VHS Lives! HUMANOID WOMAN (1981)

The next tape from the pile is HUMANOID WOMAN. This began life as a Russian science fiction film (CHEREZ TERNII K ZVYOZDAM - difficult to say, but cracker of a score at Scrabble) before someone decided it would be nice to re-edit it, dub it into English and release it under the aforementioned new moniker. This is a UK release on the Xtasy label and it's not the first time they've released such cheeky stuff. When some episodes of Japanese PLANET OF THE APES rip-off SARU NO GUNDAN got dubbed and re-edited into the movie-length TIME OF THE APES, it was those good folks at Xtasy who released that one too. If it wasn't stuck at the bottom of a pile of old tapes in a cupboard somewhere, you'd probably have been hearing about it this week.

But back to HUMANOID WOMAN. I found this one for a quid in a charity shop in Kirkcaldy on a day off work - nobody can say I didn't make constructive use of my time. Actually, I think it may have been when I took the day off for last year's Oscars. But anyway, I'm digressing again.

The reasons I bought it? Well for one thing it was an old sci-fi film that I'd never heard of. Secondly, it had a weird looking guy on the cover who looked quite menacing which, combined with the 18 certificate, made it seem quite promising. The third and final reason was that there was no way I could resist a film whose sleeve featured the tagline "ZOMBIE BEAUTY IN SPACE MASSACRE".

As it turns out, it's not as dark as I'd anticipated. In fact, it's really rather silly. Now I'm honest enough to admit that the film is not in its original form and certainly the dubbing alone would make even the greatest film seem a tad sillier. However, when you see things like a household robot that looks like a cross between a robot and a cake (but, for some reason, with the feet of an elephant) you can't help but wonder if the film was ever serious in any language. My doubts were not eased by the sight of someone crashing through a glass wall and leaving their exact outline, cartoon-style, where they passed through it.

But I'm getting ahead of myself; I suspect you'd like to know a bit about the story. Well, it starts off with some astronauts, one of whom has the best beard in history, coming across a space station inhabited by a strange - wait for it - humanoid woman. The discovery is laced with some pretty psychedelic colouring, but I couldn't work out if that was some kind of visual trickery playing tribute to classic Russian sci-fi flick SOLARIS or if it was just that my tape has gone a bit dodgy with age.

Anyway, it turns out that the woman's some kind of advanced being from the planet Dessa. Advanced, but servile. So much so, in fact, that one of the men who meets her declares in all seriousness that since she offers total obedience, she'd be the perfect wife. Ah, they don't make them like this anymore.

So basically there's this humanoid clone thing who is really advanced but takes orders from some evil guy on Dessa. The evil orange-looking guy looks a bit like Richard Harris, or rather what Richard Harris would look like if he was made out of marmalade.

I'd like to tell you more but I hastily scribbled down some notes while watching it ages ago, and now I can't remember what they mean. There's something about a record player, some gas masks and an evil dwarf in a leather jacket. Anyway, this combination of orangey evil men, humanoid women, astronauts, a pint size Fonz and also some mutants who are a bit like those ones from BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES all culminates in a fun romp to the post-apocalyptic ruins of Dessa and a totally barmy finale combined with some fantastic metaphorical imagery.

I guess it's probably better if you just go and watch it for yourself. Shouldn't be too hard - that's what eBay's for.

The VHS appreciation marathon continues tomorrow!