Prisoners of the Lost Universe

Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

Do you want to watch this movie ‘Prisoners of the Lost Universe’? Well you can, for ZERO DOLLARS and completely legal right here. Should you watch this movie ‘Prisoners of the Lost Universe’ made way back in 1983 Starring Kay Lenz, Richard Hatch and the legendary John Saxon just because it’s free and legal? Hell no you shouldn’t, it’s crap, but that reason has never stopped me from watching a movie, and by all that’s holy don’t let it stop you. It’s FREE for the love of God!

Carrie (Lenz) is a science reporter cruising around L.A. in her right hand drive 280ZX to visit some crackpot scientist when she runs Dan the Electrician (Hatch) off the road. I think the earth tremors did it, but I can’t remember. The bad news is that she wrecked his ride, but the worst part is the she broke his kempo stick that he used to win championships and stuff, which led us to believe that eventually Dan was going pick up a stick and start kicking people’s asses with this stick, but no… Dan just likes to whine about broken sticks.

Eventually, after leaving Whining Dan behind, she makes it to the home of Dr. Hartmann (Kenneth Hendel) who has created the most awesomest alternate reality transporting device. An invention that his colleagues pooh pooh’s as nonsense, but during the demo he was giving Carrie, another tremor hits and the Doc is sucked into the transporter beam and is vaporized. Next thing you know Dan show up at the house, because the doc needed some electrical assistance since we all know that alternate reality transporting devices uses untold gigajoules worth of energy, another tremor hits and now both Dan and Carrie are vaporized… to the LOST UNIVERSE!

What a strange world the alternate L.A. is. First there’s the giant stuck in the mud that Carrie helps, then Carrie finds Dan just in time to run from little dudes in white face sporting Zany Zappers that force them off a nearby cliff. They’d be toast to if

that giant that was stuck in the mud didn’t totally murder those zany zapping sporting little dudes. Too bad he wasn’t bright enough to help somebody off the cliff. Good thing Dan had a roll of twine and a grappling hook in his belt. Who the hell is this guy, Batman? Also we meet GreenMan (Ray Charleson) who will be providing valuable exposition for us about this planet Vanya.

Soon after this point Carrie and Dan figure now would be a good time to have sex. I mean they hated each other two minutes ago, and Carrie wouldn’t even allow Dan push her up the cliff using the ass shove, but now they’re screwing in the bushes. Whatever.

Finally the movies heavy, Kleel (Saxon) shows up, shoots Dan and stakes a claim as Carrie as his own since she has hair the color of the sun. This version of Southern California has no blondes. How crazy is that? All Kleel wants is Carrie to freely give up that ass and he wants his sorcerer to keep making that crazy magic that keeps him power. Sorcerer? Well, in the four minute space between Dr. Hartman and Carrie getting to the Lost Universe, Dr. Hartman has been hard at work making all sorts of stuff happen for Kleel like inventing guns and nitro and all kinds of instruments of oppression. He’s only doing this to survive, he will tell us over and over again, though Carrie is disgusted by him wanting to survive.

After a bunch of lackluster adventures and lame swashbuckling, Dan, the GreenMan, the Giant and some thief dude are on a mission to Free Carrie, Kill Kleel and make it back to Normal L.A. We completely did not care if this happened.

True enough, the main crime committed by ‘Prisoners of the Lost Universe’ is that it is constructed from 100% of Lackluster, which is unfortunate because it does have lots of swashbuckling, explosions, John Saxon being a majestic barbarian, Kay Lenz almost kind of not really getting naked, murder, attempted rape, and mad shenanigans. But gosh, It’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie with all that stuff, but where almost every single frame was built on a platform solid Lackluster. Dang. Plus, who are these guys to mess with Kleel’s kingdom. They’re visitors, the people are barbarians, and they need a strong handed leader like Kleel the Erudite Barbarian. That’s like somebody getting transported to our universe and concluding that having a president is dumb and coming to the conclusion that they need to do something about it.

This movie was made in 1983, smack dab in the middle of a time that was a virtual renaissance of Sword and Sorcery type movies, and this one matched a lot of those low budget Sword and Sorcery movies in cheap sets and suspect acting, but where those movies leaned on gratuitous nudity to fill in the logic gaps and questionable action, this one leaned on Richard Hatch in uncomfortably tight Wranglers. Hmmm… this could be the reason why ‘Prisoners of the Lost Universe’ is free in the Public Domain, but yet you still have to cough up a couple of bucks for something like ‘Barbarian Queen’. Just a theory. But this movie is free and it does have little dudes in white face wearing Zany Zappers. This doesn’t make ‘Prisoners of the Lost Universe’ a must see, but this at least does give it some uniqueness.