As those of you in certain circles may know, there was a brief hubbub earlier this year about the upcoming release of a GOT DVD, only to discover that it was actually just a compilation of obscure short films that happened to blaspheme the sacred name of my favorite Corman flick.
So, I've been wondering lately if anyone got suckered into this DVD, or perhaps realized their mistake, but decided to order it anyway just to satisfy their curiosity.
The reason I'm asking, is that I, of coarse, haven't seen it and I can't seem to find very much information about it on the web, Yet as a budding young connoisseur of the bad, the cheap, the cheesy, and the unwatchable, curiosity has been knawing at me off & on over the past few months.
In other words, has anybody seen it? If so, is it any good, or a classic baddie, or does it just suck?
I just bought the real Galaxy of Terror on DVD a couple months ago.
The only place I could find it was E-Bay and I paid $11.99 for it.
With shipping it came to $17.94.
When I got it, it turned out that it was a bootleg...but a damn good bootleg it is!
The guy who sold it to me made a really cool DVD case for it with all the original artwork and text from the front and back covers.
Actually, the film's description on the back cover was re-written because it refers to similar more modern films like "Sphere" and "Event Horizon".
Here's what the back says:
" A future space-faring civilization is controlled by a near omnipotent being called The Master. The Master sends a crew to the planet Morganthus, ostensibly for a rescue operation, but in reality so he can "test" them to find his successor.
Testing involves having the various crewmembers brought face-to-face with a physical manifestation of their fears, which the pyramid-like building they are trapped in can telepathically detect. All the crewmembers die gruesome deaths eventually except for two, one of whom takes The Master's place at the end of the film.
The film itself was one of a number of "alien-esque" films made in the aftermath of Alien combining sci-fi and horror. Purposely or not, the film plays on mental concepts more than the typical horror, slasher-type of film, although it does so in a very violent and gratuitous way. Recent films, such as Event Horizon and The Sphere, have tried this same approach with a much larger budget and far less effect."
(http://img400.imageshack.us/img400/551/galaxyback9zz.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
The top of the disc itself even has the original artwork printed on it. (see below) The guy obviously used a good quality color printer to make it.
The dead giveaway that it was a bootleg was the onscreen menu, which was obviously done from a plain ol' DVD recorder, and the readable surface of the disc, which is dark purple.
Gotta love that cover artwork!
(http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/180/galaxydisc9tn.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
It was recorded to be as close to widescreen as possible and the transfer is almost flawless.
I couldn't believe how crisp and great the picture looked!
As for the movie itself, I had never seen it and became somewhat obsessed with finding a good copy.
I simply had to see this movie.
I wasn't disappointed.
There was one moment that did make me jump!
All the special effects were done by a young James Cameron and it definitely shows.
The film itself looks unbelievably good, despite its low budget.
And yes, my copy is uncut and has the full worm rape scene included.
I'd definitely buy it if I were you.
I'll try to find the same retailer that sold it to me if you're interested.
He must've made a s**tload of them because right after I bought it, he had more up for sale.
Post Edited (11-23-05 07:49)
I found the same retailer that sold me my copy.
It's called the droid_factory.
They also shipped it super fast!
I got my copy in 4 days.
GO HERE TO CHECK IT OUT (http://cgi.ebay.com/Galaxy-of-Terror-DVD-All-Region-NTSC-Erin-Moran-1981_W0QQitemZ6455546358QQcategoryZ617QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)
(http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/7574/galaxyfront4vv.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
Trust me, if you want a really good copy and don't care if it's a bootleg, buy from this guy.
(use the "Buy it Now" feature)
And they only accept Paypal.
But dude, it's worth it!
Post Edited (11-23-05 07:56)
I just scoped this out on IMDB because I remembered the name and that it starred Joanie (Erin Moran) from Happy Days.
It's always good to check out the credits on Roger Corman produced stuff 'cause you never know who you'll find there.
Cameron gets a credit as a unit director. More interesting though is Bill Paxton listed under set decoration.
And it has a young Robert Englund as the character, "Ranger"
He's totally paranoid in the film and does a fantastic job!
I ordered the same movie from droid_factory_100... very fast shipment. only a week, and a half to Norway. He had alot of outher stuff too.
Deep Discount DVD is selling the GALAXY OF TERROR (compilation of 4 short movies) DVD for only $5.99. Not a bad price, even if it sucks.
Burgo...you obviously did not read the initial post.
Shame on you!
ASH:
Of course I read the initial post! It is all about the "fake" version of GALAXY OF TERROR. I merely pointed out taht someone who is curious about it can buy it really cheap.
ASHTHECAT wrote:
> Burgo...you obviously did not read the initial post.
>
> Shame on you!
Actually, that was the one I was talking about.
I already have a couple of copies of the REAL Galaxy of Terror, which I purchased at xploitedcinema.com about a year ago. I have both the Italian Region2 import and the Brittish Region0 import, though this one from ebay sounds interesting.
I was simply wondering if anyone had actually bothered with this cheap compilation from BCI Eclipse that shamelessly rips off the title "Galaxy of Terror".
I've been wanting to pick the original up for quite a while. I've got Wynorski's version of Not of this Earth, and at the beginning there's this weird montage of scenes (weird because none of them are from Not of this Earth). In Wynorski's commentary, he identifies most of the really cool scenes as being from Galaxy of Terror. Looks like some cool spaceships and well done effects.
Oops!...my bad....sorry.
Mr. Hockstatter wrote:
> I've been wanting to pick the original up for quite a while.
> I've got Wynorski's version of Not of this Earth, and at the
> beginning there's this weird montage of scenes (weird because
> none of them are from Not of this Earth). In Wynorski's
> commentary, he identifies most of the really cool scenes as
> being from Galaxy of Terror. Looks like some cool spaceships
> and well done effects.
The opening credits of Not of this Earth, as well as the rest of the movie is heavily padded with sample clips from Battle Beyond the Stars, Battle Beyond the Sun, Forbidden World, Galaxy of Terror, and Humanoids from the Deep, as well as a couple others I didn't recognize (not to mention, I lost count at a certain point).
The brief snippet of Taaffe O'Connell's encounter with an over-amorous maggot during the opening credits was how I found out about GOT.
It is a pretty cool montage.
As for finding a copy, I'd recomend getting the Brittish Region 0 import from Xploitedcinema.com (actully a pretty bad name for this site, considering they have all kinds of stuff).
The version from droid_factory_100... sounds pretty interesting, but I don't have a credit card or a paypal account, whereas Xploited Cinema lets you pay by check or money order.
They also cary the Italian Region 2 DVD, which has superior picture & sound quality, but I'd recommend the British Region 0 DVD for two reasons; The Italian version's region encoding is prone to have device conflicts with US Region 1 players, and second of all (and I find this inexcusable), the Italian version boasts a 16x9 anamorphic picture, but in order to achieve this format, they had to crop portions of the top & bottom of the screen.
Well anyway, as for my original question, I guess I'm just going to have to find out for myself.
So, Burgomaster, does Deep Discount DVD accept Check or Money Orders?