Deep Space (1988)
4/10
Fred Olen Ray's cheap and cheerful Aliens rip-off
15 June 2016
Warning: Spoilers
A prime example of Fred Olen Ray's no-budget output, this cheerful but tacky sci-fi romp happily rips off the film ALIENS so thoroughly that you'll be astonished nobody sued. DEEP SPACE is enjoyable enough to watch in a brainless way and is pretty entertaining for a "bad" movie, but serious film fans should look elsewhere for their entertainment as this movie is extremely constrained by the lack of budget. The dialogue has obviously been written in a hurry, with lots of silly jokes that fall flat whilst even the serious dialogue is fake-sounding. However, there's a lot of action which keeps the film moving at a fast pace, so much so that the lack of budget is readily disguised for a lot of the time.

The film opens with a bad animation of "something" falling to earth and its here that the clichés begin. Everything is clichéd about this film, from the characters to their actions to the situation and the dialogue. You have the pair of lovestruck teenagers who inadvertently become the first victims, the old drunk hermit who nobody believes, and the two unconventional cops always getting chewed out by their by-the-book captain. Thankfully the film is pretty tongue-in-cheek too and never takes itself too seriously, realising that the audience won't either. This makes it more enjoyable than you might expect.

The slimy alien monster is a total rip-off of the Queen in ALIENS, except that it looks a lot more fake and is less animate. Even the teeth and jaws are the same. The method of death for most victims is to be grabbed by silly-looking tentacles and then 'splattered' to death. The film isn't particularly gory, instead slimy, and every death seems to end with someone's guts getting sprayed across a wall in loving detail. There are some bloody body parts and also a single severed head (of a guy who looks like Einstein) in there too for good measure. Not content with having just one monster, whoever devised this garbage also decided to throw in two decidedly uncute alien baby critters in too, which kind of look like big scorpions and menace women in ill-fitting negligees. That these are "inspired" by the facehuggers in ALIENS goes without saying - they even jump to attack people in the exact same fashion.

Charles Napier takes the lead role of the rugged rebel cop and he's actually very good, and it is he who makes the film watchable. Napier exudes a gruff charisma and his character - although deeply clichéd - is impossible to dislike. That's good, because the supporting cast is populated by cardboard characters and good actors giving bad performances. Ann Turkel (HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP) has the thankless task of being the female love interest (lured into bed with bagpipes no less) while the slumming Bo Svenson is the hard-as-nails police captain. As usual, Ray populates minor roles with once-famous stars such as Julie Newmar or that B-movie stalwart, Anthony Eisley, who is the victim of one of those "wall-splatterings" I mentioned earlier.

If you think about it, nothing much actually happens during the course of this movie, other than Napier fighting teenage robbers (cue exaggerated car crash) and assorted aliens. The end of the film takes place in one of those empty factories so beloved of the horror and action genres and openly rips off ALIEN, as one security guard searches for a cat while slime drips from the ceiling and a monster attacks from behind. Still, you've gotta love the over-the-top finale which sees Napier battling the beast with a chainsaw while Svenson goes at it with a crowbar, an axe, not to mention the arsenal of weaponry that he and Napier use on the creature. It's that kind of movie. DEEP SPACE is a pretty poor film, but its never boring and Napier is good value as the lead, so genre fans may well get a kick out of watching it.
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