B-Movies in Spaaaaace!: Prison Ship

Hi all! This week I am crawling through the Z grade films of science fiction. What's Z grade, you ask? Well this is a film that has next to no budget, original concept and resort to T&A to sell their product. So how about a nice women in prison film? Not enough? How about women in prison on a starship? Aha! I knew I got your attention now. Brought to you by Roger Corman protege, sleaze exploitation director of sci-fi and horror, the schlockmeister himself, Fred Olen Ray (The Alien Dead, The Tomb, Commando Squad, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, Deep Space, Bad Girls from Mars, Wizards of the Demon Sword, Evil Toons and Dinosaur Island), so you know it will sting but there is a shampoo for that. This is Prison Ship a.k.a. Star Slammer, Prison Ship: 2005, Starslammer: The Escape and The Adventures of Taura: Prison Ship Star Slammer.

Leeches: best treatment for back acne.

So as you can imagine my expectations on this flick were not high in the least, which is more than I can say for the writers who were clearly high as kites on blow, chicken scratching this opus out. Our movie opens with a girl being tortured with leeches??? Because...reasons. You step out of line and we go medieval on your ass. Oh no. Marsellus Wallace owns this ship! Far into the future (ahem, 2005) on a distant planet, war rages on.

Taura (Sandy Brooke of They Call Me Bruce?, Bits and Pieces, Consider It All Joy, One Way Out, Terror on Alcatraz, Deep Space and Nightmare Sisters) is weighing a battle against the forces of evil (um, just take my word for it. Never really good at determining sides unless there is a deep music score) when she is captured by the evil forces of Ross Hagen..? Er um I mean Bantor (Ross Hagen of Sidehackers, Hellcats, Avenging Angel, Armed Response, Commando Squad, The Phantom Empire, Warlords, Alienator, Blood Games and Dinosaur Island) a insane political tyrant that sentences Taura to "hard labor" (insert WIP joke here) aboard the prison ship Star Slammer... yeah it does sound like a bad porno title. I agree. Dealing with her crazed, sex starved Warden Exene (Marya Gant of A Polish Vampire in Burbank, Prison Ship, Cannibal Hookers and Halloween Night) and her badly permed lesbian guards. Oh FYI, the guard uniforms look like bad vinyl numbers from Fredrick's of Hollywood and our prisoner outfits are tank tops and velour shorty shorts. Yup really here to sell the "plot" and I am certain they cranked the a/c.

Eric Idle as Father Guido Sarducci as Gandalf in The Two Towers.

No sooner does Taura gain support from the rest of our teen gang I mean devious and deadly prison population, that a plan to overthrow the warden and guards is moving into action, but first we need some cat fights and food fights. I have no idea who this film is geared towards. Emotionally repressed twelve years residing in adult bodies would be my guess.

Our musical score sounds like a octave higher than John Williams Star Wars theme but yeah no one would be fooled and our credit sequence looks like it was cut with Windows 98 Movie Maker with actor names in Veranda and Comic Sans MS.   Chilling.  While our space ship scenes are shot in Melrose Stage in L.A. The damn planet shots are fricking Griffith Park using Bronson Canyon YET AGAIN!!! Damn right I am sick of this location and no I do not care how much money it saves the location scouts! I have seen this place in almost every B-movie flick from 1950s and on!

Sadly, I do recognize a lot of the cast but that is only due to watching schlocky films for the defunct epinions.com movie review. Aside from Ross Hagen and Richard Hench, I spotted none other than Vivian Schilling (writer/actress of Soultaker as Natalie) and for that I do regal that MST3K episode of Soultaker so I had a good laugh. Most of the space sequences are brought to you bought or stolen exterior space footage of John Carpenter's Dark Star and Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars. Well at least they left classics like Space Mutiny alone. There is only so much Reb Brown screeching you can listen to.

Coming at us at 86 minutes, jiggly girls fight other jiggly girls and Ross Hagen is seriously hamming it up in front of the camera. So no this is not related to the novel The Prison Ship via Peter Tonkin about Maritime laws nor is it linked to Michael Bowers Sci-fi novel Prison Ship. That is just a coincidence of title changes over and over again.  My favorite part of the flick is John Carradine shot in blue screen as "The Justice" looking baffled in front of the camera like they just woke him up and asked him to read from a cue card.

So if you have a jiggly girl need that has to be fixed, no need for character development and you like blasters...I guess watch this.

Wow Ross, that is a lot of EVA foam you are wearing.