“Fate certainly weaves a twisted tapestry.”

Drake’s rating: So this is what Buzz Lightyear was on about

Drake’s review: When a pair of bikini models sporting the latest* fashions from Ujena escape from the outer space prison they were being held in, they manage to steal a spaceship and then crash land on a jungle planet inhabited by a villainous sort named Zed who dresses like the world’s laziest vampire.

But Zed is more than just the local Hot Topic’s favorite customer. He’s also a hunter who has taken to pursuing human prey through the dense foliage of his adopted world, because he’s a terrible host. And also because he’s somehow convinced himself that hunting bikini-clad young women is more dangerous than tracking down space tigers and the like.

As it turns out, Zed’s actually right about that.

I mentioned this one last year when I reviewed 2022’s The Most Dangerous Game, a movie hampered by a cast who were split on their approach to that movie, with most playing it straight but Casper Van Dien opting instead to ham it up like a Republic serial villain. Somehow, Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity has the same problem in reverse. Here, the main part of the cast is fully aware that this is a cheap, campy knockoff of the famous 1924 short story by Richard Connell and play it as such, with women in bikinis and men in frilly shirts running around the jungle set with all the seriousness of a David Lee Roth music video from the same era.

Somehow, though, actor Don Scribner didn’t get the memo. As Zed, he takes the part and the movie far too seriously. He attempts to be villainous and threatening while stalking his bikini-clad prey through a plastic jungle while accompanied by a pair of robots who look like they wandered in from the set of The Ice Pirates.

In any other movie I might call this a fatal flaw, but in all honesty there’s very little that could kill a movie called Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity. Because, let’s face it, you know going in exactly what kind of movie this is going to be from the title alone. And that’s the type of flick that went straight to VHS and sat on the shelves of every video store in the nation, where it was rented with alarming regularity each and every Friday night.

And as such movies go, Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity isn’t the worst of the bunch. There’s some decent production design here, even on what was likely a minuscule budget, and as Daria and Tisa, lead actresses Elizabeth Kaitan and Cindy Beal have a good rapport and keep the movie rolling along. They even tease a continuation of the adventures of the two at the movie’s end, but surprisingly a sequel was never made. Too bad, as I would have been down with Daria and Tisa kicking around the galaxy and groin-stomping more bad guys.

None of that makes this a good flick, of course, but for the most part Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity is content enough to live up to its title and be nothing more than a guilty weekend pleasure. It’s not going to make you think and you probably won’t remember any of the character’s names five minutes after it ends, but it will keep you entertained with 75 minutes of 1980s camp, and sometimes that’s all you want.

*As of 1987.

Intermission!

• Escaping from space prison looks surprisingly easy.
• Hey, Brinke Stevens is in this one!
• The bickering robots might be the best part of this flick.
• I dunno. If the bad guy is the one telling me to stay away from some place called the “Phantom Zone,” I’m probably going to make a beeline for the place.
• Hey, they found space weapons!
• And a space alien. Or maybe he’s native to this world. I really have no clue.
• Zed is evil! EVIL, I tell you!
• Zed is also painfully smirky.
• But that knee to the groin took the smirk right off of Zed’s face. Well done, Daria!
• Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead.