Horror Planet Year: 1980 Director: Norman J. Warren Written by: Nick & Gloria Maley Threat: Alien Weapon of Choice: Electric Saw Based upon: nothing IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
None

Rish's Reviews
Also released in 1980, The Empire Strikes Back has nothing on this little-seen masterpiece.
Of course, I am a very bad liar.
Sometime in the future, a scientific team runs afoul of a nasty alien on a distant planet. After getting raped by the creature, one of the women in their party turns psychotic, murderous, and well, kind of a bitch. Sorry.
Released not long after the extremely-successful (in every sense of the word) Alien, this English production hasn't got a great deal going for it. The future Mrs. Steve Martin, Victoria Tennant, has a small part, but pretty much only gets to look cute and then die. One of the characters looks a lot like Rachel Weisz would two decades later. Could be her mother, I suppose.
There was sure a lot of screaming and mewling from Sandy, the possessed/impregnated crew-woman. If I counted how many times she shrieked, we'd be into the thirties easily. It's semi-clever to have the monster be one of the crew, since it saves on special effects, makeup, or any work at all. And speaking of which, this makes the special effects of the original "Star Trek" series look like The Lord of the Rings. Still, you can't necessarily judge a flick like this on its special effects or sets, just the story. And . . . well, there's a hint of cleverness from time to time.
Whereas the characters in Alien were basically a group of space age truck drivers, the crew here is an archeology team in space. It had a neat cheapie synthesizer score. Mostly, though, the movie goes nowhere, reminding me of TV movies that have to fill a certain time frame, regardless of how much story there is.
Interestingly, it has picture credits showing each character and how they died. A highpoint of the film (besides the end credits finally rolling, that is) is when a character hides from the killer out in the planet's unbreathable atmosphere.
A word I use a lot in my reviews, I realise, is "unpleasant." I don't know why I would expect horror movies to be pleasant, exactly, but I have a low tolerance for the distasteful and overly pessimistic. I think one of Horror's strengths is showing us the resiliency and indominable spirit of humankind, even in the face of unimaginable evil.
Also known as Inseminoid, which is a much better title, I thought I had never heard of this flick. Now I wish I had not. It's not the worst movie I've seen recently, but it's definitely bad.
Best Scare: None are coming to mind, but one character actually sneaks up on the monster with a hammer . . . and then throws the hammer at it.
I'd Recommend It To: Not many. But to more than I'd recommend Disney's Home on the Range.
Posted: October 11, 2004

Total Skulls: 14

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film		Alien
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title		For "Horror Planet," not for "Inseminoid"
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?