10 Blockbuster Rip-Off Films That Are Actually Worth Watching

2. Starcrash (1979)

Tell a Star Wars fanatic that this cheap Italian knock-off (distributed by Roger Corman) has more heart than the prequels and, once they€™ve finished laughing, they€™ll bust your beak for you. Or they€™ll slap you with a comic book and run away. You know what nerds are like. Luigi Cozzi€™s movie has everything that George Lucas€™s space opera had: a score by an Oscar-winning composer, larger-than-life characters, quotable dialogue, and a truly memorable villain. Here, the villain is cackling Joe Spinell, who wants to rule the universe with €œred monsters€ that appear to have escaped from a lava lamp. On the side of the angels are lightsabre-wielding David Hasselhoff, a police robot with an inexplicable Southern drawl and, most memorably, Caroline Munro, who spends half the film wearing a leather bikini, even when sentenced to hard labour in a mining colony. There are, of course, bigger-budgeted (and therefore €˜better€™) movies, but they don€™t have an ounce of Starcrash€™s dumb fun (no Amazons on horseback, either). Call it kitschy and juvenile, but it has a B-movie charm that€™s as entertaining as it is endearing.