Laserblast

Fire up your knock-off light sabers for NOT QUITE STAR WARS Month at Mondo Mondays, featuring the intergalactic rip-offs Darth Vader didn’t want you to see!

“Billy was a kid who got pushed around … Then he found the power!” Revenge of the Nerds gets a sci-fi twist when a bullied teenager finds an alien laser canon out in the middle of the desert, and he uses it to exact cheesy revenge on his tormentors. But the extraterrestrial owners of the kid’s new toy are looking for their lost merchandise, and when they find it, it’s going to be a real blast … a real Laserblast! Made in the wake of the massive success of Star Wars (Billy, the alien-possessed, pasty-faced teen with the laser blaster grafted onto his arm, even blows up a Star Wars poster, just for fun), the ultra-fun Laserblast features a B-movie dream cast including Roddy McDowell, Keenan Wynn, Cheryl “Rainbeaux” Smith (aka the pregnant cheerleader in Revenge of the Cheerleaders), and, in his movie debut, the one-and-only “Nerd King” Eddie Deezen (hilariously cast against type as a tough punk named “Froggy”), along with some truly cool, jibbering and jabbering stop-motion aliens who almost literally steal the film away from all those silly Earthlings. A hilariously goofy 1970s drive-in classic. (Dir. by Michael Rae, 1978,USA, 85 mins., Rated PG)