‘Vegas In Space’ has been on my ‘To Watch’ list now for the better part of a decade, ever since I first heard of it through Diamanda Hagans review back in 2014. A campy, schlocky and trippy Tom Rubnitz affair of a movie. Its suurrealist and lo-fi imagery stayed with me for many years until eventually I was able to track down and import a DVD copy to the UK. And tonight I finally cracked it open, and I was VERY much not dissapointed.

The film follows the crew of the ‘USS Intercourse’ as they’re tasked with investigating strange and deeply unsettling happenings on the glitzy exotic resort planet ‘Vegas in Space’ found in the Clitoral Star system. Theres only one problem, the crew of the Intercourse are all buch manly man men. and the Clitoris system is strictly ‘babes only’!

So! they take Gender reversal pills and turn in foxy ladies, before heading into Vegas under the guise of a gift from Earth Empress Vel, as a mid 20th century all girl lounge group set to perform for Empress Neuvo (the ruler of Vegas in Space).

Once landed, and acquainted with the locals, a meeting with the Empress takes place in which she reveals the reason the ladies are here, its to recover several missing jewels made of Girlium. The rarest mineral on the planet, with mystic magic properties that control the planets gravetational fields. With them missing, Vegas’s orbit is slowly disintigrating and freak natural disasters are running rampent across the planet, mainly earthquakes and explosions, and the peaceful babes of Vegas are having nightmares for the first time in decades.

Captain Tracy Daniels and the crew take the case on and Neuvo pairs Daniels up with Veneer, the queen of police on Vegas AND Empress Vels evil sister. with time running out The crew and Veneer must find the culprit, recover the jewels and reset Vegas back to the fashion and glam powered society we’ve all come to know and love!

And, I was pretty much sold on this in the first 5 minutes, Im a huge fan of the work of Tom Rubnitz, and this film very much has that kind of ramshackled, quirky, eccentric and delightful vibes and tones to it. Its all OVER the place, predominantly because it took 8 years of on and off filming totally 18 months of film time to get the film over the line. with PLENTY of improvisation both in terms of dialogue and direction.

Its kind of futile to approach this work on a traditional technical scale, this is video art at its most primest case, an experimental hodge podge of crazy ideas and half baked plot lines cooked up at an all drag queen house party in 1982/83. that was just built on and built on till completion.

The scripts arnt polished, feel quite uneven and the 3rd act drags a bit. But the tone is SO against taking itself even REMOTELY seriously, and the dialogue is SO self aware and working against most conventional film standards, that I really did have to rely on vibes alone to guide me here, and what I found was an absolute hoot of a movie. One thats incredibly light, psychadelic, brimming with campy nostalgic call backs to 60s sci fi and culture.

The direction is ramshackled, but sincere, everyones doing the best they can, the sets are all hand built and look vibrant and detailed, the costume design is bizarre and superb, the cast direction, immaculate. Theres a kind of nervous energy to the direction throughout this. The kind of vibe where you arnt entirely sure whats going to happen next. its so skittish on what its trying to show, that viably anything could pop up at ANY moment. and its that kind of energy that really endered me to this one.

The cine is largley locked off tripod shots, its a bit on the safe side, but then, occasionally there will be entire experimental freakout sequences that really pulled me in and held me with there strange and bizarre papercraft vibes. I really enjoyed it, and as someone who’s own film work is very much all about this style of film making, I was utterly engrossed.

The performances are all larger than life, hammy, campy, animated and bright, I dont think there was a single player here that I didnt at least have some good feelings towards. and the soundtrack is a bubblegum pop synthy cheap and cheerful, stripped back arrangement, largely coming from a single keyboard that gave me Frank Sidebottom and John Shuttleworth by way of the B52s vibes. I loved it dearly.

I kind of knew what I was getting into with ‘Vegas In Space’ and I really wasnt dissapointed, it more than surpassed my expectations and im really glad I checked it out. Im delighted to hear that theres a rumour a bluray remaster of this film is on the horizon (I will be preordering that) and I highly recommend if you havent seen this film already, checking it out! its a total trip!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/vegas-in-space/