Best "CHEAP" space movie

[RobertScorpio]

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

 

[Angel4576]

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...

Space Hunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone.

 

[stonester1]

I LIKE Enemy Mine.

Hm...Battle Beyond The Stars.

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

Ikarie XB-1 1963 Polák
Screamers
First Spaceship on Venus 1960
Battle Beyond the Stars
Solyaris Andrei Tarkovsky 72
Lifeforce
Weird Science
Silent Running
Fantastic Planet 1973
Black Moon from 75 (not really space scifi ).
Day of the Triffids 1963
Caltiki, The Immortal Monster (not really space scifi )
The blob
Latitude Zero
Carpenter's Dark Star
Outer Limits Sandkings movie
Toxic Avenger, Godzilla movies etc
Planet of the Apes
Uchu daisenso
Barbarella
Space Truckers

 

[Angel4576]

^^ Screamers is a great, and largely unknown movie. Pretty sure I've got it knocking around on DVD somewhere.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Ikarie XB-1 1963 Polák
Screamers
First Spaceship on Venus 1960
Battle Beyond the Stars
Solyaris Andrei Tarkovsky 72
Lifeforce
Weird Science
Silent Running
Fantastic Planet 1973
Black Moon from 75 (not really space scifi ).
Day of the Triffids 1963
Caltiki, The Immortal Monster (not really space scifi )
The blob
Latitude Zero
Carpenter's Dark Star
Outer Limits Sandkings movie
Toxic Avenger, Godzilla movies etc
Planet of the Apes
Uchu daisenso
Barbarella
Space Truckers

Thanks Orion...I'm going to print this list and look for them. I really do like these cheapo movies. Did you ever see Space Vampires??? A 1960s movie that had the craziest sets.

Rob

 

[RobertScorpio]

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...

Space Hunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone.

Yep..thats it. And I actually remember liking it at the time...

Rob

 

[Neopeius]

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...

Space Hunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone.

Yep..thats it. And I actually remember liking it at the time...

It had that super sexy "Undress them for me" scene.

Screamers is quite good. Ice Pirates is an eternal classic!

 

[Zulu Romeo]

Hm...Battle Beyond The Stars.

If you thought that felt cheap (but I liked it), I also loved a movie called "Space Raiders" - essentially a new story reusing all the ships and special effects (heck, even James Horner's iconic score) from BBTS.

"Goddamn rocks! I hate rocks!"

 

[Mysterion]

"Dark Star" - originally a film school project, later expanded on and released theatrically. Involves John Carpenter (The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, etc.) and Dan O'Bannon (Alien) who both went on to some pretty big SF work, and a very spiffy spaceship design by Ron Cobb. You need to see this movie at least once in your life if you are truly an SF fan.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Hm...Battle Beyond The Stars.

If you thought that felt cheap (but I liked it), I also loved a movie called "Space Raiders" - essentially a new story reusing all the ships and special effects (heck, even James Horner's iconic score) from BBTS.

"Goddamn rocks! I hate rocks!"

And that bad part? I REMEMBER that one too!!! The FX weren't that bad, as I recall. And the ship looked like two boobs as I recall...

Rob

 

[Zulu Romeo]

Hm...Battle Beyond The Stars.

If you thought that felt cheap (but I liked it), I also loved a movie called "Space Raiders" - essentially a new story reusing all the ships and special effects (heck, even James Horner's iconic score) from BBTS.

"Goddamn rocks! I hate rocks!"

And that bad part? I REMEMBER that one too!!! The FX weren't that bad, as I recall. And the ship looked like two boobs as I recall...

Rob

Two boobs attached to a uterus, and a pair of Fallopian tubes, with the rear engine in the cervix and the weapons arrays in the "ovaries". Very Freudian.

 

[Klaus]

"Dark Star" - originally a film school project, later expanded on and released theatrically. Involves John Carpenter (The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, etc.) and Dan O'Bannon (Alien) who both went on to some pretty big SF work, and a very spiffy spaceship design by Ron Cobb. You need to see this movie at least once in your life if you are truly an SF fan.

That was my first thought...

 

[Mysterion]

"Dark Star" - originally a film school project, later expanded on and released theatrically. Involves John Carpenter (The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, etc.) and Dan O'Bannon (Alien) who both went on to some pretty big SF work, and a very spiffy spaceship design by Ron Cobb. You need to see this movie at least once in your life if you are truly an SF fan.

That was my first thought...

Glad to know I'm not the only one.

Here's a clip for those not squeemy about being spoiled:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjGRySVyTDk

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

I forgot to mention Gattaca,
not exactly space based but it does have an extremely strong scifi space theme. I wouldn't really call it cult or give it B-movie status but it was a big Hollywood film done in 1997 with a very small budget

imdb rating 7.7 rottentomatoes rating 82 %

Worth checking out


Terrore nello spazio
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059792/
that's your Space Vampires
(haven't seen it)

RobScorpio, the other "Space Vampires" aka "Lifeforce" is a 1980s movie with Patrick Stewart

 

[RobertScorpio]

Another one I thought of? Westworld. Wasn't that a cheapy scifi movie at the time? Or was it a big release; not sure. And someone may have mentioned it, but A Boy and His Dog.


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

Rob

 

[Mysterion]

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

Damnation Alley

 

[Barbados Slim]

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.

And don't forget Disney's The Black Hole.

 

[RobertScorpio]

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

Damnation Alley

Thank's Mysterion. That movie, especially the cockroaches, gave me night mares for years to come!!! In fact, I stayed in a hotel one night in Norfolk Virgina and had to get up to pee...turned on the lights and the walls had like twenty cockroached on them....I didn't go back to bed.

Rob

 

[Kelso]

What the hell classifies a movie as being "cheap". I mean, someone listed Planet of the Apes for fuck's sake!


And didn't Enemy Mine go well over budget?