Entry Twenty-Four: Moontrap (1989)

Moontrap (1989)

Dir: Robert Dyke

"For fourteen thousand years...It waited."

Walter (Star Trek ) Koenig and Bruce (Evil Dead) Campbell are astronauts who discover a 14,000 year-old temple hidden on the surface of the moon.  Within the temple, they find a beautiful (human) woman in suspended animation, as well as a race of killer alien robots that can augment their bodies using any found material, including human flesh.  The awakened woman, Mera, informs our heroes that she's the last of her race, the rest of whom were wiped out by the killer 'bots.  After Campbell is killed, Mera removes her clothing and does the bone dance with Koenig and they get captured and brought to the aliens' hidden mothership.  Koenig discovers that the mechanized monsters are using the remains of his lunar rover to power their ship; he's able to disable it, destroy the ship and bring Mera home to Earth.

Moontrap was made in Michigan by Sam Raimi associates and, like Raimi's early efforts, Dyke and his collaborators make the most of their near-nonexistent budget.  The spaceship effects have a fun, throwback 50's feel, the lunar surface sets are appropriately sparse, dark and eerie and the robot creatures, with their mishmash of bone, exposed sinew and steel, have a cool Giger-look to them.  After years of being mostly relegated to the background in the Star Trek franchise, it's nice to see Koening land a leading role, and he acquits himself well.  Campbell, still several years from the home video success of Army of Darkness turning him into a cult superstar, is more subdued than usual.  It's slow to start and suffers from some amateurish secondary performances, but Moontrap looks better than most regional DIY efforts and fans of the Raimi/Scott Spiegel/Rob Tappert Michigan-lensed flicks of the 80s should add this to their "to-watch" list.