Every day Robert Saucedo shines a spotlight on a movie either so bad it’s good or just downright terrible. Today: Watch recycled movies! They’re good for the environment and okay for you!
I have a confession to make. I’ve never really been a big fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
I know, I know. Me being a connoisseur of bad movies and not having a soft spot for MST3K is just ridiculous. I’ve certainly tried my hardest to enjoy the show — forcing myself to watch episodes long after I’ve established that I wasn’t really digging the show creators’ shtick. I’ve even tried Rifftrax, the latest project from the MST3K guys and no dice.
I enjoyed watching the movies that were heckled on MST3K but sitting back and letting other people heckle a movie for me has always just seemed lazy. If I would take the time to watch a bad movie, I’d rather listen to the taunts and jeers coming from the mouths of my friends and me.
I admit my dislike of MST3K only as a way of explaining that I was probably not the best audience for Sex Galaxy, a “recycled” movie that, in my eyes, played like a slightly raunchier version of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Billed as the world’s first “green” movie, Mike Davis claims his film is 100 percent taken from clips from the annals of bad movie history. And, besides a short bit that, if the credits are to be believed, was shot exclusively for Sex Galaxy, it seems Davis has indeed done his best to spin straw into gold.
Sex Galaxy was written and “directed” by Mike Davis. In reality, Mike took a bunch of old science fiction films from the public domain archive, reedited clips from the films to form a type of Frankenstein-esque monster of cheesy sci-fi goodness, and then redubbed the voices of the characters — giving a blue-humor edge to the archetypical astronaut explorer characters that made ‘50s science fiction movies their home.
In Davis’ patchwork film, future Earth is in disarray. Overpopulation and global warming has driven society towards outlawing recreational sex. Men, the planet over, are suffering from the biggest case of blue balls in human history.
This is why, when a group of astronauts discover a planet inhabited only by sex-crazed females, they decide to make a pit stop for a little R&R.
Unfortunately for the astronauts, the planet’s supply of women is controlled by a Pimpbot, a robotic hustler with a tight grip over his brothel of ho’s. Talking like a reject from a blaxplotation film, the Pimpbot won’t let anybody touch his women — unless they pay the proper price.
The Pimpbot is not the only danger waiting for the astronauts, though. There are also massive dinosaurs, killer monsters and the explorers’ own insatiable lust.
I can recognize Davis’ accomplishment in utilizing footage from films of the past and creating a new story that plays like a cross between an episode of Futurama and the early raunchy-for-raunchy sake episodes of South Park. It takes a lot of skill and work to do what Davis did. I just wish I could enjoy it as much as he wanted audiences to.
The humor played overly juvenile and I quickly became bored after the joke of seeing classic clips of sci-fi movies with raunchy humor dubbed over wore off.
The story was, as you might expect, a bit threadbare — merely a loose weave to connect the film’s jokes and keep the plot moving.
Davis tried hard to create something new but in the end, Sex Galaxy felt like something I had already seen in the past a dozen times before — whether or MST3K or on any of the cheap attempts to ape the style that have seeped out over YouTube.
While it wasn’t my cup of tea, I’m sure there are those out there who would get a real kick out of Sex Galaxy. They are probably in middle school or have the mental capacity of somebody that age but they might enjoy the cast of talented voice actors Davis recruited or the way that educational stock footage is used as gross-out humor.
I have no doubt that there are those that will enjoy Sex Galaxy — I just wasn’t one of them.
Robert Saucedo hates to break it to the trailer announcer, but yelling the movie’s title at me won’t make me like Sex Galaxy anymore. Follow Robert on Twitter @robsaucedo2500.
