Since this is the holiday season, Enemaniacs, I figured I deserve a bit of a gift. After all, Metamorphosis was so lacking in charm and good vibes, that I kind of need something. So, for this week’s B-Movie Enema review, and with Christmas just around the corner, I’m gifting myself the return of a favorite around these parts, Mr. Norman J. Warren.

Hell yeah, guys, gals, and non-binary pals, Norman J. Warren is back!

One of the things I’ve always loved about our friend Norman is that he doesn’t seem to ever make the same movie twice. Certainly, if you go through his filmography, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any two movies that resemble each other in succession. That’s what we have here with 1979’s Spaced Out. In the 60s, Warren made sex comedies but decided to move into horror in the 70s. In three consecutive years, he directed Satan’s Slave, Prey, and Terror. All three of those have been covered here, and all three are quite different in terms of horror films. Spaced Out would be a return to his old form, as it were, with a comedy.

But the origins of this sci-fi sex comedy are not exactly where you might think. You see, there was this little movie you may have never heard of called Star Wars. That came out in 1977. When this now totally forgotten flick ended up being something of a minor success at the box office, a lot of studios and filmmakers wanted to do their own Star Wars. However, the inspiration for Spaced Out was not Star Wars. Instead, it was the other 1977 science fiction film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Yeah! No foolin’. This was not a product of Star Wars being so popular. The script was originally written as S.E.C.K (or Sexual Encounters of the Close Kind). Interestingly, this film is known by four titles: Spaced Out, Outer Spaced, Outer Reach, and Outer Touch. Notice what’s not one of those four titles? Yeah, the original title of the script.

Anyway, we also get the return of Barry Stokes and Glory Annen from Prey. I’m happy to be bringing back Annen as she is just the bee’s knees in terms of cuteness. Barry Stokes is also pulling in another parody in terms of how he plays his sort of nerdy protagonist, Oliver. He based his performance on how Christopher Reeve played Clark Kent in 1978’s Superman: The Movie.

While this was released at the height of Norman J. Warren’s career as a horror and thriller director and the film that directly precedes my favorite film of his, Inseminoid, this was mostly met with pretty negative reviews. While some publications found some elements to like, the whole was generally felt to be lacking. A later review by Radio Times said that we should be thankful Warren went back to horror after this movie.

Well… I am glad he did too, but I’m also the guy who has the final word around these parts, so let’s get into Spaced Out and have ourselves a bit of a Norman J. Warren love fest.

As the movie begins we meet mild-mannered business guy Oliver/Ollie and his kind of stuck-up, high-strung fiance, Prudence. Ollie has pulled the car over for them to have a bit of a necking session but Prudence complains it’s too cold outside and Ollie is basically sitting on top of her and she doesn’t like him staring at her and admiring her good looks… Jeez. If this is what their torrid courtship has been like up to the point that they are engaged, these two will never not be fuckin’. I’m kidding. Prudence and Ollie, within seconds of seeing their relationship on screen, are clearly incompatible.

Ollie wants to get it on, but Prudence just wants to buy material for curtains. As she tries to describe what the curtain material looked like at the shop she was at earlier in the day, Oliver (who definitely does not like being called “Ollie” – at least by Prudence) is attempting to hike her skirt up so he can get up in there with a hand or two. She snaps at him and says that they must wait until they are married. He can have her all he wants then… at least on Saturdays.

As Prudence wants Oliver to appreciate how beautifully blue the sky is today, we see a ship full of sexy ladies from Betelgeuse planning an emergency stop on Earth for repairs.

Aside from Prudence and Oliver, we also meet two other characters. There’s the younger Willy who is kind of a goofy, bumbling kid who loves reading his favorite magazine, Bouncers. That’s Bouncers as in big ol’ bouncin’ boobies. There’s also the slightly older Cliff. Cliff was walking his dog and was eavesdropping on Oliver and Prudence’s argument over her not putting out. Cliff is a bird dog. He immediately thinks he can do better than Oliver with Prudence. He fancies himself a real ladies’ man. While Cliff overheard Oliver and Prudence arguing, Prudence could hear Willy’s heavy breathing while cranking one out to his newest issue of Bouncers.

They all witness a bright light. Oliver believes it was an accident so he and Prudence go to check it out. That causes Cliff to follow. Willy just ends up coming along… er… joining them as they walk to a clearing in the park. During this whole sequence, two fairly funny sex comedy things are said. First, Willy’s glasses got knocked off and he thinks that his masturbation has caused him to go blind despite being told that was just an old wives’ tale. Second, it’s very clearly nighttime when the scene is done of the foursome approaching the landed UFO when it was very clearly daytime earlier because Prudence was admiring the bright blue sky. Oliver gives us an in-story reason why it got dark all of a sudden – it’s the brightness of the ship’s lights that has caused the area around it to go so dark!

Norman J. Warren… you were a fucking genius.

The four of them decide to go inside to take a look around. One by one, the earthlings are separated and studied by the babes from Betelgeuse. They comment on the strangeness of their clothing. They are puzzled by the lack of “mammary projections” on the males. Two of the space babes listen in as Prudence tells Oliver all about Cliff’s improper advances. The space babes do not care much for Prudence’s voice.

Willy’s left out of the room and decides to wander around the foggy interior of the spaceship which he is now certain is not one of those new-fangled “mobile discos” he’s read all about (probably in Bouncers… as in a magazine for club doormen).

Willy is eventually intercepted by the engineering babe, Partha. She asks if Willy had an accident and that’s why he has no boobs. When she frisks him, she feels his junk and thinks that he’s packing a weapon. She’s especially freaked out when it begins to change its shape. He drops his nudie mags out of his jacket and Partha looks through the magazines and asks about human biology. She asks what the two people in one of the pictures are doing, and Willy says they’re playing a sport. Partha likes playing sports. She wonders if they could play sports together.

Partha tackles Willy thinking she can initiate sports right now. However, they are interrupted by Skipper, the captain, who wants her to bring the intruder to her. She takes Willy and his blue balls to the room to be observed. Speaking of Skipper, she enters the room with the four earthlings and very plainly tells them she tolerates no resistance.

Ma’am… Ms. Skipper… Uh, Captain, my Captain? You’ll get no resistance from me.

Skipper tells the four of them that they will not be harmed as long as they do what she tells them. She’s going to take them to the “hospitality lounge” so they can get dinner and enjoy themselves. The hospitality lounge is hopelessly 70s. It’s got a giant bean bag chair. There’s a jukebox. Stainglass lines one of the walls. It’s like a 70s living room.

The space babes suddenly believe they are being attacked by native forces. Prudence believes the army has come to save them. The ship takes off in an emergency. However, the “attacking force” is just a herd of cattle that congregated around the ship. They leave with the four earthlings onboard. Willy claims they are definitely on a spaceship. He also laments he will not get to work on time tomorrow.

The ship’s doctor, Cosia (Glory Annen), arrives with tonight’s dinner. She’s dressed somewhere in between an ice dancer with Icecapades and a roller-skating burger waitress. She tells them about their “fellow guest” which is just the Wurlitzer jukebox. She explains that if you put coins in him, he’ll talk to them. She leaves them to eat their dinner.

Meanwhile, the ship’s computer tells them that they really need to do something to fix the ship in the next two hours. Pretty much the only thing that is operating at normal capacity is the laundry room. They have to figure out some things. They lost their cargo when the ship’s fire extinguisher went off in the cargo hold and ruined what they were shipping. So, why not sell the humans? Sure, it’s unethical, but they need money.

In order to sell them, they need to take stock of what they have. They especially want to examine the flat-chested ones. Corsia will handle a bio-scan on one of the males. Partha will handle intelligence tests. Skipper will check behavioral responses as well as stress tests and measure their reflexes.

This whole time, Cliff has been eyeing Prudence and wanting to put the moves on her. Oliver is also frustrated with her. He’s been distracted by Cliff’s bad behavior and whenever she tries to pipe up to offer her opinion, he tells her to shut up. She’s been so angry with this whole situation and how the guys are drooling over the space babes, that she even broke off the engagement with Oliver.

Cliff’s collected by Skipper for testing. Willy asks about Partha, but when she arrives, she takes Oliver for testing. Naturally, Prudence, being the prude… OH that’s why she’s named Prudence. Anyway, Prudence is, of course, pissed. Anyway, Cliff is taken to a room where Skipper begins kicking the shit out of him. Partha tries asking insane mathematical questions to Oliver that he can’t answer. Cliff and Oliver swap places. Oliver gets his ass handed to him by Skipper and Cliff makes a move on Partha and decides to teach her some “sports”.

When Skipper takes Willy to her gymnasium to kick his ass, he’s drunk off his ass from libations in the hospitality lounge but appropriately dodges her attacks by accident and even knocks her over with her medicine ball. Skipper is convinced Willy is of top quality and extremely dangerous. Willy is sent to Corsia for a bio-scan. She wants Willy to strip completely nude but he’s bashful. After all, she’s gotta get a picture and take measurements. As she measures his junk, he gets hard and soon, it is more than twice its original size!

Also, another of Willy’s nudie mags is called Suspenders.

As each of our space babes tried to comprehend what was being depicted in Willy’s nudie mags, they came up with very different ideas. Skipper thought it was wrestling and/or combat. Corsia thought it was a mystical or religious act. Of course, Partha thought it was a sporting event as Willy described it to her earlier on.

However, Willy sets it straight with Corsia. He says it’s an emotional and procreation thing. That’s why he can’t exactly control the size of the appendage when she is trying to measure it. It comes down to attraction, desire, and, maybe most importantly, love. The key to getting things started is identifying a suitable partner. Corsia asks Willy if he finds her to be a suitable partner. She is Glory Annen. Of course she’s a suitable partner.

Partha and Cliff are going to town on each other. I’m guessing they went to extra time in whatever sporting event they think they’re doing. Partha keeps wanting to keep going even after he finishes. Cliff’s getting his, uh, comeuppance by saying his main talent is fucking. She demands he continue to make good on that one good talent of his. In fact, her demands make him gather his clothes and run away from her.

Meanwhile, good for Willy. After his bio-scan returned the result that he is one of the most advanced creatures in the universe, he says he wants to show her more about that reproductive thing. This little goofball scores with Glory Annen’s character. And she seems pretty pleased. There’s hope for all of us, dear Enemaniacs.

Cosia reports her findings to Skipper. Skipper is still frustrated that he bested her in physical combat. Cosia says she shouldn’t feel all that bad about that. After all, Willy’s got one of the most advanced bodies in all the universe. Skipper says she needs to get him over to Partha for an intelligence test immediately. If he has a brain to go along with his combat skills and perfect body, he will fetch them a fortune when they sell him to the zoo.

All Cosia needs to do is something she knows quite well how to do… keep him happy.

Much as he accidentally passes the physical combat test Skipper put him through, Willy kind of stumbles his way through Partha’s intelligence quiz and accidentally aces it. She’s far more interested in finding out if he has the most perfect body in the universe, is he better at sports than Cliff? She’s trying to find out if he is as brilliant physically as he seems to be mentally when Skipper calls for him to join her forcing him to leave Partha frustrated once again.

Meanwhile, Cliff has returned to the hospitality lounge exhausted. Oliver is trying to resolve his issues with Prudence by asking the jukebox for advice. The jukebox suggested he try a more patriarchal, caveman approach by saying he needs to tell her he’s a man, and if she doesn’t do what he says, he’ll put her across his knee and spank her. When he then lunges for her to give him the sex he’s needed all this time now, she dodges and escapes into the ship. She ends up in one of the girls’ rooms where she finds something she does have a great deal of passion for – synthetic material.

Meanwhile, let me just say that the best laugh of the whole movie happens when Partha once again tries to get action from Cliff. Cliff runs away from her and stumbles into the Bio-Scan Room. Now, in this room, we earlier saw Willy and Cosia in there, right? Well, Cosia showed Willy how they have reproductive intercourse. Basically, it’s a chair you get strapped into and a giant cylinder shoots up from the seat. She asked Willy if he would like to try it but he said that would only ruin his perfect body.

Well… Cliff thinks he’s found a chair to rest and stay away from Partha only to find the butt-fucking chair.

Welcome to the world of erotic butt play, Clifford. Enjoy your stay.

Oliver finds Prudence in one of the girls’ rooms where she’s now dressed quite fetchingly. She thinks she’s looking sexy. Oliver thinks she looks sexy. She wants him to kiss her properly full of passion and fire. She then wants to do it. Now, she just needs to toss aside the dress she found but he has a right British outfit of about ten layers. They do eventually make love and make up by reigniting their love for each other.

Meanwhile, Skipper, impressed by her crew’s findings about Willy, no longer wants to sell him to the zoo. Instead, she suggests they return the other three humans to Earth and let him stay with them as a permanent member of the ship’s crew. At first, Willy is unsure. He says that no one would know that he left Earth. He’d be leaving loved ones behind. You get it. I mean these space babes are pretty sexy, but it’s a pretty heavy thing to do to leave everything behind for a trio of incredibly hot women who want nothing more than for you to be their pleasure thing.

Fuck it, sorry, Mom, Dad, brothers, friends… I’m fucking off with these space babes. BYYYYEEEEEE!

Anyway… The ship is still falling apart and Partha is only able to fix so much. The ship lands back on Earth but it’s a rough landing. Cliff, Prudence, and Oliver leave the ship, but Skipper decides, before Willy leaves, she’s going to say goodbye to the perfect specimen personally. By this, she means she’s going to let Willy seduce her. It only takes a couple of kisses on her cheek, neck, and cleavage for Willy to agree to leave with the girls. But Skipper isn’t done. She forces him back into her and pushes him down so he can kiss her all the way down to her extra sexy bits.

While Skipper and Willy have sex, she orders Cosia to take off again. However, the takeoff creates a fatal malfunction that causes the ship to explode killing the three girls and Willy. I… I guess Willy went out with a bang. Heh. Heh. Eh.

I think this movie is kind of inoffensive. At least as much as a movie like this can be. It’s silly. It’s goofy. Some of the jokes work really well. The ones that don’t work all that well aren’t really all that groan-worthy. So generally, it’s a fun little sex flick. If there’s anything to really dislike about the movie it’s the ending. They killed all the characters we liked the most!

Buuut… I also kind of read that in a way that’s not all that unlikable. The characters were told they needed to fix the ship. They needed to do so in a specific time frame. They failed to do so. Why? Well, there are two things that can distract and harm people if they don’t pay attention. First, money. They spent all the time they could use to fix the ship by testing the human males to see if they would be worth selling to an intergalactic zoo. Their greed distracted them.

As did their lust. By taking an interest in these depictions of fighting or religiosity or sports… Well, they spent too much time getting their rocks off than actually fixing the ship. When time ran out and the fix needed to happen immediately, they were unable. So… Lust and greed killed the lustful and greedy.

Well, except for Cliff, who found a new way to get his rocks off with the all-powerful sensation of butt play, and Oliver and Prudence, who found their perfect balance for their relationship to thrive.

Anyway, this is not one of Norman J. Warren’s best, but I think it’s still fun. Since we’ve moved away from sci-fi horror, but still keeping with a sci-fi theme, let’s do more sci-fi with a little bit of sexiness, yeah? Next week, we close out 2024 with a movie I’ve long wanted to cover and am finally doing so. Join me in seven cycles for 1980’s Galaxina.

Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, Enemaniacs, and if you ever find yourself with an opportunity to fly away with three sexy space babes… like, do it? Seriously, do it. This world kind of sucks. Go hang out with sexy space babes and get yourself some new surroundings.