Star Wars fans need to watch this alien boxing movie streaming for free

I’m a religious follower of Shudder, the streaming service for all things spooky. However as a science-fiction dork, I’m usually discovered crying out for an SF/F companion to the horror streaming service. Within the streaming period, what’s changed Sci-Fi Channel circa 1999?

The closest reply I’ve discovered is Tubi, the ad-supported watch-for-free streaming service that, in an effort to compete with the majors, has amassed an unlimited library of VHS-ready titles worthy of a mom-and-pop video retailer. That is the place I watched Enviornment, a 1989 sci-fi film I had by no means heard of that I might be recommending to my cult-film-fanatic mates for a minimum of the subsequent 12 months.

Produced within the late Eighties, however solely dumped within the U.S. as a straight-to-video launch in 1991, Enviornment stars Paul Satterfield as Steve Armstrong, a space-station-employee short-order prepare dinner who whips up the flawed order on and winds up on the flawed bruiser’s dangerous aspect. After surviving a brawl within the kitchen, Steve catches the attention of a boxing promoter who believes he would possibly the uncommon humanoid who could make it in alien boxing. This begins Steve’s profession as a champion of the Enviornment, the place mortal males can struggle buglike creatures and cyborg beasties. (A sci-fi tech thingamajig is used to equalize the taking part in subject, holding stronger opponents again to the extent of weaker homo sapien specimens.)

If that appears like a thinly veiled try to show the cantina scene from Star Wars into one of many fight-forward Rocky sequels, properly excellent news, it completely is.

I used to be shocked to study earlier than urgent play on Tubi that Enviornment had not been riffed on by the Thriller Science Theater 3000 crew — on the floor, it appears to be like like B-movie junk. And whereas Enviornment was produced by Irwin Yablans, who can brag about making Halloween with John Carpenter, his resume is plagued by schlock, together with the godawful 1978 film Laserblast (actual MST3K cannon fodder). However everybody concerned with Enviornment appears to have thrown themselves at this lofty premise.

Paul Satterfield didn’t flip into the subsequent Sylvester Stallone, however he did carve out a profession on soaps like Common Hospital and The Daring and the Stunning, the place studs thrive. He does the job right here as a hulk of a person in Enviornment, promoting his bouts in opposition to towering puppets that look dazzling, even by at the moment’s requirements. Lots of the latex results had been the work of John Carl Buechler, the SFX make-up artist behind just about each nice prosthetic of Eighties horror, and Screaming Mad George, a Japanese particular results artist who labored on Predator and Huge Bother in Little China. Whereas director Peter Manoogian (Seedpeople) can’t stage Balboa-worthy boxing sequences between a person and an 8-foot puppet — and I don’t consider even George Lucas and the ILM crew may have pulled it off in 1989! — Enviornment’s fantasy imagery had me howling. The crew swings massive.

Not each scene in Enviornment might be an alien boxing match, so fortunately, Manoogian fills the film with actors you truly wish to watch. Becoming a member of Satterfield in most scenes is British folksinger-turned-actor Hamilton Camp taking part in Shorty, a four-armed alien model of Burt Younger’s Paulie from Rocky. Claudia Christian, who lately has voiced tons of characters in World of Warcraft and Fallout, performs Quinn, a form of Han Solo-esque boxing supervisor who takes Steve underneath her wing. A pointy, decided feminine character in a Eighties sci-fi film that isn’t dressed up in skimpy garments for ogling? They stated it couldn’t be finished.

However what made me gasp was the looks by two members of the Star Trek: Deep House 9 solid, a fast manner for a film to earn a minimum of one additional star in my e book. None aside from Marc Alaimo, aka Gul Dukat, reveals as much as play Quinn, the slimy Enviornment booker, who trying again looks like a proto model of Dukat. A mobster alien with an aggressive hairline, Quinn is simply chewing up surroundings and needling Steve at each flip. His fixer lackey? Weezil, performed by Armin Shimerman of Quark fame.

There are the classics, there are the cult classics, after which there are B-movie sci-fi cheapos circling the underside of the barrel on free streaming providers. Not each all of them have to be reclaimed with “truly good” endorsements. However Enviornment deserves a hero to step within the ring to struggle in its protection. I’m that man, able to throw a hook at any snarling pigbot who desires to return at me.

Enviornment is streaming free of charge on Tubi.