Dr. Forsythe (James Booth) is in charge of a military space mission. A spaceship containing a biological weapon crash lands near Los Angeles. On board are three pod-like containers. The pods survive the crash and are in a dormant state. When two teenagers come upon the crash, they find the larger pod. The boy, Jason (Jesse Dabson) touches a soft spot on the pod. The creature inside comes awake and kills the two kids. It then goes dormant again.
Captain Robertson (Bo Svenson) assigns two of his men, Ian McLemore (Charles Napier) and Jerry Merris (Ron Glass) to investigate the crash. The large pod is taken back to headquarters to be examined. At the crash site the detectives find the two smaller pods. Believing they may be some kind of rock; each man takes one of them home. In the police lab the pod with the adult creature reawakens and kills Dr. Rogers (Anthony Eisley) and escapes. General Randolph, from the government facility, is aware of the creature’s actions and tells Forsythe to remotely kill the creature. Forsythe pretends to send the message for the creature to self-destruct.
A psychic named Lady Elaine (Julie Newmar) is aware of the danger in the area. She contacts McLemore and tries to help. McLemore thinks she is a nut and disregards her warnings. When McLemore and Merris find out about Rogers, they return to the crash site to try to find more clues. By now the entire site has been taken over by the government and they are not allowed in. Captain Robertson gets word from the government to stop investigating.
McLemore’s girlfriend, Carla Sandbourn (Ann Turkel) tells him that the rock-like thing looks like a giant insect egg. They take the pod to an entomologist, Professor Whately (Fox Harris) to examine. When the Professor breaks open the pod, the creature inside attacks. McLemore realizes that Merris also has a pod at home but has no idea how dangerous it is. In addition, there is a larger creature running around Los Angeles killing people.
“Deep Space” was released in 1988 and was directed by Fred Olen Ray. It is a low budget science fiction horror film. Fred Olen Ray has made a lot of movies. All of them cheap. At times I’m not sure if he meant for this film to be comedic or not. I decided it was a black comedy. Considering McLemore seduces Carla with a bagpipe serenade, in full regalia, that subgenre seems to fit.
Some of the dialogue is campy and much of the acting is a little over the top. There is a lot of blood tossed around, as well as some entrails. The storyline, however, isn’t always clear. One of my questions is why the film was titled “Deep Space” since everything happened on Earth. It’s also not explained where the creatures actually came from. Were they created on Earth and sent into space for some reason? If so, why? Or were they found somewhere in “deep” space and brought back to Earth?
The creature is reminiscent of the “Alien” Xenomorph only pointier. For a low budget movie, it’s actually a pretty good-looking monster. Also, the smaller creatures are similar in appearance to the facehugger of “Alien” but they don’t impregnate their victims, just eat them.
It’s not a great movie but it was quite enjoyable in a silly way.