Producer CHARLES BAND who has made some pretty dreadful films in his days (pretty much all on the cheap) presents us with LASERBLAST a film he made earlier in his career & is quiet possibly his worst. LASERBLAST follows the story of a quiet young man who is taunted by bullies & the local inept police department of the small town where he lives, the only one to show him seemingly any respect is his girlfriend. That all changes one day when out in the desert, he stumbles upon a laughably fake looking gun that can slide over his arm & along with a magical amulet, can zap things & cause them to explode.

Now determined to seek revenge on those who have wronged him, he goes on a killing spree, while the local sheriff, a government agent, two laughable alien worms (both of whom look like sock puppets, the creation of the late David Allen) & the guys girlfriend try to stop him, however despite finding a new found weapon to use at his disposal, he discovers it has other nasty side effects as well, like turning him into a cheap looking INCREDIBLE HULK like creature. LASERBLAST was a film I was curious to see, the only good review I read of it was from LEONARD MALTIN! however after seeing the film I tend to agree with pretty much everyone, this film stinks! I would seriously like to sit down with Leonard Maltin & try & get out of him what he saw in this movie, that would make him give it a decent review, especially since there are tons of other films he dismissed in his film text that were so much more entertaining. Now granted, everyone has a right to his or her own opinion, but seriously, even by bad B movie standards, LASERBLAST is a dud, a cheaply made effort that even a sixth grader could pull off with his buddies & a camcorder. The stop motion effects were well handled however, but there are no scares or suspense to be had here.

The film has a deadly slow pace, while the lead hero spends most of the film with no shirt on, or if he does have one on it’s always unbuttoned to expose his body & despite being handsome, this guys is so bland you wonder what his girlfriend ever sees in him at all. Especially since he rarely talks & spends most of the time driving around in an ugly van & the film takes way to long to get going The film also has many scenes that tend to drag on & on in places without anything interesting happening & RODDY McDOWELL & KEENAN WYNN only have cameos in the film despite their top billing, plus I wasn’t buying into EDDIE DEEZEN as a bully, he makes PEEWEE HERMAN look like HULK HOGAN! & many of the films scenes seem out of place in the movie, with many sequences being to dark that you wonder if they ever hired a cinematographer (If they did I would have fired him after seeing the dailies!) The directors only film (& easy to see why) Avoid this film, heck it won’t even display subtitles on the bottom of the screen to let you know what the aliens are saying! Saved from my zero rating (Which I give to films that are so bad they are almost unwatchable) due mainly to the somewhat neat (but badly mishandled story) & like I said David Allen’s work in the film, plus believe it or not, I have seen worse. Poorly acted & directed. Charles Band later remade the film as DEADLY WEAPON.