History Film / Laserblast

* ProductPlacement: The protagonist is seen drinking Coca-Cola in a few shots. Mike and the Bots theorize Pepsi paid big bucks for that product placement.

* CentralTheme: Addiction. One might notice that every characters motivations are fulfilling their own addictions. It's no surprise the film revolves around being unable to stop random destruction around the addict to power -- and the more they use it, the more BodyHorror they suffer.
* CoolLoser: Billy isn't super cool; he's a bit whiny and he drives a [[TheAllegedCar crummy van]]. But he's a fairly good looking guy and certainly seems closer to an average guy compared to the spastic nerds who bully him, so it's a bit of a mystery why even Froggy picks on him.
* DirtyCop: The two cops smoke the weed they confiscate from busts themselves.
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Billy is completely corrupted by the cannon's influence and goes on a rampage. The aliens show up, kill him and forget to take back the cannon. ''[[HereWeGoAgain Again]]''. The End.]]

* HumanAlien: The bad guy alien vaporized in the prologue (if he is an alien; Billy starts transforming into a similar form as the movie goes on). The other aliens may owe their appearance to Dale Russel's Dinosauroid (see the Human Alien trope page for more on him).

* InformedAttribute: Billy's girlfriend claims to see some sort of darkness in him, so intense that it sometimes scares her. Aside from the whole "blowing people up" thing -- which seems to be the fault of the blaster driving him insane and not his own thing -- he really doesn't act or speak particularly darkly. In fact, he's pretty much just a normal guy.

* ProductPlacement: The protagonist is seen drinking Coca-Cola in a few shots. Mike and the Bots theorize it was done by Pepsi to discredit Coke.

* RecklessGunUsage: Billy waves the blaster around all over the place, including point both ends at himself at various points, while trying to figure out how to make it work.[[note]] To be fair, until he dons the amulet that's required to make the blaster work, Billy has no reason to believe it's an actual weapon, rather than a children's toy or an [[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 arm remover]].[[/note]]

* TakeThat: Billy destroys a ''[[Film/ANewHope Star Wars]]'' "billboard" with his cannon. Thanks to this movie's budget, it's not even an actual billboard -- just a cardboard sign upon which someone stenciled the ''Star Wars'' logo. Yeah, this movie '''totally''' gave ''Star Wars'' a run for its money. This may be one of the reasons why, for a brief time, people took ''Laserblast'' seriously, compared it to ''Star Wars'' and discussed which film was better and why. Oddly enough, the actor who played Billy Duncan co-starred with Creator/MarkHamill in the film ''Corvette Summer,'' which was released the same year as ''Laserblast''. Hamill considers ''Summer'' to be [[SoBadItsGood exactly]] [[OldShame as good]] as ''Laserblast''.

The movie begins with two aliens landing on Earth in pursuit of a third alien. After a pathetic attempt to hide behind a bush, the third alien's pursuers unceremoniously disintegrate him and then leave. Short movie, huh?

* CentralTheme: Addiction. One might notice that every characters motivations are fulfilling their own addictions. It's no surprise the film revolves around being unable to stop random destruction around the addict to power.

* ThoseTwoGuys: When the aliens aren't shooting people they pretty much act that way.

* AssholeVictim: Most of Billy's victims richly deserve getting blown up (emphasis on most - the doctor is an exception).

* InformedAttribute: Billy's girlfriend claims to see some sort of darkness in him, so intense that it sometimes scares her. Aside from the whole "blowing people up" thing - which seems to be the fault of the blaster driving him insane and not his own thing - he really doesn't act or speak particularly darkly. In fact, he's pretty much just a normal guy.

* NerdyBully: The character Froggy was played by Creator/EddieDeezen as the platonic ideal of a HollywoodNerd. Both he and his toady ([[StealthPun get it?]]) constantly taunt and torment the easygoing slacker protagonist. The ''Series/{{MST3K}}'' treatment of the film has the riffers theorize that it takes place in a strange alternate reality where the geeks pick on the cool kids.

* ShellShockedVeteran: Kathy's grandpa. He barely seems to be aware of the people around him, and goes on bizarre rants about "Operation Sanddust."
* StealthPun: Our NerdyBully is named Froggy. He also has an equally geeky bully underling who follows him around, otherwise known as a ''toady''.

* TakeThat: Billy destroys a ''[[Film/ANewHope Star Wars]]'' "billboard" with his cannon. Thanks to this movie's budget, it's not even an actual billboard -- just a sign upon which someone stenciled the ''Star Wars'' logo. Yeah, this movie ''totally'' gave ''Star Wars'' a run for its money. This may be one of the reasons why, for a brief time, people took ''Laserblast'' seriously, compared it to ''Star Wars'' and discussed which film was better and why. Oddly enough, the actor who played Billy Duncan co-starred with Creator/MarkHamill in the film ''Corvette Summer,'' which was released the same year as ''Laserblast''. Hamill considers ''Summer'' to be [[SoBadItsGood exactly]] [[OldShame as good]] as ''Laserblast''.
%%* TheUnintelligible: The aliens.

* VillainProtagonist: Billy. Maybe.

* TheReptilians: A variant--the aliens look like shell-less humanoid tortoises.

* TheUnintelligible: The aliens.

* RecklessGunUsage: Billy waves the blaster around all over the place, including point both ends at himself at various points, while trying to figure out how to make it work.

* TheReptillians: A variant--the aliens look like shell-less humanoid tortoises.

* TheSeventies: This was a time when being fit meant you had to be rail thin. Plenty of 70's music, fashion and cars to go around, too.

* TakeThat: Billy destroys a ''StarWars'' "billboard" with his cannon. Thanks to this movie's budget, it's not even an actual billboard -- just a sign upon which someone stenciled the ''StarWars'' logo. Yeah, this movie ''totally'' gave StarWars a run for its money.
** Oddly enough, the actor who played Billy Duncan co-starred with [[StarWars Mark Hamill]] in the film ''Corvette Summer,'' which was released the same year as ''Laserblast''. Hamill considers ''Summer'' to be [[SoBadItsGood exactly]] [[OldShame as good]] as ''Laserblast''.
** This may be one of the reasons why, for a brief time, people took ''Laserblast'' seriously, compared it to ''Star Wars'' and discussed which film was better and why.

** Oddly enough, the actor who played Billy Duncan co-starred with [[StarWars Mark Hamill]] in the film ''Corvette Summer,'' which was released the same year as ''Laserblast''.

--> '''Crow:''' Goodbye, Mrs. Joe Don Baker.....

'''''Laserblast''''' is a 1978 low-budget sci-fi movie.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Billy is completely corrupted by the cannon's influence and goes on a rampage. The aliens show up, kill him and forget to take back the cannon. ''Again''. The End.]]

...Well, [[YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle not exactly]]. See, the bad guy alien was carrying a [[{{BFG}} rather large]] laser cannon with him, which the other aliens neglected to pick up (we get to see their boss flip out at them over this later). Said cannon is later found by put-down teenager Billy Duncan. Billy then starts using the cannon to gain revenge on those who wronged him. The laser cannon turns out to have an evil influence over its user, because Billy not only grows addicted to the cannon's destructive power, he also starts to undergo some kind of strange mutation. Meanwhile, the aliens have realized their mistake and are heading back to Earth to retrieve the cannon...

%%* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Colonel Farley.

This was one of the first film scoring assignments of Music/JoelGoldsmith ([[JerryGoldsmith Jerry's]] son), who went on to become the musical voice of ''Series/StargateSG1'' and its spinoffs.

For the ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' episode see ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S07E06Laserblast here]] ''.

* PoliceAreUseless: The Sheriff's Department here makes [[TheDukesOfHazzard Roscoe and Enos]] look like [[WalkerTexasRanger Walker and Trivette]].

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Billy is completely corrupted by the cannon's influence and goes on a rampage. The aliens show up, kill him and take back the cannon. The End.]]