Roger Corman could knock out a low-budget efficient B-picture in three days and make it a diverting enough romp to warrant a viewing. I am thinking of Corman's "The Raven" with Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre, or "The Terror" with a young Jack Nicholson. The makers of this atrocious, numbingly dull trash called "Laserblast" could have taken a cue from Corman. "Laserblast" has no sense of fun or danger about it - a nonsensical non-movie.
Shot in three weekends, "Laserblast" is about a mind-numbingly dull young man, Billy (Kim Milford) from California, who hates when his mother goes away for several weeks at a time to Acapulco. He drives around in a van barechested and tries to pick up his girlfriend at her house but her grandad (Keenan Wynn), a former military general, will not allow it. I can see why because Billy is completely uninteresting and has nothing of value to say about himself or anyone else (Sample dialogue from Billy's girlfriend: "Gee, Billy... why can't you be more ordinary.") There is a pool party scene which looks about as much as fun as watching somebody watching this movie - the extras look bored.
Meanwhile, Billy flounders in the desert and finds an alien laser weapon which can be activated by wearing a metal necklace. Pretty soon we see Billy transforming into some green-skinned demented creature who fires the weapon and destroys cars, mailboxes, occasionally people and a Coming Soon billboard for the original "Star Wars"! Maybe for our generation, it should have been a billboard for "Star Wars: The Holiday Special" but never mind. When Billy is not destroying property and people, he is a simple dullard who either has sex with his girlfriend or drives aimlessly around the same California stretch of road. Other than the annoying presence of Eddie Deezen (his film debut) and one-day filming a piece for actors Keenan Wynn and Roddy McDowall as a small-town doctor, nothing in "Laserblast" will merit the slightest interest and that includes the brief appearance of stop-motion animated aliens looking like rejected models for that whining deformed baby in "Eraserhead." A sleep-inducing dud.
No comments:
Post a Comment