Doctor Movie: Episode 318: Prisoners Of The Lost Universe

Show Notes

Join Doctor Movie for a look at your favorite movies from behind the steering wheel. We take a trip into another dimension and face a pistol wielding John Saxon!! Lets talk about the bizarre movie that is Prisoners Of the Lost Universe.

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People are being sucked into a time portal that takes them back to another dimension where John Saxon rules it all.

Yeah, John Saxon.

That's all you need to know.

Right here on Doctor Movie, let's get it.

Wait a minute, I hear something.

Hey, everybody, what's happening?

Welcome back to another episode of Doctor Movie.

And we've got an oddball one for you here.

From 1983, it's a sci-fi action flick called Prisoners Of The Lost Universe.

That's a mouthful.

And it's one of those that, no matter how many times you may have checked this one out, which I've only seen this twice now, it's one of those names that you just, you can't get right.

It just kind of, the words just kind of get jumbled up and it's like, eh, whatever.

Not a catchy title.

But there's some interesting things about this.

Like I said from 1983, it feels like a made-for-TV kind of thing.

It's weird because it does.

It has this made-for-TV kind of feel about it, except we're dealing with a lot of like rape and pillaging and our main actress in the movie has a pretty filthy mouth for a made-for-TV movie.

I don't know that it's made-for-TV, but this is such an oddball movie.

So let's get into this.

It did get a 3.7 out of 10.

Yeah, I can get behind that.

It's got a few things that's kind of cool to talk about, but overall it's like, yeah, I don't know.

So let's look here.

A mad scientist named Dr.

Hartman creates a teleporter device which transports an electrician, Dan, and a TV presenter, Carrie, into a prehistoric dimension on a planet, on the planet Vanya.

I didn't even know it was another planet.

I just figured it was another dimension here.

Carrie and Dan must confront brutal cavemen and a smitten warlord.

There you go.

I mean, some things you just can't, you can't make up.

I mean, obviously somebody did make this up, but, you know, when you start thinking about it, it's like, okay, this sounds like a after school special.

Right?

And it's even set up to where, you know, she's a TV personality.

Well, we'll get into that in a minute.

Listen, we do have, in a nutshell here, which is kind of our why to watch.

Well, it disappeared.

In a nutshell, it's awkward, campy and bizarre.

Yeah, that's kind of how I feel about it.

It's directed by Terry Marcel, who has directed...

Oh, this makes total sense.

Every one of these.

He directed Hawk the Slayer, which we need to talk about on the show.

Of course, Prisoners Of the Lost Universe is what we're talking about.

That's kind of the one really worth talking about.

Jane and the Lost City is another one, right?

It kind of makes sense, because all these movies had that same kind of hokey feel to them.

Okay, well, cool.

That makes more sense.

What else do we do?

Well, let's talk about our cast.

We've got...

Well, where did the cast go?

Here we go.

We've got Richard Hatch playing Dan, the electrician.

Apollo himself from the original Battlestar Galactica.

Which is, you know, I'm a fan.

I mean, I like him.

He's, you know, I grew up with Battlestar, so pretty much anything those guys are going to be in, I'm kind of down for, right?

I don't see our main female in the list of characters here.

Okay, here she is.

Uh, Kay Lins.

What else has she been in?

She was so familiar when I was watching this movie.

Oh, she's in some great movies like Strip to Kill, White Line Fever, Death Wish 4.

She's in the first House movie.

So, you know, she's made her rounds.

We've got, you know, we've got John Saxon.

Really, that's what it comes down to.

You know me.

If I see the name John Saxon, I'm going to watch it.

I'm just, it's just going to happen.

So, that's kind of the line up for this.

That's worth talking about.

Nobody else really stands out to me.

It's, again, it feels so much like just a TV kind of special.

Carrie is a TV personality.

She's covering how you can capture a king cobra with your bare hands by humming a B-flat.

Don't even ask.

That's just kind of how this movie starts.

She does these wild and crazy reports on TV.

She's driving out to talk to this scientist, and she runs the Dan off the road, who's an electrician and crashes his truck, tears up his stuff.

He's pissed off at her.

They get in a confrontation out in the road.

She takes off, goes on up to the scientist's house, which is just right up the road.

And while that's happening, an earthquake happens.

So Dan's trying to get some, wants to use somebody's phone, so he ends up walking up to the scientist's house.

And during that time, the scientist is showing this lady this new machine he's built that can teleport things to another dimension.

Big surprise.

And so he takes her compact case out of her purse, puts it in there, and sends it to another dimension, and it's gone.

And something happens, the earthquake comes in, and then the scientist kind of leans on the machine while the earthquake happens, and it takes him and sends him into another dimension, right?

I think.

Something like that.

Maybe it's not the earthquake yet, but something happens where he falls in and he's gone.

During that time, Dan shows up at the scientist's house, can't find anybody, finds her in the room with this machine, and Dan accidentally falls into the machine.

Maybe that's where the earthquake happens.

He falls in, she tries to grab him, she gets pulled in afterwards, and apparently when they go to this other dimension, the time that they fell in, seconds in our time, could be days in their time, right?

And it's real kind of prehistoric.

She ends up landing in this area, cannot find Dan, so everybody's kind of in their own thing.

And she ends up sitting down at this rock, and hears a noise and turns around, and there's a huge caveman, and he's in some quicksand.

And she leans a branch out to him so he can get out.

And from there on, he's kind of like the Cyclops in Crowl.

He's kind of a guardian for her.

Everywhere she goes and she gets in trouble, he sneaks up from behind and takes care of all the baddies, you know, keeps her safe.

At the same time, Dan ends up laying in this area and meets this blue guy.

Well, they call him Blue.

He's more grayish.

He's almost like Don of the Dead, what they considered blue, but ends up looking kind of gray.

And he's like a Jack of All Trades kind of guy.

He can shoot these exploding arrows.

You know, he knows all these tricks.

He knows how to just stick a piece of bamboo in the ground and pull water out of it, you know, when anytime he's thirsty.

He's like he's got a canteen everywhere he walks, but all he does is sticks a straw in the ground.

Kind of a cool character, can speak to any creature, you know.

So you got that whole fantasy thing going on there.

This is all built around this whole area is ran by Cleo, which is John Saxon, who has the scientists captured, and he's using them to his benefit.

Matter of fact, he makes gunpowder, and somehow makes John Saxon a gun, when there are no guns.

So it's one thing that he makes gunpowder, but he also makes a gun that looks just like any other old, you know, old-timey Civil War packing kind of gun.

Strange, strange that he just built a gun, just built one in gunpowder.

He's also built some, like, nitro, you know, to blow things up.

And, you know, because this John Saxon kind of rules everybody, he's got all the love sleigh stuff, he runs across Carrie and kidnaps her, and he's enthralled with her because she's got gold hair, right?

She's blonde.

And he's never seen that before.

And that's kind of it.

I mean, now, she keeps, you know, like the second in the command and third in command, they're all trying to throw her down and rape her all the time.

John Saxon says, nope, hands off.

She's mine.

But every time something, like I said, happens to her, the caveman shows up and helps out.

The caveman eventually meets up with Dan and his gang that he puts together, which is kind of a ragtag team to try to find the girl, which, why would he care?

I mean, he kind of hated her.

And, you know, you know how this is going to work out.

It's all been done.

Yeah, you know, you end up with a big confrontation where you have to fight John Saxon.

And that's kind of it.

And there is one kind of cool scene where Richard Hatch and his bunch gets captured by another group of people who live by this magical rock, which is basically a rock that heat's coming out of, and oil, which they don't know what oil is, but Richard Hatch does, or dad does, and they think it's this mystical stuff that sets on fire, and of course it is, you know.

And he has a big fight scene where he fights this big, you know, wrestling-sized dude, and he's like punching him in the face, it don't do no good, you know, all that kind of stuff.

But you know, kick to the nads.

Do it every time.

So, you know, there's all these near escapes and all this kind of stuff, and they're on horseback.

It's basically Kroll without all the cool stuff.

I don't know how else to describe it.

There's not much of a love affair, kind of like Kroll.

They just kind of meet each other, and yep, she's the one.

We're just going to get married.

You know, they meet each other, and they hate each other, but at the end, they're friends, right?

That's kind of how this movie rolls.

It's not good.

It's, uh, meh.

Is it worth seeing?

I think if you're a fan of, you know, Hawk The Slayer and some of these other movies like this, then go ahead and check it out.

You know, it does have that feel.

I'm just surprised at the overall feel of it, like I said, being like a TV special, but our main character is, you know, using some pretty rough language.

And I don't know.

Those things just kind of throw you in.

The whole trying to rape the girl thing a bunch, it's just weird.

It's a weird combination of stuff.

That's kind of it.

I'm surprised that Dan the electrician just automatically knows that when he goes into another dimension, that he knows how to like use martial arts combat, I guess, and how to fight with weapons.

He does have a bamboo practice sword, I forgot, that gets broke in the back of his truck.

So I guess they had to put some explanation of how he knows how to fight in the future or the other dimension, because, you know, I'm an electrician and I know how to fight with a kempo sword.

But he's doing other things, too.

You're like, okay, this requires way more than a kempo sword, right?

Anywho, that's kind of this movie.

I mean, it's really an odd, odd movie.

Some things are enjoyable, really cheap sets.

Yeah, it might be worth it to see The Caveman.

That's just kind of my thoughts on this one.

So I don't know.

I give it a 2 out of 5.

It's not high on the list, folks.

All right, I believe that's going to be it for this one.

Hey, if you got recommendations, or if you just want to talk about movies, if you want to tell me where I'm wrong, please do so.

Just let me know.

I'll be glad to hear from you.

All right, folks, that's it for this one.

We will check you later.