Space Raiders! The greatest adventure a kid ever had.
Written and directed by Howard R. Cohen and produced by none other than Roger Corman under his Millennium production company and New World Pictures distribution. Cohen is a widely known genre film writer, responsible for such greats as Vampire Hookers, Saturday the 14th, Deathstalker, Saturday the 14th Strikes Back, Lords of the Deep, and Deathstalker IV: Match of Titans-and directed six of the films he wrote. His screenplay filmography reads like a trip through the video store horror aisle circa 1990.
Our story begins with 10-year-old Earth boy Peter inexplicably wandering around a cargo loading warehouse/hanger for the ‘galaxy’s biggest corporation.’ The hanger is then RAIDED by….SPACE RAIDERS who begin shooting and killing the human security detail and stealing a space freighter, which Peter stows away on while they aren’t looking and is thus thrust into the story. Peter quickly proves his worth to the crew by using his small size to squeeze into a room and fix a power conduit.
The rest of the story is virtually incoherent and over 30 minutes pass before there is an explanation of the events we have been watching, involving rebel scum that resists The Company that seems to rule the galaxy.
First, let’s acknowledge the fact that a lot of the aspects of the production are borrowed from Corman’s earlier film Battle Beyond The Stars (covered in a previous SDC column.) This includes visual effects sequences featuring the same space ships and battle scenes, sets, props, and the music score. The score is a total recycle of James Horner’s scores from films BBTS as well as Humanoids From The Deep. The score was put together by sound editor R.J. Kizer. You may recognize many of the music cues reworked into later Horner scores such as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (as well as a couple that sounded like Battlestar Galactica retreads. Why not? Many of the sound effects came from BG.)
The film introduces young David Mendenhall in his feature film debut. Mendenhall would later be featured in the 1987 Stallone vehicle Over the Top (for which he ‘earned’ two Razzie awards) and have a recurring role on the NBC series Our House. He was also very active as a voice actor in the late 80s. As an adult, he would work in behind the scenes production on a number of TV game shows and still pops up on screen in select uncredited roles.
The non-10-year-old boy cast included Vince Edwards (yes, TV’s Dr. Ben Casey), Thom Christopher (probably best known from his role as Hawk, the original Bird-Person, on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century), and TV soap actress Patsy Pease. ‘That Guy’ Dick Miller also appears. The script is said to be loosely based on 1979’s The Champ with Ricky Schroder (which itself was a remake of an earlier film.)
The movie plays very much like a low budget TV production with scenes cut in from another movie-which is not surprising given that the film was something Howard R. Cohen threw together at the behest of Corman to recycle all the trappings of his much higher budget BBTS. Interestingly, I cannot find budget or box office information for Space Raiders, even though this supposedly had a July 1983 theatrical release. Checking 1983 newspapers confirms this indeed had a US theatrical distribution…perhaps Corman never released the embarrassing ticket sales?
Critically…well, let me quote Variety. “Acting is poor, with wide-eyed little Mendenhall becoming annoying early on. Florida audiences cheered only when the heroes were killed off one by one (spoilers!!) amidst gross continuity errors such as a hero’s chest wound switching to the opposite side.” I will add the lone standout in the film is Thom Christopher’s halfway decent performance as the alien known as ‘Flightplan.’ Still, its fun to call out all the attempts at Star Wars references, the Star Trek II-like soundtrack, and the notable Vasquez rocks at the film’s conclusion. A good late show along with your favorite space beer or the medically available substance of choice in your state. (Don’t forget to check out the 17th cast credit at the end. You’ll thank me.)
Space Raiders is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, TubiTV, and FlixFling. In 2015, Scorpion licensed the film for a limited edition Bluray run of 2000 copies. This original limited inventory is still available for sale on Amazon.
Socially Distant Cinema is a column that will regularly point you to content from the 70s/80s currently available on various platforms that may bring you some entertainment during these periods of physical distancing…and beyond.
