SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE (1983) / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: LAMONT JOHNSON / SCREENPLAY: DAVID PRESTON, EDITH REY, DANIEL GOLDBERG, LEN BLUM / STARRING: PETER STRAUSS, MOLLY RINGWALD, ERNIE HUDSON, MICHAEL IRONSIDE, ANDREA MARCOVICCI / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
It’s hard to know who Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone is aimed at. At first glance, it’s an adventure yarn, maybe for kids, but its 15 rating – as much for a general feeling of unpleasantness as for the usual partial nudity and sexual dialogue that rating parlays – lifts into a different sphere altogether, one which its lack of nudity and sexual dialogue will surely lead to disappointment. Originally released in May 1983, Spacehunter was part of a revival for 3D films, up there with Jaws 3D and the third instalments of the Friday 13th and Amityville series, and was at that point the most expensive 3D movie ever made, but this Blu-ray release sadly omits the third dimension, leaving the film to stand on the first two alone.
Peter Strauss is Wolff, a space garbage man on the run from debtors, who receives a mayday call to rescue three Earth women stranded on a quarantined planet. His only companion is Chalmers (Marcovicci), his mechanic-cum-lover, who is later revealed to be an artificial being. The quarantined planet, Terra XI, was struck by a deadly plague, and one of the doctors sent to deal with the outbreak went native and took over the planet, renaming himself Overdog. What is supposed to be a simple retrieval becomes complicated when Overdog’s men capture the women, and Chalmers is killed; Wolff resolves to complete his mission – the three thousand mega-credits (no exchange rate is given but it’s assumed to be a lot) at the heart of his motivations – and hooks up with a native Terran to guide him to Overdog’s lair, the Zone.
Strauss is incredibly charismatic, the action movie lead the 1980s lost (to insipid miniseries like Kane and Abel), and his partnership with Molly Ringwald’s Niki is wonderful in its awkwardness. Ringwald, at just fifteen and in only her second film, sparkles with the charm that would make her a Brat Pack star in the years following Spacehunter, and there is also a small part for Ernie Hudson, who would team up with executive producer Ivan Reitman on Ghostbusters a year later.
The Blu-ray is light on extras, with just a commentary track from film historians Allan Bryce and Richard Holliss, regulars on 101 Films re-releases of cult ‘80s films, and this is a missed opportunity, because the movie looked like it was a lot of fun to make; interviews with Strauss, Ringwald, and Michael Ironside – who hams it up as Overdog – would have been very interesting, even at thirty-seven years’ distance.
Spacehunter is fun but by no means a classic. There’s a healthy nostalgia for the films we rented from the video store in the early- to mid-1980s, and Spacehunter will appeal to fans of recent re-releases Class of 1984 and Howard the Duck. Whether it stands by itself as a movie outside that bubble, however, will depend entirely on whether hackneyed dialogue (although Niki’s Terran slang is cute), inconsistent acting outside the principals, and dirt cheap effects (one can only wonder where that budget went) take away more than the charisma of Strauss and Ringwald bring to the table.
