Laserblast

(Michael Rae/1978/USA)

Surfing the then Star Wars wave of sci-fi zeitgeist but on a budget of magic beans Michael Rae’s Laserblast is a sometimes charming but wholly cringe inducing mess. There’s certainly a nostalgia kick in the production values for anyone who grew up in the late 70’s and 80’s and there’s laughs to be had at the woeful humour and outdated sexism on display but eventually the haphazard pace and clunky plot overtake and outweigh any ironic enjoyment to be got. There are some great scenes of a house party with all the kids by the pool that capture something of the ambience of American west coast sunburnt coolness. You could carve Newell posts out of most of the performances though and even the stop motion aliens suffer from some form of stuttered lethargy in dramatic delivery. It’s a piece of late 70’s flotsam, a curio of cinematic opportunism and shouldn’t be taken as anything other than b-movie doobie fodder.

(2/5)