Alfonso Brescia's sci-fi sexploitation picture The Beast In Space/La bestia nello spazio.

Starring: Sirpa Lane, Vassili Karis, Umberto Ceriani, Venantino Venantini, Maria D'Alessandro and Claudio Undari.

The film opens with Captain Larry Madison (Karis) getting into a bar fight with smuggler, Juan (Venantini). During the fight, Juan drops a small vial, inside the vial is a rare metal known as 'Antalium'. A key ingredient in the development of powerful weapons. Juan eventually spills the beans about where he found the metal, explaining that it's from a planet located in an uncharted part of the cosmos.

Larry reports back to the star fleet with his findings and is immediately tasked leading an expedition to the mysterious planet and recovering any Antalium they can find.

The Beast In Space is an odd mix of a low budget space opera and a porn flick, in a similar fashion to Joe D'Amato's 80s horror-hardcore porn flicks. At times, the film does appear very equal to a D'Amato production, but, unlike his hardcore efforts, Brescia's film is quite well shot, predominantly the scenes of eroticism are wonderfully filmed with bi-coloured lighting. The film is shot utilizing that old soft 'Vaseline-smeared-on-lens' technique, which gives the film a dreamy quality. Unfortunately the minimal budget outshines the aforementioned praise, the costumes and set design look terribly cheap. The influence from Lucas' Star Wars (1977) gleams, with Brescia even going so far as incorporating a disastrously choreographed 'lightsaber' fight sequence into the later half of the flick and a terribly acted shootout that would have the extras of a spaghetti western cringing. The sex scenes almost feel completely out of place in comparison to the rest of the film, especially the bizarre insert of a pair of horses copulating.



Furthermore, in an obvious attempt to tether his film to the success of Walerian Borowczyk's The Beast/La bête (1975), Brescia's film also features Sirpa Lane in a starring role as the beautiful Lt. Sondra Richardson, also similar to Borowczyk's The Beast, Lane also falls foul to the carnal desires of a non-human 'beast'. Lane's lackluster performance becomes somewhat grating after the first 45 minutes especially when her co-stars performances are as equally tedious. A shame, considering her performance in D'Amato's Papaya: Love Goddess of the Cannibals/Papaya dei Caraibi (1978).

Sadly, for me The Beast In Space was a dull affair and I can only give my recommendation to Italian sexploitation completists.