“Welcome to the Garden of Eden. We play God here.”

Justin’s rating: I don’t envy their chances, but they have my sympathy.

Justin’s review: At this point in my movie-reviewing career, I’ve racked up quite a few of the strange and often terrible Alien knockoffs. So what’s one more, especially if it’s helmed by Roger Corman?

Cannibalizing footage from Battle Beyond the Stars and sets from Galaxy of Terror, Corman tried his darndest to mimic Ridley Scott’s scifi/horror masterpiece. What he ended up doing, however, was making a movie so ridiculous that test audiences laughed in his face and a dude even dumped a cup of soda on his head afterward.

After a completely pointless intro scene, a distress call from a remote research station lures in troubleshooter Mike Colby (Jesse Vint) and his robotic sidekick SAM-104 after an experiment goes awry. He finds out that this is one of those mad scientist labs where everyone’s practically double-dog daring each other to create an unstoppable abomination.

Hey look! It’s an unstoppable abomination! Subject 20, or so it’s called, kills a few people, cocoons for a while, and then emerges as a cross between the xenomorph, a spider, and a beanbag chair. While Mike is all for killing this “metamorphic” creature, he gets some pushback from the research staff and holds off until Subject 20 has time to start his union-mandated rampage. As the critter kills, it keeps growing and changing — mutating, if you will — and giving the prop team a headache to reinvent the creature scene over scene.

Much like Galaxy of Terror, Forbidden World shamelessly bottom feeds with titillation and gore while also rising above its own muck to give us some incredibly likable cast members, an energetic electronic score, and above-average camera work. I’ll just say it: This movie looks way better than I anticipated. And with a 77-minute runtime, it keeps the pace snappy with constant developments and confrontations.

I was rooting for Colby, who’s affable when the situation calls for it but also doesn’t hesitate to lean on his military training. He’s kind of the reverse Ripley from Aliens: A soldier dropped in the middle of working-class science nerds, the outsider who’s definitely going to be the last one standing. Yet he doesn’t let the mutant hunt get in the way of romancing both of the women on the station, which seems to be a little irresponsible but I guess the cosmos is a lonely place.

Because this movie couldn’t show much of the creature due to budgetary reasons, Corman and company adjusted to the challenge by making its off-screen presence work for the tension. It is frustrating how everyone but Colby drags their feet on going after the mutant, but that also creates a lot of moments where their stupidity gets its comeuppance. I mean, stripping down to a bathrobe and then attempting to have peaceful communications with a creature that wants to turn everyone into food sounds like a smart move, but in practice? We get people nuggets.

As long as you’re under no illusions about what you’re in for here, Forbidden Planet actually delivers a pretty solid B-movie experience that makes it one of the better Alien clones from the era. It’s what it says on the tin, and if you consume it, then you’re not really ingesting anything of lasting substance.

Intermission!

• That robot looks a bit like Master Chief from Halo, does he not?
• Whole lot of weird flashbacks (?) at the start of this movie. Maybe he’s flashing forward to the rest of the film?
• Suck it up and shake off that hyperspace sickness, you’ve got a stock space battle to win
• Kids today LOVE to watch space battles set to classical music! Or so I’ve heard!
• And now to watch someone’s butt walk down the hall
• Haha Mike hits Sam’s off switch for no reason
• Welcome to the little shop of horrors
• “I understand perfectly — you’re operating outside of your charter.”
• You rarely see body disposal cleanup in these kinds of movies
• Yes, go and stick your head INSIDE the incubation tank
• SPACE SLUG TO THE FACE
• Yeah who really needs to share the details about the girl who was murdered? That’s probably not relevant.
• That’s such an unrealistic shade of red for the blood
• Murder mutant on the loose? Time to strip down and go to bed!
• I bet all the workers here love that their quarters have cameras watching them sleep
• That funky weird space instrument he’s playing during the love scene
• Gross melted guy is still moving around?
• Negligee and sunglasses is a real choice
• Outer space has steam baths
• High heels is standard footwear in stations
• “They switch you off when life is good and switch you on when they’re up to their noses in life’s bitter offerings.”
• Those semi-spacesuits are pretty cool
• A lot of these walls are made up of McDonald’s styrofoam containers
• Hey, it’s the Vasquez Rocks!
• Power walking away from threats is the way to go
• “That’s the stupidest damned idea I’ve heard all day. No offense, Barb.”
• “It’s planting a garden, and we’re the seeds!”
• This is NOT the time for a shower scene
• Nor is it time to talk it down
• Did the mutant start playing… music?
• This movie loves its overhead shots
• He’s weaponizing his own cancer?
• Just yank his hand off why don’t you
• He’s so excited to have someone perform surgery on him without anesthesia
• Aaaand the mutant throws up to death