Best "CHEAP" space movie

[Kelso]

"The American Astronaut" is the ultimate in cheap space movies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfO0S2RJS6I&feature=related

Nothing else even comes close, IMHO.

It's also fucking brilliant!


I love that flick.

 

[Chris_Johnston]

And can anyone remember that movie with George Pepard and Jan Michael Vincent and the man eating cock-roaches???

Damnation Alley

One of the worst Sci-Fi movies ever made... yet it featured the most amazing vehicle ever created for film... the Landmaster!

Damnation Alley Landmaster Page
Landmaster - Wikipedia

For over twenty years I'd ride/drive past the thing as it sat rusting and peeling in front of Jeffries Automotive Styling on the Cahuenga Pass, kinda jammed up against the hillside .
They'd repaint it every few years for a commercial or some'n, but they finally restored it to its original condition before they sold it off.

 

[RandyS]

Does the Last Starfighter count? It is both cheap and cheesy. And wonderfully good campy fun!

Someday there will be a sequel!

I hope so, that was a good one.

Anybody remember Journey to the Far Side of the Sun?

 

[Dane_Whitman]

Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires looked pretty damned good, but then it was a product of the best horror director/cinematographer who ever lived.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires looked pretty damned good, but then it was a product of the best horror director/cinematographer who ever lived.

Yes..it did look creepy, which is the only thing worth watching in that movie..the acting was awful, and the story was boring...but the 'cheap' FX are a hoot!!!

Rob

 

[Gary Mitchell]

One of the worst Sci-Fi movies ever made... yet it featured the most amazing vehicle ever created for film... the Landmaster!

Hey, Damnation Alley was cool. I'm still waiting for it on DVD. I have it on vhs but it's getting pretty old.

 

[Gary Mitchell]

Like Armageddon/Deep Impact, Leviathan/Deep Star Six and any number of related movie pairs eluding me at the moment that seem to get released together sometimes.

Don't forget Event Horizon and Supernova.

 

[Mike Farley]

Star Wars (Episode IV: A New Hope) was made for very very little.

It was Lucas' primary motivation for later releasing the Special Editions (except money I guess...).

Star Wars was made for $13 million dollars in 1977 when the average film budget was $5 million. It in no way qualifies as cheap.

 

[Dane_Whitman]

Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires looked pretty damned good, but then it was a product of the best horror director/cinematographer who ever lived.

Yes..it did look creepy, which is the only thing worth watching in that movie..the acting was awful, and the story was boring...but the 'cheap' FX are a hoot!!!

Rob

Yeah, I didn't really enjoy the plot and the acting was unremarkable. But those chicks looked good in this skin-tight leather outfits, huh?

What I also found remarkable about Planet of the Vampires is that it looks like Ridley Scott and whoever wrote the script lifted a good deal of the part where the Nostromo crew discover the alien ship from this film! Yet both Scott and the writer claim not to have seen Bava's film when they made Alien.

 

[Dr_Daystrom]

Laserblast

The Alien Factor

The Deadly Spawn

The Incredible Melting Man

Without Warning

 

[RobertScorpio]

Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires looked pretty damned good, but then it was a product of the best horror director/cinematographer who ever lived.

Yes..it did look creepy, which is the only thing worth watching in that movie..the acting was awful, and the story was boring...but the 'cheap' FX are a hoot!!!

Rob

Yeah, I didn't really enjoy the plot and the acting was unremarkable. But those chicks looked good in this skin-tight leather outfits, huh?

What I also found remarkable about Planet of the Vampires is that it looks like Ridley Scott and whoever wrote the script lifted a good deal of the part where the Nostromo crew discover the alien ship from this film! Yet both Scott and the writer claim not to have seen Bava's film when they made Alien.

When we saw that movie, about two years ago, my friend said something about that. It did indeed look and feel like a "Ridley Scott" style movie. And then I read somewhere that he claimed to have never seen it....oh well. Both movies do share that 'eerie' setting and tone...

Rob

 

[Dane_Whitman]

This is pretty great by the way, I'll be bookmarking this thread to catch up on some of the stuff I missed over the years.

It's a shame Battle Beyond The Stars hasn't been reissued on dvd, because it goes for 30 euros on eBay.

 

[RAMA]

For some reason, I like watching those old cheap space movies like Ice Pirates. Mainly because I like to watch the FX they come up with on shoe string budgets. There was the other one with Peter Strauss and Molly Ringwald which was pretty cheap, but again, inventive with how to spread the budget around...

Enemy/Mine even has that cheap look to it. We watched it over the weekend, and wow, that movie just doesn't hold up, IMO. Very low quality film, with terrible dialog. I loved it back then, but now? no.

What are some of your favorite cheap space movies, and no I don't mean Ed Wood's movies. I mean movies that were made, 60s and onward, where the FX are bad and the acting worse, and yet, somehow, if you had nothing else to watch at 2am and you came across it you might stop..and watch the trainwreck again.

Rob
Scorpio

I like Screamers, though most of it takes place planetfall. I have a soft spot for The Last Starfighter. Moon 44 showed you could do a lot for little money.

Odd, I bought and showed the Enemy Mine DVD to my 21 yr old stepdaughter, and not only did the FX hold up, it was still a moving story.

RAMA

 

[Barbados Slim]

Space Truckers

I could go for some square pork right now.

Nightflyers with Katherine Mary "Night of the Comets" Stewart. It's what happens when you try to meld 2001 and Alien. The whole thing has a cheap(er) Event Horizon feel.
[/URL].

I don't think I've ever seen that one, shame it only seems to be on VHS.

I used to see it on cable when I was a teen. Looking it up, it's adapted from a novella written by George R.R. "Song of Ice and Fire" Martin.

 

[Aragorn]

Robot Wars (aka Robot Jox 2). Lisa Rinna was on The Tonight Show and Jay Leno did one of his "here's an embarrassing moment from your past work" bits. They were in a space ship or space station, opened a door out into space... and fell down space.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Anybody remember Journey to the Far Side of the Sun?

Yep. Unspeakable crimes against celestial mechanics aside, I was very happy to grab three copies (in the event it again goes OOP for a whole decade) of last year's anamorphic DVD release.

TGT

 

[Barbados Slim]

One that I've watched far too many times is Wing Commander. Cheap & cheesy all around.

 

[Aragorn]

Highlights from Robot Jox.

Trailer for Robot Wars.

 

[cb31]

Prisoners of the Lost Universe! (poor Richard Hatch)

 

[RobertScorpio]

Prisoners of the Lost Universe! (poor Richard Hatch)

I have never heard of this movie...the title alone is pretty cool!!

i went to the link and listened to the dialog and watched the small snidbit with Hatch fighting the big dude...this movie is wonderfully bad looking, I will have to find it. The blond chic, not sure of her name, but she is hot looking. I saw her on an episode of The Mcahans (she played a prosititute) and always had a crush on her....good to see she made it into the 80s at least. She was, in the late 70s, romatically connected to Al Pacino

Rob