Space Raiders (1983) Direted by Howard R. Cohen. With Vince Edwards, David Mendenhall, Patsy Pease and Drew Snyder.
Hitting yourself repeatedly over the head with a baseball bat while chewing wool is likely to prove a more pleasant experience than the eighty-four minutes it takes to navigate this Roger Corman produced, Star Wars inspired guff.
The end result is like a bargain basement coupling of Flight of the Navigator and Joss Whedon’s cult TV series, Firefly. The plot see’s a young boy (David Mendenhall), as an accidental stowaway aboard a craft occupied by a band of unruly space pirates. David is then plunged head-first into an inter-galactic war.
The problem with Space Raiders is that it can’t even function as a guilty treat. It’s best element, James Horner’s score, is borrowed from the 1980 release, Battle Beyond the Stars, as are it’s repetitive and uninspiring visual effects. What’s more, technical problems dog nearly every scene, from badly recorded dialogue to dimly lit scenes, it’s often hard to see and hear what’s going on.
When the end credits roll, you’ll have done well not to have dozed off. Space Raiders make for a very tasty corn based crisp snack, but the film is an exhausting bore. 1/5
