Think of the secrets we could unlock

Knocked another stuck on vhs title off my list. Low tier sci-fi flick starring Night of the Comet’s Catherine Mary Stewart based on a novella from George R R Martin. Story is kind of a mess but it remains interesting enough and it has some solid practical effects. Best part about the film is the insane “could only work in the 80s” spaceship they are on. I hope this gets a blu ray release eventually, if for nothing else to see this ship in all its glory.

Watched the IVE, Inc VHS

Future scientists, including Catherine Mary Stewart, James Avery and Michael Des Barres, charter a uniquely baroque spacecraft to take them on the search for an alien intelligence. To pass the time on their extended journey, Stewart starts chatting up the ship's captain, a guy named Royd (Michael Praed), while resident psychic Des Barres starts to exhibit space madness after encountering a different kind of alien intelligence.

There's a lot of this I like. The set design for the ship's interior is bizarre, but cool, and it gets nicely gory when it wants to be. The underlying idea is solid sci-fi and Michael Des Barres goes impressively from zero to psychically unhinged. The problem, I think, is that the movie does struggle from time to time to communicate its ideas, even when some of those ideas are hilariously insane.

The spaceship in this is designed with marble pillars inside and it also has a big room with uneven bars for gymnastics lol. The sets are ridiculous in a way I want there to be a blu-ray so I can see them better. The movie is okay and when the gore pops off it's kinda dope but I spent a lot of time going "what is happening in this movie".

I watched the entire movie, enjoying Brad Dourif's overacting performance, only to find out during the end credits that he wasn't in the movie

I like how the spaceship has all these airy, polished granite interiors.

In the intro they refer to the ship as an "'old freighter that fit our limited budget."

Five minutes later they say "This ship is so advanced that is can be run by a single crewman."

This is based on a novella by George R. R. Martin, so I had no hopes for this to be any good and only watched to see 80s hair queen Catherine Mary Stewart. Wasn't disappointed in that regard at all, and she has some stylish shades. The English title seems bland but the Japanese title that's something like "Demon Galaxy: Legend of the Witch" got me somewhat excited.

Although it sounds exciting, everything was cheap. It had those sets that you clearly know are sets filmed in a warehouse somewhere. The lighting is either dark, yellow, bright yellow, dark yellow, muted yellow, or yellow with some fog. I'm sorry but this was one of the most boring things I've ever watched. It's up there with Gotti. This is a snoozefest not worth watching unless you have an incurable case of insomnia. I imagine the writing here improved upon the source material, though, so I'll give them that.

The original premise of a ragtag bunch of misfits searching for some ancient space civilization sounded amazing. But then the whole thing turned into a crew vs evil spaceship movie. Such a missed opportunity (I understand it's not what the novella is about.. but still..)

The ship's interiour was awesome, very different from usual sci-fi fare.

The best thing here was the theme music which reminded me both of Blade Runner and Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Sets/score/effects are all pretty excellent, and it’s actually got some distinct style and inspired kills, but it’s just kind of impossible to care about the story because its a cheap Alien ripoff but instead of aliens, which this movie does promise and not deliver, it’s just the Ash parts

Would buy on blu ray and never rewatch/10