Laserblast (1978)

A Brilliant Conflict

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

To my surprise this is actually a Fullmoon movie, the company well known only for cheesy horror films. Apparently they do sci-fi even worse.Laserblast presently sits with a 2.6 rating on IMDB, which is astoundingly low. I didn't think for a second it would be that bad, it actually is.It tells the story of a young man who finds a laser cannon in the desert, after wielding it and the necklace that came with it he is periodically transformed into a creature hellbent on destruction.Looking at the cover you'd think the "Creature" was Gary Busey, in the film it's more an early Romero zombie.The special effects are embarassing even for the time, the plot is riddled with holes and the whole thing comes off amateurish. One of the worst films every made? No. Deserving of 2.6? Absolutely.The Good:Erm.....The Bad:Looks hideousJust can't take it seriouslyThings I Learnt From This Movie:Aliens are just giant turtles without shells who wear shiney gloves

I guess I love this bad film because I caught it on its' initial release in a drive-in on a hot summer night in 1978, well provisioned with a bag of Colombian Gold Buds and a couple bottles of Boone's Farm. We'd seen a still of the stop-motion animation scene in Starlog Magazine, and were quite curious. Wonderfully dreadful and delirious, the animated sequence at the beginning of the film is really the only thing this film had to recommend it. David Carradine's "Deathsport" was worse than this, as I recall, but it's not as good as Marjoe Gortner's "Starcrash"...

I am one of those few who liked this movie. I was always reluctant to get this on DVD, but during a Full Moon Valentine's Day Sale, I bought it. A solid little cult sci-fi film with some decent special effects. I liked the development of Billy and how he slowly is possessed and driven completely mad. My only gripe with the movie has to do with the storytelling. How did the original alien in the beginning get on earth and why? Also, what was the deal with that alien being wanted from the other space aliens? That is never explained, however, it's easy to not think about it.Too many people take movies seriously these days. Time for people to lighten up and realize that movies don't have to be perfect in order to be fun. Glad Billy blows up a billboard with "Star Wars" on it! Take that Star Wars nerds!

You can generally arm yourself against bad movies … Most efficiently, of course, is not watching them at all, but it's much better to arm yourself by inviting a group of friends, providing big slices of pizza, copious amounts of beer and – if really necessary – some other kind of mind-broadening stuff. But even then, you can never fully prepare yourself for something like "Laserblast". Right from the opening sequences already, you'll have the impression of being drunk and/or stoned. There's a man, slightly looking like a zombie, in possession of a hi-tech laser gun being chased by two alien creatures that look like E.T.'s malignant cousins. Here we are in the year of Our Lord 1978, but the stop-motion effects of "King Kong" for example, which was release more than forty years earlier, are much more convincing. Anyway, the zombie dude is killed but the aliens leave the gun and the complementary amulet to make it function behind in the desert for Billy Duncan to find. Billy is a prototypic teenage loser whose mommy is always off to parties in Acapulco. He's the type of nerd that gets bullied by other nerds that look like even bigger nerds. But now that Billy has an intergalactic weapon of mass destruction.Maybe I was a little overenthusiastic when I watched this, but I honestly think that deep down in the minds of the people who created "Laserblast" there were some truly great and innovative ideas present. It's mainly the elaboration of these ideas and the execution of the movie where it went wrong a little. It's the lack of budget and talent involved that makes "Laserblast" a completely failure and pathetic movie; not the plot. The overlong parts were nothing gets blown up or where those cute little clay aliens aren't on screen, which pretty much covers 90% of the entire movie, are incredibly boring. The characters are all insufferable people. Billy is a dork who never expresses any sort of emotion and the nerd character who mocks him is the single most irritating and overacting imbecile ever! Somehow, the director of this thing must have thought that his film was bigger than Star Wars. At some point in the film, Billy even blasts away a promotional billboard of Star Wars with his laser gun! I wonder if that was a symbolic act or statement saying something like: "Up yours, George Lucas!".In conclusion, this is a fantastic movie to analyze afterwards! Preferably when you're still a bit tipsy! What was, in fact, the role of these aliens? Are they the good guys who come to save us, stupid and defenseless human beings, against maniacs that can't deal with hi-tech interstellar weaponry? Or are they sadists that strategically place this powerful weapon somewhere accessible for a moron to find it and gradually exterminate mankind? Cheesy food for thought