Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity (1987) – Review

Director Ken Dixon not only brings us a film with one of the greatest titles ever written, because what could be better than Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity, but he also gives us another fine entry in “Films based on Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” with this particular offering taking that well-worn premise into the sexploitation arena.

The plot of this film follows the misadventures of Daria (Elizabeth Kaitan) and Tisa (Cindy Beal), two attractive prisoners who escape from space-slavers only to soon find themselves stranded on a desolate planet, where they end up in an even more precarious situation. This particular planet is home to Zed (Don Scribner), a man with a scarred face who lives in a large fortress and is also the planet’s sole sentient inhabitant and is guarded by two robots who also act as the fortress’ keepers. The girls are invited to join Zed for an evening meal at his table, where they are introduced to two other survivors from another crash-landing and who are also Zed’s guests, Rik (Carl Horner) and his sister Shala (Brinke Stevens), but it becomes quickly apparent that when it comes to being a good host, Zed is more Norman Bates than he is Fantasy Island’s Mister Roarke.

 

“Have I mentioned my love of taxidermy?”

As this is an adaptation of “The Most Dangerous Game” Rik and Shala’s fears are quite justified – neither one of them will be making it to the end credits – and it is soon revealed that Zed has a secret trophy room where he showcases a collection of mounted heads, and that each night he will choose someone to be the prey in his personal hunt. What sets this film apart from other adaptations is its sci-fi setting, not only does it take place on a distant planet in the far-off future but we also get a nice assortment of sci-fi elements to spice things up, such as robot man-servants, ghoulish alien zombies and a particularly decent Predator rip-off. The alien zombies are simply these random creatures for our heroine to confront – no explanation is given as to what or why they exist – but while the mutant hunter creature is another unexplained addition it does provide a nice deus ex machina during the final act so our leads can survive.

 

“If it bleeds, we can laugh at it.”

What follows is your standard B-Movie sexploitation flick, with our cast of female characters running around half-clad as the film’s snarling villain performs clichéd monologues in between attempting sexual assaults on the aforementioned half-clad women. That said, one of the film’s standout elements is its strong female leads, portrayed with both sass and resilience by Elizabeth Kaitan as Daria and Cindy Beal as Tisa. Despite the exploitative nature of their roles, both actresses infuse their characters with a sense of agency and determination, elevating them beyond mere eye candy. Can we consider Laitan or Beal to be considered good actors, not really, but I will give them credit for doing their best in a genre that doesn’t expect much to begin with.

 

“Let’s go and kick some chauvinistic ass!”

Stray Observations:

• The movie opens with music that is nearly identical to the Klingon theme from the beginning of Star Trek: The Motion Picture by composer Jerry Goldsmith.
• This movie may take place in the far-off future in a distant galaxy but the “slave girls” are dressed in bikinis more in keeping with what Raquel Welch was wearing in One Million Years B.C.
• The opening escape from the “Space Gulag” includes such science fiction jargon as “I’ve got an idea, that if we can reverse the polarity on these cuffs, the only thing standing between us and freedom is stealing a starship.” You can’t argue with that kind of logic, that’s just science.
• Well-known pornographic film star Ginger Lynn was originally cast as Daria but was fired after three days of shooting when the director realized she couldn’t act. Seriously, he was surprised a porn star couldn’t act?
• In a post-coitus moment, Daria tells Rik “I never knew how much I missed making love, you made me feel alive again. I know what I want. I know what it is I’m fighting for.” I’m not exactly sure what she means. Is fighting for the right to an orgasm?
• Three beautiful women being hunted through the jungle had already been done in an episode of Charlie’s Angels called “Angel Hunt.”
• In 1992 this film was condemned as “indecent” on the floor of the U.S. Senate by North Carolina Republican Senator Jesse Helms, which I find to be a bit of a stretch. Cheesy, goofy and completely exploitative for sure, but I wouldn’t say it quite reaches the level of “indecent” or even salacious.
• While this film is an adaptation of “The Most Dangerous Game” it also owes a lot to the “Women in Chains” genre, with scenes of prerequisite scantily clad prisoners in peril. This film knows its target audience

 

For all your hormone-addled teenage boy needs.

While many movies and television shows have utilized the premise of Richard Connell’s short story “The Most Dangerous Game” most of them simply borrow the “hunting humans for sport” element, but with Ken Dixon’s Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity, we actually get a fairly faithful remake of the original classic tale, only within a sci-fi setting. This adaptation includes all the key elements of the original story, a villain who creates shipwrecks to acquire his prey, a launch that is supposedly “under repair” but is revealed to be perfectly fine, and when our protagonists arrive they discover that there are already two guests, a sister and a brother. The brother feigns drunkenness because he is suspicious of their host’s motives as their party once consisted of four but two have already entered the jungle with Zed and never returned. This may be a cheesy sexploitation film but it gets points for its faithfulness to the source material.

 

We also get a very “interesting” take on the villain’s trophy room.

The biggest departure from the original story is there is no male hero to rescue the fair damsel, instead of having Joel McCrea rescuing Fay Wray, as was in the 1932 adaption, or John Loder saving Audrey Long in the 1945 version, in this outing we have Elizabeth Kaitan as a fiery prison escapee to fill the role of the heroic lead, and she certainly doesn’t need a man to help her get out of trouble. Who said 80s low-budget exploitation films couldn’t be progressive? Of course, one can find fault in the level of acting on display – which makes you wonder just how bad was Ginger Lynn if what we get here was an improvement – but these kinds of films have rarely offered much in the way of great thespian displays of acting, in fact, the kind of displays presented in these 80s B-Movies are more along the lines of “Is the heroine a “B” Cup or a “D” Cup” and little concern is put on whether or not the actress was a graduate from Julliard.

 

This kind of movie doesn’t require much in the way of method acting.

Needless to say, the special effects in this low-budget offering do not hold up when compared to what was coming out of the big studios at the time – no one is going to mistake this film for The Empire Strikes Back or Blade Runner – but for what money they had it all made it to the screen. The robot manservants were not only well designed they were sort of fun, in an old married couple kind of way, and if the script had leaned more into that comedic sensibility this could have been a gem, alas, that was not to be. It should be noted that the aforementioned Predator knock-off looked surprisingly good and both the model work and matte paintings that were utilized to create this futuristic world were more than adequate to the task of taking us to a world of adventure and danger.

 

How they ended up on Skull Island I’ll never understand.

In conclusion, Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity is a campy, cheesy, and somewhat hilarious adaptation of “The Most Dangerous Game” with a goofy sci-fi spin to make things interesting. It’s the kind of movie you watch with friends, a bucket of popcorn, and a healthy dose of skepticism and perhaps alcohol. So grab your laser gun, put on your best space bikini, and prepare for a cinematic journey that’s truly out of this world – in more ways than one!