The Adventures of Taura: Prison Ship Star Slammer (the onscreen title) is a 1986 science fiction/women-in-prison/monster film more commonly known as simply Star Slammer. It was co-produced – with Jack H. Harris (The Blob, Equinox) – and directed by Fred Olen Ray (The Alien Dead, Scalps, The Tomb, Evil Toons) from a screenplay by Michael D. Sonye. The film stars Sandy Brooke, Susan Stokey, Ross Hagen, Marya Gant, Aldo Ray, Dawn Wildsmith, Richard Hench, Michael Sonye, Lindy Skyles, Bobbie Bresee, John Carradine.
The film incorporates recycled footage from John Carpenter’s Dark Star (1974), Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) and re-uses the many-toothed monster from The Deadly Spawn (1982). Other minor horror elements include a skull that smokes, a hand being hacked off, torture with leeches (one of which the warden eats!) and implied torture with a red hot poker.
Plot:
Far into the future. A war rages on a distant, desolate planet. Taura, an Amazon-like woman, finds herself mounting a battle against the forces of evil when she tangles with Bantor, a sadistic government official. Soon she is sentenced to hard labour aboard the prison ship Star Slammer and must prove herself to her young female cellmates before earning their respect and leading them in a daring prison break. With every turn, Taura faces new danger as she must outwit the sex-starved warden, out-tough the tyrannical trustee, and battle jagger rats, astro zombies and alien monsters.
Reviews:
” … another of Fred Olen Ray’s cheap and cheesy science-fiction bimbo films. Olen Ray readily sources various other B science-fiction movies of the past (as he usually does in his films) – there is a planet named Arous after the legendary Z movie The Brain from Planet Arous (1957) and the film even comes divided into chapter titles just like a serial. All the elements of the film come with a tongue-in-cheek silliness – the warden wears V-neck leather bondage costumes and an eyepatch while wielding a whip…” Moria
“Women in prison films were not know for being quality productions, and Star Slammeris probably one of the worst examples of the genre. This film has little to no redeeming qualities in the sci-fi department as it is terribly dated looking even for low-grade 1980’s trash, and the exploitation elements of the film offers little more than one actress losing her top but only for a few seconds, some cleavage and butt shots…” Couch Potato Movie Reviews
“But be warned, it’s probably not as exploitative as you’d expect. Yes, there’s some weird girl on girl hazing and a pointless “change in front of the group” scene, but you’re also treated to a score that rips off from Star Wars extensively as well as some Jawa clones that make the goblins in Troll 2 look like Tom Savini put them together. It really is not a great movie, but then you get treated to a fight scene between two women space prisoners and a children’s show host who looks like Venom’s ugly step child.” United Monkee
IMDb | We are grateful to Wrong Side of the Art! for the main poster image.
