Review: 'Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone'

Title: SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE
Year: 1983
Director: Lamont Johnson
Writer: Stewart Harding, Jean LaFleur, David Preston, Edith Rey, Daniel Goldberg, and Len Blum
Starring: Peter Strauss, Molly Ringwald, Ernie Hudson, Michael Ironside

Do you ever watch a movie years, decades even, after it was first released and wonder how you missed it? SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN A FORBIDDEN ZONE is one of those movies for me. I had never heard of this movie until picking up Mill Creek's new 80's Sci-Fi DVD 2-pack (it comes with KRULL). To be fair, the film did come out in 1983, 3 years before I was born, but still that's hardly an acceptable excuse. 80's movies like this one are the things I watched repeatedly as a child on VHS. How I missed this one, I'll never know.

In this space adventure a small time salvage collector named Wolff (Peter Strauss) intercepts a an alert for the safe return of 3 women who are taken captive once their escape pod lands on a planet. Since 3,000 mega-credits, space currency, are being offered as a reward for their safe return, Wolff sets out to fine the missing women.

Early in his search for women, Wolff encounters a young, teenage scavenger trying to steal his space vehicle. The scavengers name is Niki (Molly Ringwald) and she convinces Wolff that he’ll need her tracking expertise to find these women. After a bit of hesitating, Wolff decides to take Niki up on her offer.

As Wolff continues his search now with Niki by his side, the 3 women are taken to see Overdog, a mostly machine cyborg with metal claws for hands played by the always wonderful Michael Ironside. The women are then prepared for Overdog’s pleasure. What Overdog’s please is exactly is never quite said, but I think you get the idea. It ain’t pretty.

As Wolff and Niki follow the clues to find the women and thus leading to a showdown with Overdog, they constantly get slowed down by various setbacks. They encounter blobs, siren-like women with some type of water dragon and they even do battle with a solider named Washington (Ernie Hudson), a former military acquaintance to Wolff. Eventually Wolff and Washington team up, but it takes some convincing.

SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN A FORBIDDEN ZONE is a lot like the Odyssey in space. In this case, our hero Wolff isn’t heading home, but he is on a long, epic adventure full of various deadly and dangerous traps and possible missteps. The sirens are even present here!

If you love 80’s sci-fi I don’t see how you won’t love SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN A FORBIDDEN ZONE. The sets, the costumes, the characters are all full of so much imagination and pure fun. And so much of it is actually built. The sets are incredible. Then you have the puppets, which sometimes look a little cheesy, but overall are a great success. It all screams 80’s and it screams sci-fi. Hard not to love.

There are a few moments here and there that get a little slow, but nothing that really deters from the overall enjoyment. I would have liked to see them go a little bigger at the end, but still it all works very well.

As mentioned up top, this release from Mill Creek is a DVD 2-pack paired with KRULL, which does make for a great double feature. This is a bare bones release, so no special features for either movie. The picture quality is actually quite fantastic. Everything is very crisp and clear. Sound is top notch as well. With that being said, I sincerely hope Mill Creek gives this one a bluray release one day. It’s much deserved and if they can get a special feature or two on there, all the better. In the meantime, this DVD release is highly recommended.

Rating: 4/5