Blu-ray Review: Laserblast (1978)

Reptilian aliens arrive on Earth to retrieve a big ass laser gun from some sort of mutated teenager whom they quickly dispatch…but, a small plane scares them away before they can pick up the gun. Enter custom van drivin’ Mark Hamill surrogate Billy (Kim Milford), a down on his luck teen constantly left to fend for himself by his over-sexed Mother and hounded by some wacky cops (who complete with their own ragtime piano theme). Billy naturally finds the weapon mentioned previous, and begins to fuse with it courtesy of it’s funky fresh control medallion…slowly becoming a mutant himself. Soon a governmental agent, teen partying, vehicular scene padding, and “pew pew” lasers combine to form one hell of an entertaining sci-fi drive-In flick experience!
Look, I’ll lay it out for ya; I’ve loved the hell out of Laserblast ever since I saw it on some regional sci-fi picture show or another in the late ’80’s. It’s chock full of hand drawn laser beams, genre vet cameos (Roddy McDowall, Keenan Wynn, and Eddie Deezen in a larger role), spaceships, custom vans, toothy mutants, and best of all; fantastic stop-motion aliens from the maestro David Allen…it’s pure B-movie bliss!
Along with all of the fun contained in the feature presentation, those fine fiends at Full Moon have also included a couple of extras as well. First up you get an audio commentary by Producer Charles Band and Composer Richard Band. This is an anecdote packed, slightly self-effacing conversation that details the film’s production in detail, and is a fantastic listen. Also included are a collection of trailers for other Full Moon releases.
Laserblast has it right there in the title folks…it’s a freakin’ blast and deserves a place in any collection of surreal sci-fi cinema!