a.k.a. Cosmo 2000
companies: Nais Film and
La Cinematografie Internazionali Associate
year: 1977
runtime: 92′
country: Italy
director: Alfonso Brescia
cast: John Richardson, Yanti Somer,
Walter Maestosi, Massimo de Cecco,
Gisela Hahn, West Buchanan, Malisa Longo
writers: Giacomo Mazzocchi
and Massimo Lo Jacono
not on home video in the USA
Plot: The giant robot ruler of a distant asteroid attempts to conquer the Earth with a fleet of flying saucers and an army of human-duplicating space zombies.
This is either the first or second of Alfonso Brescia’s pentalogy of STAR WARS-inspired space adventures, and I’m not sure it really matters which. Brescia seems to have filmed it side by side with ANNO ZERO: GUERRA NELLO SPAZIO / COSMOS: WAR OF THE PLANETS, with which it is often confused (including at the IMDB), and the two share not only special effects, costumes, and props, but a good deal of cast and crew as well. Like LA BESTIA NELLO SPAZIO / THE BEAST IN SPACE three years later, BATTAGLIE NEGLI SPAZI STELLARI was never picked up for any sort of distribution in the United States and has since become the most obscure entry in the series.
A shame really, as BATTAGLIE is one of the better of Brescia’s tightly budgeted inepics. The screenplay by Giacomo Mazzocchi and Massimo Lo Jacono [STAR ODYSSEY] has more in common with one of Antonio Margheriti’s hip Gamma I films than with George Lucas’ budding franchise, and focuses less on fantastical interstellar combat and more on Earthbound dramatics. Brescia’s budget simply wouldn’t allow for anything approaching Lucas’ brand of special effects action, though he and his effects team do pull out all the stops in the end and allow for a final, brief flying saucer invasion of Earth.
The story concerns a space captain named Mike, played by COSMOS: WAR OF THE PLANETS star John Richardson [BLACK SUNDAY], who is called into service, along with his girlfriend (Yanti Somer), after a ship is destroyed by flying saucers while investigating an asteroid rich in rare elements. Mike joins forces with mysterious yet friendly alien visitor Irk (Walter Maestosi) and his child companion (who carries and, more importantly, uses a silver ball capable of disintigrating people) against the huge robotic ruler of the asteroid and his collection of mummy-wrapped and maggot-ridden space zombies. Things become more complicated when it is discovered that some of those zombies have been made to look, sound, and act like important members of Earth’s space force!
It’s odd to think that Brescia may have, for once, been ahead of the curve with this film, considering that the walking dead wouldn’t become a fixture of contemporary Italian genre cinema until George Romero’s DAWN OF THE DEAD and Lucio Fulci’s ZOMBI 2 were released there two years later. The zombies in this case only reveal their true form sporadically and are seen either wearing masks or imitating the living for most of their time on screen. In the rare instances that we do see them for what they are they’re pretty nasty, their pulsing faces wriggling with fly larvae and covered in a bloody mush. They may never eat people in the tradition of their more famous counterparts, but these space zombie manage to kill plenty of hapless Earthlings all the same.
From a production standpoint BATTAGLIE NEGLI SPAZI STELLARI is a few steps ahead of the rest of the entries in the series, and benefits from a few outdoor location shoots and some fine costume design by Elena de Cupis. Marcello Giombini’s electronic score makes for fine accompaniment throughout, particularly when the bizarrely catchy theme song We are not Alone here in Space kicks in over the opening and closing credits. Filled with loopy lyrics about “new UFOs” and “super human men” and sung by a chorus of men for whom English is obviously not a first language, the song (recycled for COSMOS: WAR OF THE PLANETS) must be heard to be believed.
Also moderately impressive are the special effects, handled by a variety of people and organizations (including animation house Studio H and Biamonte Cinegroup). Many of them, especially vistas of Earth ships sailing through the stars, already look off color and duped here, while some look positively pristine. Original to this production are a number of angles showing UFOs tracking along in groups of various sizes, most of which would be recycled in LA GUERRA DEI ROBOT / THE WAR OF THE ROBOTS and SETTE UOMINI D’ORO NELLO SPAZIO / STAR ODYSSEY. Fun as the effects can be, we see far too much of them. Shots are repeated over and over again, often multiple times in a single scene, and then looped through again on the view screens seen in sets for spaceship interiors and the Earth control center.
Brescia’s direction is as inept as ever here, though that’s really part of the fun. It’s certainly reasonable enough for the material at hand, with its weird drama (Richardson and Somer are introduced via a comedic fishing trip) and pages of ludicrous techno-babble. Editor Carlo Reali makes the most of the footage available to him, repeating some takes three and four times to stretch the length of scenes for which additional footage was obviously never shot.
It’s a minor miracle that BATTAGLIE NEGLI SPAZI STELLARI is as entertaining as it is with all of its technical and budgetary shortcomings. It’s a far cry from the Antonio Margheriti science fantasies that came before and will look dated even when compared to its contemporaries from elsewhere in the world, but it’s great fun all the same. I can only hope that someone like Mya Communications or Severin Films will take to giving this a proper English friendly release at some point in the future, but for now it remains unavailable on home video. Available or not, this one gets my recommendation.
