Laserblast

Plot synopsis:
A green-skinned man wanders through the desert with a laser cannon attached to his arm. A spaceship lands and two aliens emerge, one of whom shoots the man, which disintegrates his body. The aliens depart on their spaceship, leaving behind the laser cannon and a metallic pendant the man was wearing.
Teenager Billy Duncan wakes up in his bed, seemingly disturbed, and learns his mother is leaving for vacation. He goes to visit his girlfriend Kathy, but her deranged grandfather Colonel Farley makes him leave before he can see her. As Billy drives around town, he is harassed by bullies Chuck Boran and Froggy, and by two police deputies who give him a speeding ticket. Billy wanders into the desert and discovers the laser cannon and pendant. He starts playing with the cannon, pretending to shoot things, then realizes he can fire the weapon while wearing the pendant. Meanwhile, on the alien spacecraft, the two aliens converse with their leader who shows them footage of Billy using the cannon, prompting the aliens to turn their ship around to head back to Earth. Context implies that the two aliens, upon departing Earth, left the cannon and pendant behind under the presumption that no other human would be able to use them as the green-skinned man had, but they have now learned that they were in error.
Billy and Kathy attend a pool party where Chuck and Froggy attempt to rape Kathy. When Billy discovers them, a fight breaks out but Kathy stops it; knowing Chuck and Froggy would outmatch Billy. Later that night, Billy uses the laser cannon to explode Chuck's car, and Chuck and Froggy barely escape the explosion alive. Government official Tony Craig arrives to investigate both the explosion and the desert where Billy found the cannon. Tony informs the local sheriff that the town must be sealed off.
Feeling sick due to an unusual growth on his body, Billy visits Dr. Mellon, who surgically removes a metallic disc from Billy's chest. Mellon calls the police laboratory technician Mike London to arrange for the disc to be investigated. A green-skinned Billy opens fire on Mellon's car that evening, killing him in an explosion. The next day, Tony investigates the wreckage and recovers unusual material, which he brings to Mike London, who concludes it is an alien material that cannot be destroyed.
At night, the green-skinned Billy takes his revenge out on the two police deputies for interrogating him about Dr. Mellon's death and kills both of them at a gas station. The next day, Kathy puts the pendant on Billy's chest while they are laying together outside. Billy immediately wakes up with green skin and deformed teeth and attacks Kathy, but she escapes. Law enforcement officials shoot at Billy from an aircraft, but Billy destroys the aircraft with the cannon, and later kills Chuck and Froggy by blowing up their car.
While Tony questions Colonel Farley and Kathy about Billy, the two aliens land on Earth and begin searching for Billy. After killing a man and stealing his van, Billy travels into a city and goes on a rampage, shooting random objects with the laser cannon and fires at his surroundings. Kathy and Tony arrive in the city and locate Billy, as the aliens spot Billy from atop a building and shoot him, which kills Billy and destroys the laser cannon. The aliens depart in their spacecraft and Kathy cries over Billy's corpse.

Tags: cult

Review:
It's not particularly well made the acting isn't brilliant the special effects aren't great (excluding the stop motion aliens) but it is a whole lot of fun.
In the end when the weapon takes over Billy and he becomes more Morlock than man the movie turns into explosion porn, and we are treated to some truly odd choices of things to blow up.
Looking back on the experience, I think there are parts of two or three not-too-bad sci-fi films, just loosely cut together, with scenes that seem to have been edited out of some other movies, and just inserted here and there in the movie, and maybe that was its vague appeal to me.
it's not really bad at all...the problem with the movie is there is no actual story and reasons to why all the incident happens involving the laser gun.
Laserblast is more likely a drama to me, not an action movie.remember, this is no Star Wars, this is just a simple movie about a story about the life of a man who accidentally found the laser gun.
I didn't think for a second it would be that bad, it actually is.It tells the story of a young man who finds a laser cannon in the desert, after wielding it and the necklace that came with it he is periodically transformed into a creature hellbent on destruction.Looking at the cover you'd think the "Creature" was Gary Busey, in the film it's more an early Romero zombie.The special effects are embarassing even for the time, the plot is riddled with holes and the whole thing comes off amateurish.
Absolutely.The Good:Erm.....The Bad:Looks hideousJust can't take it seriouslyThings I Learnt From This Movie:Aliens are just giant turtles without shells who wear shiney gloves.
A sub-plot of the movie is about a couple of creepy looking aliens who speak a dialect that sounds like space-mandarin.
Oh well never mind, half the movie is over already and all you've seen is the desert and a big cardboard tube.Using the cardboard death ray causes our hero (who is so boring I don't know if he had a name or not) to turn into some kind of monster.
All I saw was a guy who looked pretty much the same as before wandering around with a cardboard tube on his arm.This has to be one of the most boring movies I've seen in a long time, talk about a lack of pace this one's slower than the offspring of cousins.
This terrible movie has everything against it: Unlikeable characters, bad acting, laughable special effects, and virtually no plot.
A teenager (Kim Milford) stumbles upon an alien weapon, which transform him into a grotesque killer.I would love to say nice things about this, given the appearance of Roddy McDowall and such decent effects work from Randall Cook ("The Gate").
You get old-school claymation aliens, teen angst courtesy of Mark Hamill lookalike star Kim Milford, mutation of the latter, possible oedipal tension, bumbling cops, lasers, five or six exploding cars, plus a zany ensemble of character actors - all for the low, low price of one classic Charles Band exploiter!
From start to finish, the movie is unbelievably inept and just plain stupid.The film begins with some horribly rendered stop-motion alien lizards stalking some creature and killing him.
Later, when the main character (the actor's named was Kim--and it's a guy) wanders into the vast desert, he just happens to find this laser cannon right.Speaking of Kim Milford, he plays 'Bobby', a guy so cool and sexy he spends most of the movie running about without shirts or with button-up shirts unbuttoned.
That way, whenever you see a movie that you THINK is bad, remember "Laserblast" and suddenly that new stinker won't look so awful after all..
With its terrible acting, eerily smooth-chested star, cheesy special effects, the inexcusable presence of Eddie Deezen in a supporting role, and the complete lack of any coherent plot, the film is nigh unwatchable.
There are so many bad things about this film:  the acting, the script, the special effects.
I've been looking for this movie for a long time but could t remember the name of it, just knew there was a Van, aliens, and a necklace that burned a his chest.
The really bad thing about this movie is the amount of time wasting filler.More than half of this is just people walking or driving with no dialogue or action.
The set up is great.A weird looking alien in a Star Trek uniform is stumbling through the desert with a giant laser gun.A space ships flies in and two E.T. style aliens get out with a very small gun.They turn the guy into dust and leave.But the guy's giant laser gun and weird necklace survive somehow.Then they spend way too much time trying to get us to feel sympathy for the main character.He's a rich kid with a hot girlfriend but his mommy doesn't have time for him.The cops hassle him and the other kids make fun of him so he goes to the desert and finds the laser gun and starts blowing up stuff.Then we see that the aliens can see he found the gun and they know they have to come back and stop him.But it's not even the aliens that were there, it was their superior.So they left cameras there and left that laser and only their superior can watch the cameras?It doesn't make any sense and they replay the entire scene of the kid finding gun.This could have been a great short but it's a not so great full length..
Laserblast (apparently Deezen's first screen appearance) has no such problems:  he's only a minor befoulment next to the huge smelly pile of excrement that is this science fiction black hole that also sucks in and spits out the likes of perfectly good actors like Keenan Wynn and Roddy McDowell.
Oh, and somebody a few comments back made mention that this movie hugely ripped off E.T. Well, if you have any questions about similar looking aliens or story elements, take them up with Spielberg, because Laserblast came out 4 years earlier than E.T..
The acting is hilarious, the plot is like an afterschool special on LSD, and there's bad claymation.arguably one of the most "70's" movies ever made.
Just the classic scene where Billy Duncan (Kim's character) shoots a Star Wars billboard makes Laserblast worth the rental (if you can find someplace that stocks it).
Of course it's going to have limitations, it was filmed on a miniscule budget but comparatively, it's far better than 'Titanic' or (ugh)'Independence Day.' It is one thing to make a "bad" movie that only costs $100,000 or so, but when a movie is made for countless millions of dollars, and still sucks, which movie is truly worse.
I guess I'll begin by explaining why I even watched this movie in the first place.After years of being haunted having seen clips of Laserblast as a child and being completely freaked out, I finally tracked down the title and ordered a used copy online.
There's enough action to keep you guessing until the very end.The story behind me finding this movie is that I went to the video store to buy a video game and saw a bargain bin of movies for 99 cents I looked and grabbed it without thinking, if I had know what I was about to watch I would have kept the dollar no contest.The movies only redeeming quality is the fact that Keenin Wynn (the bad guy in the Disney movies ie.
effects are a highlight." - Leonard Maltin, movie and video guide.My first question was who in their right mind would give a junky movie three stars I would not have even given it one, I would have went the extreme and gave it negative three stars and claimed it was dangerous to ones health if they watch this movie.The thing that made this movie a sin to put out was the fact they blew a Star Wars sign up, if they were trying to make a statement well they didn't and as far as I am concerned the movie is not worth the video tape it was printed on.The end of the movie makes no sense because it leaves you to wonder which side the "Hero" was on because he destroyed every car, gas station, and mail box in the town and then the aliens destroyed him.As far as it says "keeps you guessing until the end" they are right you even keep guessing after the movie is over, guessing why anyone in their right mind would put out such trash.I heard there was a Laserblast II I will go rent that one "not".
Of course, any movie is better when it gets the Mystery Science Theater treatment, but I just saw this one again on Bravo (the "artsy" network--most of the time) and it was pretty funny even without the comments.
I feel bad for people who paid to see this in a theater, but as a way to kill time between classes, this movie has an entertaining, beyond cheesy Ed Wood-ish quality to it.
I don't know how anyone could want to watch a bad actor shoot things for no good reason with a laser arm.
This teen revenge film is worth a look thanks to some effective special effects--most notably David Allen's stop motion animation turtle-like aliens.
Well, Billy is soon getting revenge on those that have wronged him and he may or may not be unstoppable and the aliens have to do a u-turn in space, because they didn't get the laser the last time.This is one of my favorite MST3K episodes from a riffing standpoint.
It is a bad movie- though I can see why people would find it entertaining to watch- but it is much better than the likes of Monster A-Go Go, Manos the Hands of Fate, The Wild World of Batwoman, Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders and Hobgoblins, and in general there are far worse as well.
And I personally though the stop-motion and the aliens were quite good, of any of the movies on the "10 Movies they Riffed" list it is Laserblast that has the best special effects.
In conclusion, Laserblast is a bad movie that is rather dull and senseless and wastes McDowell but a great score, better-than-average stop-motion and effects and two decent performances make it not as bad as all that.
Now the characters the characters go nowhere, let me explain the movie sets up these characters we don't want to know and as the plot unravels the characters feel like you could take as many of the characters (except the main antagonist) as you want out of the movie and still leave with the same result.Another point about the film the lead character of the film is the antagonist which in the end we're left with no hero of the story who tries to stop him besides the antagonist's girlfriend (which the relationship goes nowhere see another example of characters going nowhere) who doesn't know anything about it until the last half hour of the movie.I have another question what was the Dirty Harry look-alike doing in this movie, he was sent to do something but we don't know what, investigates the antagonist's aftermath with lasers then when the antagonist is killed by the aliens he does nothing, it's gonna take me a while to figure that out.There are irrelevant scenes in this movie but I guess by reading my review you already know that.The only good thing that came out of this is the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Episode.If there are any aspects of this movie you saw that I didn't mention what I focus on is the question "was it entertaining?" No..
"Laserblast" is one of those movies that is so bad it's good.
The acting is terrible, the plot basically consists of the kid getting dumped on and blowing things up with his arm-laser, and the special effects are super-cheesy.
An unappealing cast, horrible special effects, goofy stop-motion aliens and a depressing ending make for a movie only Leonard Maltin could like.
On top of that, the special effects are laughable, the characters are ill defined and the acting is bad.But, looking beyond all these criticisms, and they are valid, believe me, there is actually a rather watchable movie.
At some point in the film, Billy even blasts away a promotional billboard of Star Wars with his laser gun!
The wonderfully off-beat and varied cast is another valid reason for the film's loyal fan following: the late, great, ever-angelic and eminently huggable 70's drive-in movie goddess Cheryl "Rainbeax" Smith portrays Billy's caring, concerned girlfriend with her usual disarming sweetness, Keenan Wynn grouches it up delightfully as Cheryl's crotchety crackpot World War II vet grandpa, Gianno Russo eschews his standard Mafiosa persona for a rare right-side-of-the-law change-of-pace part as a meddlesome FBI agent, Roddy McDowell puts on a fretful face for his minor role as a friendly physician who winds up at the receiving end of Billy's ray gun, and both Dennis Burkley as a hectoring hick cop and a hilariously miscast Eddie Deezen as an obnoxiously nerdy hot-rodder supply significant unintentional comic relief.A driving, pulsating score by Joel Goldsmith and Richard Band, Terry Bowen's clunky cinematography, Steve Neill's goofy make-up f/x, David Allen's endearingly herky-jerky stop motion animation effects (the lizard guys are genuinely cool), and one of those unflinchingly grim and depressing vintage 70's bummer unhappy endings add considerably to "Laserblast"'s irresistibly lousy allure.
Can shadowy Government official Tony Craig (Gianni Russo) together with Billy's girlfriend Kathy (Cheryl Smith) put an end to his homicidal laser-blasting ways & get the real Billy back?Directed by Michael Rae I am somewhat surprised to see Laserblast on the IMDb's bottom 100 list, I mean it ain't no masterpiece that's for sure but one of the 100 worst films ever made?
The acting was average, no one's going to win any awards for it that's for sure.Laserblast is a terrible film really but there was a certain something that I liked about it, something that kept me watching right through to the bitter end.
The movie spends no time explaining how the Laserblast gun and pendant got to Earth in the first place or why the aliens are interested in it enough to vaporize any earthling who uses it.
But there is NOTHING else going on except Billy's corruption by the Laserblast pendant and his overreaction/revenge on his peers and the town, and the scenes where this stuff actually happens are drowned in endless, tedious filler scenes that kill any momentum the director is trying to generate.To say some kind kind things about the movie: the soundtrack (one guy with a synthesizer) actually has some decent, effective musical cues and riffs for such a low budget effort.
I really don't like this movie!Some cheap stop-motion aliens that look about two inches tall and are unconvincingly enlarged lose a laser.
After he's killed a bunch of people he gets shot by the aliens and dies.This movie really has a bad outlook on life.
The aliens just show up out of nowhere at the end of the film and blast him like it ain't no thing.And they forget to take the damn gun away so they'll have to make yet another trip to Earth...lame!
Several painful scenes with two annoying nerds, several more with the filthy reefer sucking cops, and a shot of Roddy getting blown up by the kid with the alien weapon(he wanted out if this film bad, and who could blame him?) later, the kid has turned into a zombie of some sort and is stumbling around pointlessly blowing things up, when the California Raisins...errr...I mean, really convincing aliens show up and put him, and us, out of our collective misery.
that's the heart of the film and it's central conflict.Bad acting and poor special effects happen along the way.
Most of the time you are just looking at the background to see something strange, laughing at how bad the film is, or waiting for the movie to show you something cool.
There are occasional laugh out loud moments but not enough for it to be "so bad it's good." Near the end Billy destroys a sign advertising Star Wars (released a year earlier), almost in recognition of this film's inferiority..
Laserblast is NOT as Bad as everyone says it is, and, not as GOOD as I like to think it is either!
Billy aims his laser-gun out of the passenger-side window at a passing Star Wars movie billboard and blows it to bits--before blowing the hippie, who's driving (?!?), out of the van, too!
The scenes when Billy is possessed by the laser gun are creepy, and his demonic facial make-up is effective, the stop motion animation of the aliens who are hunting him down is great, the laser beams and explosions are excellent, and the synthesized soundtrack music is moody and cool!Having nostalgia for Laserblast helps when watching it now, but I guess you just really had to be there back in 1978 when just seeing laser beams flying around on the movie screen was so hot!-Uncle Gilbert.
Maybe they're making fun of him because he's playing a "teenager" and he's actually 26 years old.Meanwhile, cool stop motion aliens chase after some kind of mutant in the nearby empty desert, only they forget to pick up the crazy laser gun he was using, and Our Hero finds it some time later.Long story short, he spends the rest of the movie getting revenge on the Local Color, including ur-nerd Eddie Deezen and the two goofball pot smoking Deputy Sheriffs that keep hassling him with speeding tickets.
Other than that though there really isn't that much wrong with this movie.The film is about a boy called Billy who finds a laser blaster in the desert.