was brought to him for the first time. The Piranha 2 - Flying Killer , which was partially filmed by Cameron in the same year and produced by Ovidio G. Assonitis , flopped . Cameron celebrated his breakthrough in 1984 with Terminator , and he was able to process his experiences with Planet des Dread in Aliens - The Return .
Robert Englund , seen in a small role , became known a few years later as Freddy Krueger in the corresponding horror film series. Grace Zabriskie made a name for herself in the 1990s through various roles in David Lynch films. Erin Moran was best known for her leading role in the then highly successful television series Happy Days .
A scene in which the attractive crew member Damelia (played by Taaffe O'Connell ) is raped by an oversized maggot attracted special attention . Her clothes are torn off her body and her screams of fear at first turn into lustful moans until she loses consciousness in an ambiguous setting. In the context of the motive for action, the succumbing to manifesting, individual fears, this is generally interpreted as a reluctant experience of an erotic exit . Originally the sequence was even longer and more explicit. However, since the MPAA assigned an X-Rating based on the original scene , which usually denoted pornographic films, it was re-cut for marketing reasons. Nonetheless, even in the toned-down version, the scene caused lively discussions and soon enjoyed cult status. It led to Taaffe O'Connell receiving supporting roles and cameo appearances in similar genre contributions long after the film. In a science fiction yearbook published by Heyne Verlag it is said, half admiringly, half stunned, that "the explicitly presented rape of a busty blonde astronaut by a giant maggot" is one of the "most ruthless and crazy money shots in the history of trash movies".
Premieres
- USA in October 1981
- Germany January 1st 1982
criticism
“A Roger Corman production that makes clever use of the clichés and tricks of contemporary science fiction and horror films. Handcrafted professionally and not without self-irony. "
Web links
- Galaxy of Terror in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for Planet of Terror . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , October 2011 (PDF; test number: 52 840 V).
- ↑ Eckhard Pabst (Ed.): Myths, Mütter, Maschinen: the universe of James Cameron , Kiel 2005, p. 29
- ↑ Cameron was fired while filming because of a disagreement with the producer
- ^ Sascha Mamczak , Sebastian Pirling, Wolfgang Jeschke : Das Science Fiction Jahr 2011 , Heyne 2011, entry Galaxy of Terror
- ↑ Planet of Terror. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .