Ten-year-old space moppet Peter (David Mendenhall) sneaks on board a spaceship that is stolen by a band of space pirates led by interplanetary rogue-with-a-heart Hawk (Vince Edwards). As the child goes on a series of adventures with his new pals, a battle cruiser run by robots is despatched to bring him back.
Recycling the special effects and soundtrack from Corman's earlier Battle Beyond The Stars, and borrowing elements from Star Wars and its countless rip-offs, Space Raiders is a family oriented piece of space-junk that delivers sloppily edited space battles, terrible matte paintings, rubbish robots and unconvincing aliens aplenty, and very little in the way of genuine imagination or charm.
The cast do what they can with the uninspired material, but their efforts are negated by the all-pervading air of cheapness and lacklustre direction from Howard R. Cohen.
Avid sci-fi fans might be amused to see Thom Christopher sporting alien make-up even sillier than that of Hawk, his half-man half-bird character in TV's Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
Recycling the special effects and soundtrack from Corman's earlier Battle Beyond The Stars, and borrowing elements from Star Wars and its countless rip-offs, Space Raiders is a family oriented piece of space-junk that delivers sloppily edited space battles, terrible matte paintings, rubbish robots and unconvincing aliens aplenty, and very little in the way of genuine imagination or charm.
The cast do what they can with the uninspired material, but their efforts are negated by the all-pervading air of cheapness and lacklustre direction from Howard R. Cohen.
Avid sci-fi fans might be amused to see Thom Christopher sporting alien make-up even sillier than that of Hawk, his half-man half-bird character in TV's Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.