Naked Space (1983)

Surely Leslie Nielsen's Worst Movie Ever

I regret having to write this review, as I am normally a staunch defender of Leslie Nielsen's films and of the genres or parody and satire. Unfortunately, this is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. What is most astounding for a movie of this budget and quality is that not only did the producers rope Nielsen into this, but Patrick Macnee and Cindy Williams as well. Mercifully given the cast, the title is figurative and no actual nudity is featured in this travesty. The film was originally released in 1983 as "The Creature Wasn't Nice," and has also been titled "Spaceship." It was apparently re-released periodically to capitalize on Nielsen's waxing and waning popularity.

The film is a very lame spoof of all things sci-fi, and most directly of "Alien." The crew of a spaceship under the command of Leslie Nielsen lands on an alien planet and brings back a red jellied life form, making Dr. Stark (Macnee) ecstatic because he has finally found something to name after himself. Macnee gets my vote for most entertaining in the cast with a few decent lines; he is over the top here, but the material lets him down. Cindy Williams is the gratuitous female onboard, and performs what I thought was the worst song and dance number in screen history to entertain the crew. That record was eclipsed about twenty minutes later when the red jelly, now fully grown into a ridiculous gelatinous blob of mucilage, sings a song called "I Want To Eat Your Face." If this sounds entertaining, you might be wrong: it reminded me of when I had a wisdom tooth extracted by a military dentist.

I won't divulge the fate of the cast, although I will say that as the cast was thinned I was increasingly enthusiastic as I knew that the film was counting down to the end. Before I conclude, I have to give special mention to Gerrit Graham who played Rodzinski. Graham's presence in this film absolutely ensured failure: he was supposed to be obnoxious, but in reality he was so grating that I was almost unable to finish the movie. I suppose this was the result the director wanted, but I can't figure out why. The Rodzinski character has the worst dialogue, never rising above the level of junior high school locker room banter, in this whole insipid mess and rarely have I disliked a character as much. The only other onscreen persona I can recall disliking this much is, uncoincidentally, also in this movie: the ship computer, "Max," has a personality, and the personality is that of a bad AM disc jockey playing personal favorites. Need I say more?

I love good satire and parody: I adored "Airplane!" and most of Nielsen's other work. I also like genuinely bad camp films, with Ed Wood being a personally favorite anti-genius. The problem here is that there are some relatively big names in a cast that is utterly wasted on the material: some things can't be saved, and this is one of them.

For a much better horror spoof, I highly recommend the relatively recent "Lost Skeleton of Cadavra," which has a great cast, an entertaining story, and fidelity to the original genre being parodied. September 6, 2007

Marvelously bad

This movie belongs with Plan 9 as a movie that's so bad, it's hard not to laugh.

Patrick Macnee is particularly funny.

The pace for the first hour or so is so slow you might be tempted to advance to the next chapter, or kill the movie to do something more exciting - like watching your grass grow. Don't do it. You really need to endure the entire beginning of the movie to get the maximum effect. November 8, 2005

A funny, underrated movie.

THE STORY: A group of space expolores found a jelly-like thing on another planet. There it grows into something evil.

MY THOUHTS: A very funny movie! The monster singing had me in stitches! The special effects are horrible, but I think they were meant to be like that. Very good! So why 4 stars? Well, the DVD is horrible! All it has is a chapter selection. No subtitles, commentaries, deleted scenes, no nothing!


Rent it! December 6, 2004

EMPTY SPACE

Filmed on a budget of probably no more than $1200, NAKED SPACE is one of the WORST Spoofs I've ever seen. Writer/director/co-star Bruce Kimmel bombards us with lame, humorless dialogue; a set that looks like Plan 9 from Outer Space with a budget cut, and the performances (save for Gerrit Graham's mugging) are unabashedly terrible. Never would I have thought Leslie Nielsen could be so unfunny, nor Cindy Williams and Patrick Macnee so obnoxious. As for Kimmel, what is it with the song and dance numbers? I Want to Eat Your Face was funny for about two seconds. I wasn't expecting a whole lot, but I did expect a laugh or two. AVOID AT ALL COSTS. August 10, 2004

why, oh why, do I have to give it ANY stars?!?

I rented this and hated it. I love Leslie's movies, but this was unspeakably stupid. I won "Wrongfully Accused" on an ebay auction and it included "Naked Space" for FREE. That ought to tell you something right there. Sadly, I couldn't persuade the guy to NOT send it to me. Maybe I'll have to try to unload my copy. It is far beyond terrible. February 20, 2003

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