Originally a 16mm film-school project for John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon, Dark Star transformed into a 35mm feature when Hollywood chucked money at it.
The tale of a quartet of stir-crazy spacemen in the middle of a 20-year mission, Carpenter's slackers-in-space debut riffs on everything from Star Trek to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Thirty years on, it's as influential as it was influenced, furnishing Douglas Adams with his best ideas for The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and nudging Kevin Smith in the general direction of Clerks. The special effects are, as you'd expect, patchy, but the corkscrew humour - talking bombs, beachball aliens, astro surfers - hasn't dated a jot. A sci-fi spoof that's not just funny but clever, too.
DVD Extras:
Biogs and picture galleries really don't cut it. Decidedly uncollectable.
