For an entire article on the space films of Alfonso Brescia, visit this link.

Space is all about computers, at least in Italy in 1977. It’s also very close to when Star Wars was a big deal, so if there could be some cheaply made versions of an already big movie, Italy knew how to do exactly that.

A spaceship’s computer — The Wiz — seemingly saves everyone on-board from a space storm as they are only seeing refractions of the past. Meanwhile, Captain Mike Hamilton (John Richardson, Black Sunday) is being dealt with for slapping around an officer. He’s given the penalty of flying his ship — the MK-31 — to repair a satellite. When he gets there, he sees that they have no idea how to properly fix things and have moved past human sex and now lie on beds and watch light shows instead of messily putting the banana in the ham salad.

He investigates an unstable planet where two flying saucers — disintegrators — are protecting it from being explored. Narrowly avoiding a crash, Hamilton lands on the desert planet and learns that everyone is under the command of a computer. Only one of the people on this sphere survive, coming on board the M-31 while the computer possesses one of the crew who goes on a killing spree. The alien stops them at the cost of his own life and as everyone celebrates, only our hero realizes that the alien machine has now taken over The Wiz.

The cast includes Yanti Somer as Meela. She’s in all of Brescia’s space movies — Star Odyssey, War of the Robots, Battle of the Stars and this movie — as well as Man of the East. There’s also Katia Christine (Spirits of the Dead) as Greta, Maliso Longo (who was also in all of the space movies made by the director) as Halla, Massimo Bonetti as Vassilov, Giuseppe Fortis as Marseille and Italian western actor Vassili Karis as Peter Segura.

Director Alfonso Brescia has all sorts of movies on his list of films, including Naked Girl Killed in the Park, the wonderful Iron Warrior and the demented The Beast In Space. He wrote the story with Aldo Crudo (who made two possession movies in a row, Return of the Exorcist and Beyond the Door) and Maxim Lo Jacano.

In no way is this Star Wars. It’s closer to Planet of the Vampires with a little 2001. That said, I kind of adore it for being that.

Don’t have the box set? You can watch this on Tubi.