Yes, we just talked about this a couple weeks ago! And Laserblast (1978) is the movie for this Sunday's "monsterdon" watch party over on Mastodon, our fediverse sibling!
- Just start watching that movie this Sunday, April 6, 2025 at 9pm ET / 8pm CT / 6pm PT which is 1am Monday UTC
- and follow #monsterdon over on mastodon for live commentary. For example, you can follow that hashtag here: https://mastodon.social/tags/monsterdon
- I usually open two web browser windows on a computer side-by-side. But you could follow the mastodon commentary on a phone app while watching the movie on TV or something.
How to watch the movie:
- Tubi (US, England, Canada, Australia, NZ?): https://tubitv.com/movies/469612/laserblast
- youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cf0BCN9L5Q
- uBlock Origin adblocker should work on those tubi and youtube links, at least on firefox
- archive: https://archive.org/details/laserblast_202503
- someone plans to stream it on https://miru.miyaku.media/ at that time
- if you want to pay and/or watch ads, look here: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/laserblast
Literary critic John Kenneth Muir thought that the script had many plot holes which left many unanswered questions, and that there was "little effort to forge a coherent story out of the mix".[12] New York Daily News writer David Bianculli described Laserblast as "numbingly bad".[45] In The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies, Phil Hardy describes it as "a wholly unimaginative film", adding, "Even the non-stop series of exploding cars becomes monotonous in the hands of director Rae."[8] The Time Out Film Guide described Laserblast as a rip-off of Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and said that Billy's reign of destruction seemed random and senseless, rather than driven by plot or characterization. The review called the film "the epitome of what Frank Zappa once hymned as 'cheapness.'"[46] The Globe and Mail writer Robert Martin called the script inept, said that Steve Neill's make-up effects were "frightful rather than frightening", and said that Cheryl Smith could "barely talk, let alone act". Martin also stated that the film was pulled from a Toronto theater after showing for one week.[11]
Not all of the reviews were negative. Blockbuster Entertainment gave the film three out of five stars, and film critic Leonard Maltin gave it two-and-a-half out of four stars.[47][48] In their book about science fiction films, writers James Robert Parish and Michael R. Pitts called Laserblast "an stimulating, unpretentious little film in the same vein as I Was a Teenage Werewolf. Parish and Pitts praised the stop motion animation and the performance of Cheryl Smith.[49] Laserblast was among several films universally considered terrible that film reviewer Michael Adams watched as part of a book about his quest to find the worst film of all time. However, Adams said he enjoyed watching it on a B movie level.[50] Monthly Film Bulletin said that Laserblast was "Band's first major box-office success on the exploitation circuit".[39] According to Space.com, Laserblast has achieved cult film status.[5] During a 2005 interview, Charles Band called the film "hilarious" and stated that "it had its charm" like many films from its time. He also said that the film would have been made differently and would have had less critical reactions if it had been produced with a larger budget.[6] Two reptile-like alien creatures, one blue and one orange, look in an upward direction, with machinery and computer screens in the background. The stop motion aliens, created by David W. Allen, were praised by some critics as the only positive aspect of the film.
