Science Fiction Fans!

[Fat Freddy]

Wow and I would have thought the next on Your "Must have" List from Roger Corman would be Rock and Roll Highschool.. Unless you already have that on DVD???

 

I got "RNRHS" as soon as it was released a couple of months ago... as a birthday present for myself.

 

By the way, folks, the stories of the making of "Star Crash" included on the DVD bonus features are better than the movie itself... this set is the first time I've actually sat thru an entire disc of bonus features in one sitting.

 

The guy who does the commentary tracks on the DVD is a guy by the name of Stephen Romano, who is apparently Star Crash's #1 fan. I mean, this guy is OBSESSED. He knows EVERYTHING about this movie. He claims to have seen it 17 (!) times during its initial theatrical run in drive-ins back in 1979 when he was 9 years old, and has seen it at least 500 (!) times since. He was working on a book about the making of the movie when he was contacted to do the work on this DVD. So yeah, he obviously knows his sh*t. There are actually two (!) commentary tracks to go with the film, one is a straight up "scene by scene" thing where he lays out tons of tidbits and trivia about what's going on onscreen, the other is basically a long rambling statement about "Star Crash's" place not only in Italian B-movie history, but in the history of exploitation films and science fiction in general. This dude loves this movie more than any man really should (and I don't think I would want to sit next to him on a long bus ride) but both commentaries are entertaining as hell. There's also an interview with director Luigi Cozzi, which is funny as hell (even though his thick-as-spaghetti-sauce Italian accent is hard to decipher at times). Caroline Munro aka Stella Star also gets a lengthy interview about "Star Crash" and her entire career in B-Filmdom. Plus you get a slide show about the making of the special effects, trailers out the ass (in several different languages), deleted and alternate scenes, yadda yadda yadda. This DVD is more packed than Samantha Fox's t-shirt.

 

It seems that Luigi Cozzi (who goes by his Americanized alias "Lewis Coates" on this flick) had been a sci-fi geek his whole life, had always wanted to do a science fiction movie, but all thru the 70s had been told the genre was "dead." Then of course "Star Wars" came out in '77 and started making billions of dollars so all the B-Movie studios started cranking out sci-fi movies of their own to cash in on the craze. He sez his producer called him from Hollywood and said "We want our own Star Wars! Get to work!" ... but the problem was, the movie hadn't even been released in Luigi's native Italy yet, so he couldn't even see what they wanted him to rip off. So he found the paperback novelization of the movie in a bookstore in Rome, read thru it twice, and whipped up the "Star Crash" screenplay in a mere ten days. Wow! I know those B-Movie guys have to work quick, but that's insane. I mean, James Cameron probably took longer than ten days to decide what color the aliens in "Avatar" were going to be.

 

Anyway, nothing like this film had ever been attempted in Italy at the time, so Luigi and his crew basically made everything up as they went along. They didn't have access to modern day special FX technology at the budget they were working on, so they tried their best with what little they had. What ended up on screen may be cheesy, but it's amazing they got it to look as good as they did considering all the crap they went through.

 

I must admit that after hearing some of the tales of their trials and tribulations in getting the movie done, that I am appreciating "Star Crash" in a whole new light.

 

Seriously, Sean (Dark Star)... you gotta see this f*cking thing. It'll blow your mind. I mean, Christ, you own just about everything else on DVD, put in an order for this baby next time you're at Amazon. You'll thank me.

[Fat Freddy]

That is just the best...lol, the part with the sword wielding robot on the beach in the original trailer link at the 1:47 mark is a complete Jason and the Argonauts copy. Then the head under the glass dome later on is just like 1953's Invaders from Mars. hahaha Class stuff....love to see the full film!

 

You're dead on, Nick. In the special features I mentioned in the above post, the director admits that both of those scenes were "homages" to the older flicks you mentioned. Luigi sez he was a major Ray Harryhausen fan growing up so the "sword wielding robot on the beach" was an intentional nod to "Jason and the Argonauts," and the alien guy in the dome was also a tip of the hat to "Invaders from Mars."