In Rob Zombie’s face detonating ditty “Superbeast”, the horror metal mainstreamer-cum-horror movie writer-director growls, “Hey, yeah, I’m the one that you wanted. Hey, yeah, I’m your superbeast”. I like to think that this is some kind of heavy metal homage to Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick”, but that might just be me legitimizing my taste in music. Anyway, I’ve been doing a lot of reviews as of late for genuinely enjoyable cinema and found myself lamenting my seeming stray from what brought me to the movie reviewing game in the first place: BAD movies. When choosing what to do for this week’s “Broke-Ass Budget Disc Fridays” review, I wanted to throw something sci-fi out there and looked to a recent 99¢ store purchase from our infamous pals at Brentwood for inspiration. As such, I bring you Star Odyssey; the very definition of what a “bad movie” is and the proverbial “Superbeast” that I’ve been searching for to remind me why I started doing this job (which actually costs me rather than pays me, so I guess it’d be better defined as a hobby…) in the first place.

This little science fiction clusterfuck comes at us from 1979 Italy like a brain beaning fastball of bad movie pain pitched full force from the arm of… some really good major league pitcher guy… what do you want from me, I don’t watch baseball. The pain starts to sting immediately as an opening theme introduces us to a “tune” that will spit on our eardrums for much of the next 100+ minutes as its rerun over and over again. There’s no better description for this auditory offense than to call it “Colecovision music on uppers while a retarded kid in the background randomly hits two plastic buckets together”. Yes, I repeat, the same techno-synthesized teddy bear picnic waltz plays over every scene. But wait, these opening credits are multiple offenders, as the ears aren’t their only victim, but also the eyes. While the hideously “bouncy” music induces disturbing mental associations of being lured by the proverbial “creepy uncle” into a basement dungeon or depravity and video equipment, we’re also forced to watch Clockwork Orange style at badly lit scenes of toy spaceships being propelled across generic outer space backgrounds. If there’s a cinematic embodiment of a “bad touch”, this is where Star Odyssey starts playing with our hair and putting its hand on our thigh…

The place? Earth. The time? Some time in the future where people dress more so like idiots than they do now and any and all forms of advanced technology require flashing lights in some capacity. Don’t blame me kiddies, the folks in the Italian movie industry aren’t sticklers for details. The threat? A scaly faced, shaggy-haired ruler of an advanced alien species whose name is too hard to distinguish from the shoddy audio quality. Thanks Brentwood, as if you didn’t fuck everybody over enough by distributing shit from those Polonia dickheads, you can’t be troubled to clean up the audio just a little? I think the bad guy’s name might be Lord Clay, but instead I’m just gonna go with calling him “Ssssss” since every time I look at him all I can think of is Dirk Benedict’s final end in the movie of the same name. Ssssss isn’t alone in his attempted conquest of the third planet from the sun though, as he commands an army (i.e. handful) of space androids to do his bidding. You can’t be sure if there are actually as many extras as there are hench-droids seen on screen though, as a “replicating” scene in which a new minion is “created” when one of the androids walks past a mirror plants a seed of doubt for the rest of the movie. Whatever the case, it doesn’t change the fact that they look like a gang of drag queens patterning their “alternative identities” off of what Patricia Arquette might look like dressed in a bad costume out of Plan 9…

Turns out that the attackers’ space ship bears a protective shell that no known Earth weapon can penetrate, so we pretty much give up immediately. The only thing that can stop these invaders from turning us all into fresh meat on the cosmic slave market? A fat old guy and his poker buddies. Said fatso is Professor Morley (all of these names are going to be guesstimates for the same reason listed with Ssssss), a rather obese and bald old lump of crap scientist who “plays by his own rules”, whose intelligence is said to be centuries ahead of the rest of the human race and who has apparently evolved the abilities of mind control and telekinesis as a result. For a man of Morley’s status though, you’d be hard pressed to consider him “centuries ahead of the rest of the human race” when he chooses to dress like a trailer park version of Ming the Merciless and only uses his telekinetic powers to open his medicine cabinet from time to time… Accompanying Morley is his niece Irene, who throws around an awful lot of cleavage for a woman who does nothing but hang around with her geezer uncle all day… unless that’s a result of the old man’s mind control abilities, in which case ewww. Though the fate of the planet is thrown into Morley’s lap (a place I’m sure Irene has spent a little too much time in her life…), the leader of the planet’s sole space command base (a stuffed shirt hoser named Commander Bar… possibly) is remiss to go along with any of Morley’s demands. It seems that Morley dabbled in the wrong side of the law years ago and therefore is only being given limited power and resources for the project of SAVING THE ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD. As such, grandpa’s gotta figure out a less-than-legal way of getting together his dream team of anti-alien fighters.

The first member of the team is space guy Hollywood, a soldier of the, uhm, blue tights wearing space patrol military. Hollywood’s on loan from Commander Bar and also happens to be Irene’s current boyfriend. Though this bombastic, queerly mustachioed pool boy of the space patrol can bring little to the group other than his power to grin like a shithead and prance around like a sugar plum fairy while striking a pose repertoire stolen from Errol Flynn’s playbook, Morley needs his space patrol connections to break a few of his old associates out of a prison on the moon. ‘Wood resists at first because such a thing would be a tarnish on his duties as a spandex clad turd burglar, but with a little psychic nudging from the old man, he steps into line like a good little soldier. Not trusting his new pet zombie to take care of the matter on his own, Morley has Irene bring in her ex-boyfriend Dirk Laramie (a name that immediately brings to mind images of the Marlboro Man holding a lightsaber), a known con man Han Solo type with mental powers of his own, including x-ray vision that only seems to work on playing cards and the power to fix gambling machines for chicks who glue shiny plastic fragments to their faces and promise to sleep with him. He also once attempted to take Spider-Man to court over copyright issues involving the web-crawler’s theft of Dirk’s shirt in the design for his “black costume”. The case was immediately dismissed after the judge realized that Mr. Laramie was Italian, named “Dirk”, and starred in this fucking movie.

Once Dirk’s been hired, the rogue and hypno-‘Wood hijack a rocket to the moon prison. Before this can go any further though, we’re blindsided by a mind-blowing display of karate chop-to-the-crotch editing, when two scenes that should have happened 30 minutes earlier decide to barge in and have their screen time! The first scene is a galactic auction, in which Ssssss (pronounced “ssssss”) outbids a number of equally ridiculous looking lifeforms (i.e. extras in bad wigs, makeup and prosthetics) for the rights to attack Earth and mine its various resources (including the Africans and Asians that they round up…). You can’t help but watch this and think to yourself, “Okay, so they’re doing everything in such an organized way that you need to pay an intergalactic auction house for the ‘ownership’ of the planet, yet this is done entirely without the planet’s approval, so there’s really no need to pay anybody anything before attacking the actual planet!”. Is there somebody who regulates any of these deals or is the auction house the divine power of the entire universe? Has eBay taken over EVERYTHING?! Exactly WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE??!! GAH!

The other uninvited party crasher scene is the first half of Dirk’s introductory segment, where we see him cheating at a card game before the part we saw earlier where he helps his face ornament wearing girlfriend cheat at her game and gets into a fist fight with the rest of the bar’s patrons… I could’ve done without this if it was a matter of trimming the running time of the movie a little, but what’s the point of cutting it, only to throw it back in later when there’s actually some semblance of a story trying to get underway?! Why is this movie doing this to me?! I never asked for it to lay a big George Kennedy shaped shit on my frontal lobe! Did I land in Bizarro World again, or am I just in my personal Hell? I hope my death was glorious… or at least hilarious in some way.

Hitchhiking back to the story we were following along with before, Dirk and ‘Wood slip into the prison and “convince” the warden to release Morley’s fellow renegade scientist pals Bridgette and Shaun, who look like Salvation Army hand-me-downs of Jane Fonda and Ricardo Montalban respectively. Meanwhile, as ‘Wood and Dirk are on their way back to Earth with Barbarella and the wrath of Khan in tow, Irene is out recruiting the last member of Uncle Morley’s group and, surprise surprise, he’s another notch from the lady’s spike-heeled past. This particular “gentleman” is Bill Norman, the premiere athlete on the planet in the sport of Robot Boxing. For those who thought the future of the “sweat science” would turn into Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Robots, it’s not quite that, as the robots in question actually trade blows with humans… or in this case, a skinny little gymnast who whips out his Gymkata-Fu and can’t seem to decide whether he wants to hit his opponent or the referee half the time. Check out the “Easter Egg” linked at the bottom of the page. When I first saw Hollywood running around, thrusting out his chest and planting his hands on his hips, I thought he would be the biggest (human) joke of this movie, but I was sadly mistaken. Norman is the real star of this show! The man’s a poster boy for adult hyper-ADD, leaping here and there, doing flips and tumbles and diving through the air. If you’ve ever wondered where caffeine comes from, it’s refined from this schmuck’s blood! Look at my face. I’m being serious right now. This is my serious face. Now, with my most serious of faces on, pay great attention as I type this: any and all times Norman leaves a scene, he does so with a frolicking, prancing leap as if he were possessed by the ravenous essence of Mikhail Fucking Baryshnikov. Again, look at my face. This is still my serious face. I haven’t changed it what-so-ever while typing that statement. Get it?

The ballet ninja brings more than just himself to the party however, as he also tows along his two friends Tilt and Tillie; a pair of aluminum Howard the Duck clones with Christmas tree star toppers on their heads. T & T were the result of a project that would give robots human emotions. They fell in love with each other and eventually ended it all with a “Battlestar Galactica” rendition of “Romeo & Juliet” as written by Isaac Asimov… I mean the ‘70s Galactica, not the new “legitimate” one that people aren’t afraid to voice their enjoyment of in “Entertainment Weekly” interviews. Well, being robots, it’s a simple matter of dropping by the local scrap yard, reassembling their broken bodies and popping in a new pair of batteries. I’d like to take this time to note that the scrap yard in question looks to be ironically similar to a 1970s scrap yard in both the level of technology being used and the busted down old cars that are all over the place… kinda ruins the illusion when the only futuristic looking thing in the yard are the shiny aluminum robots surrounded by rusted out automobile frames.

Because they can’t seem to remember why they offed their own tin asses in the first place, T&T go with Irene and Norman to save the world. Their contribution to the mission? Well, they can turn immaterial like metal ghost fowl (a useful talent that’s only ever initiated for two scenes) and bicker with each other. That’s right, when the planet needs saving, nothing says victory like cyber-duck robot versions of the Ropers with Christmas tree toppers on their stupid fucking heads… except when one of those artificial lifeforms whines like Rick Moranis pumped with estrogen pills.

With the team finally formed, Morley and crew get to work on figuring out how to turn back the invaders. Watching said training and prep work is both painful and hilarious as the robots stand around bickering, Norman does cartwheels and handstands in the background, Dirk stands around digging holes and Hollywood marches his dick hungry self back and forth, Voguing all the while. Seriously, this guy poses more than the combined members of the Ginyu Force. As for the scientist prisoner couple, they work in Moley’s laboratory on something to negate the invulnerable casing of the alien ship, done so by staring at test tubes… and I hope for the sake of Barbarella Lite’s gams that they’re not working with anything corrosive, cuz she ain’t wearing any pants…

The peace is shattered thanks to the appearance of Ssssss’s (pronounced “sssssses”) drag queen alien android forces, wielding an arsenal of poor man’s lightsabers… that make *clang*ing sounds. They make their big push, coming through a wooded patch of the Prof’s backyard (literally), leaving our heroes to defend Morley’s modestly decorated 1970s retro ranch home… of the future!... seriously, they didn’t even try to hide the fact that they shot this scene in somebody’s backyard. An open door lets us see inside the home in question, witnessing the campy ‘70s furniture, lamps and shag carpeting if you look hard enough… It’s like looking into my grandparents’ living room for Henry Rollins’ sake!

Okay, as much as I want to dissect and shoot down every stupid little scene of this greasy, medallion wearing, tiny Speedo-clad shitstorm excuse for a movie, this review’s gettin’ a tad long in the ol’ tooth and should be put out of my/it’s misery with a minimum of suffering. Though the good guys hold off the gold & silver queens in their first attack, Irene is later captured and fitted with a mind control bracelet so she’ll kidnap Uncle Professor. With their own set of sassy purple team uniforms (complete with puffy ski bunny boots) and a solution to the aliens’ super protective ship coating (because shooting them in the head when they leave the ships to round up the non-whites for their slave rings would make too much sense…), the heroes leap into action, literally in the case of Stormin’ Norman. Breaking into an alien shuttle (that’s no bigger than a gazebo on the outside but larger than a sizeable movie set on the inside…), they free their captive partners and race into the big finale, boarding some (model) starfighters and launching into space for their big dogfight with Ssssss and the trannies. This of course turns into a “10 minutes too long” bore-orgy of jumping between shots of our heroes in dark cockpits lit only by a red light that seems to keep flashing in their faces (you might want to check your engines guys, those lights are there for a reason) and the model ships being flown to and fro in front of that same generic outer space backdrop. It’s funny the first seven seconds and causes severe stomach ulcers every second beyond that. As a result, I’m not sure of exactly what happened to whom. I know that Hollywood goes *BOOM* in some kind of cheesy final death speech moment and it’s possible that Norman bites the space dust too, but don’t quote me on that one…

Ssssss and his artificial hermaphrodites are driven away, the captured slaves are returned to Earth, Dirk and Irene use the death of Hollywood as an excuse to jump back into each other’s sequined pants, and Barbarella and Khan opt to join Ssssss in a joint con to auction off their conquest rights to Earth and split the resultant dinero. As for Morley, his sole concern is giving Tilt and Tillie robot sex organs so they can engage in sterile, efficient, kitchen appliance sex… I wish I could take credit for making up that last part, but MORLEY ACTUALLY SAYS THAT’S WHAT HE’S GOING TO DO! RRRRARGH!

Okay, you’ve heard all of my complaints and don’t need anything further from me. Drop all the pomp and circumcision from this review and you’ll get the following one-sentence analysis: “Star Odyssey takes all the worst parts of Robot Holocaust, Space Mutiny and The Eliminators, drops them into a blender with a freshly pinched length of rectum lumber, hits ‘Frappe’, then serves itself to you in a chilled glass with a little umbrella and an arsenic chaser”. And trust me, you’re gonna need that arsenic by the time the mention of robot sex connects with the back of your head like DeNiro’s Louisville Slugger in The Untouchables… You know that tick people get in their face when they hear the words “Paris Hilton” and “acting”? You should train yourself to get the same thing whenever someone says “Star Odyssey”. I guess the lesson is to always remember Captain Ahab, just because you hunt the great white whale doesn’t mean you’re going to be ready when you finally find him. Lastly, please keep in mind that, should you choose to ignore my warnings and watch this movie on your own, be sure to write out your suicide note beforehand so your loved ones know who gets your Pet Shop Boys CDs and who gets the autographed picture of Linda Blair with a broom handle up her butt from the set of Born Innocent. Make it easier on everybody else if not yourself.