Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983) Columbia/Sci-Fi-Action RT: 90 minutes Rated PG (violence, language) Director: Lamont Johnson Screenplay: David Preston, Edith Rey, Daniel Goldberg and Len Blum Music: Elmer Bernstein Cinematography: Frank Tidy Release date: May 20, 1983 (US) Cast: Peter Strauss, Molly Ringwald, Ernie Hudson, Andrea Marcovicci, Michael Ironside, Deborah Pratt, Aleisa Shirley, Cali Timmins, Hrant Alianak, Paul Boretski, Patrick Rowe, Beeson Carroll. Box Office: $16.5M (US)
Rating: ***
Who else remembers when 3D made a brief comeback in the early 80s? It kicked off in 1981 with the spaghetti western Comin’ At Ya! and continued on to late ’83* with Amityville 3D. Notable titles include Parasite, Friday the 13th Part 3, Treasure of the Four Crowns, Jaws 3D, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Metalstorm and Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone. I didn’t see that last one in 3D. A friend who went to see it told me only a few things came at you. I heard the same thing on the Nickelodeon show Lights! Camera! Action! Host Leonard Nimoy interviewed one of the makers who said that the purpose of doing Spacehunter in 3D was to add depth rather than to have stuff fly in the faces of audience members. I decided to skip it for that reason. I tried watching it on cable a year later and got bored after about 30 or so minutes.
I don’t recall ever watching Spacehunter in its entirety until yesterday (Tuesday June 25) when I was looking for a bad movie to savage on my website. I figured it would be a good choice, but I was wrong, sort of. It’s a bad movie alright. It’s spectacularly cheesy and dumb. BUT it’s also strangely entertaining. About ten minutes in, I decided to surrender to the silliness of it all. It worked. I had a pretty good time revisiting it. Not only is it good-natured goofball fun, it proves what I’ve been saying about bad 80s movies being better than many of today’s mediocre ones. Let me put it this way, I’d rather rewatch Spacehunter than most of the summer blockbuster movies of the past two decades. It knows what it is and doesn’t try to be anything but what it is.
The plot has intergalactic adventurer Wolff (Strauss, Rich Man, Poor Man) attempting to collect the reward on three hot Earth women stranded on a hostile planet ravaged by plague and civil war. The girls- Nova (Timmins, Ryan’s Hope), Reena (Shirley, Sweet Sixteen) and Meagan (Pratt, Last Rites)- are taken to the planet’s evil ruler Overdog (Ironside, Total Recall), an ugly cyborg with metal claws for hands. Wolff is aided in his efforts by Niki (future teen queen Ringwald), a teenage “Scav” (as in scavenger) who offers her services as a tracker in exchange for food, and Washington (future ghostbuster Hudson), an old rival from his military days. Together, they try to sneak into “The Zone” to find and rescue the comely captives before Overdog does whatever it is he’s planning to do.
What can I say about Spacehunter without sounding like a stuffy critic or middle-aged fanboy? Watching it, I was transported back to late spring ’83 when the biggest thing on my mind was the end of the school year and the great movies that typically accompanied the hot weather. I tried to imagine watching Spacehunter in the old 3D format (minus the silly cardboard glasses). I could see it looking pretty cool by 80s standards, the same way Jaws 3D looked cool. It gave my mind something to do since the plot is a real no-brainer. It’s really little more than a narrative to hang some well-mounted action scenes and other weird stuff on. At one point, our heroes find their lives threatened by a band of Amazon-like women AND a water-dwelling dragon-like creature. There’s also this maze of deadly traps and obstacles that Overdog forces his prisoners to navigate. And you thought American Ninja Warrior was intense.
Is there really any point in discussing the “acting” in Spacehunter? Strauss’ lone wolf hero Wolff (hey, I just got it!) is obviously inspired by Mel Gibson’s Mad Max. Before Ringwald became the stand-in for every insecure teenage girl in Sixteen Candles, she played this annoying teenage sidekick who never shuts the hell up. Before he busted ghosts alongside Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, Hudson tooled around on a barren planet in a clunky, plow-like truck. Ironside isn’t given a lot of screen time, but makes the most of what he has with a wonderfully loopy performance as the villain. Also in the cast is Andrea Marcovicci (The Hand) as Wolff’s fembot sidekick Chalmers. Although fourth billed, she’s gone within the first 15 minutes. I was disappointed; I like her. The three female captives are basically eye candy.
The special effects are better than expected in Spacehunter. At a cost of $14 million, it’s not exactly a low-budget production. The sets are also cool. It’s nice to look at but that’s it. This movie doesn’t have a brain in its empty head. It’s dumb, but in a good way. It’s a total 80s Saturday matinee sci-fi flick aimed at kids and teens. It doesn’t have to do anything, but entertain for 90 minutes. It does its job and does it fairly well.
*= I don’t count the 1984 slasher flick Silent Madness since it didn’t receive a wide release. I never even heard of it until ’97 when I caught it at a special one-time-only screening.
