A green-skinned humanoid alien is being hunted by two strange looking alien creatures in the California desert. Attached to the green alien’s arm is a laser gun. Around its neck is an unusual pendant that allows the alien to operate the laser gun. The two creepy aliens land their spaceship, hunt down the green guy and vaporize him. Just then a small plane flies overhead. The two creepy aliens take off forgetting about the pendent and the laser gun.
Meanwhile, Billy Duncan (Kim Milford) is a little depressed since his mother took off to party in Acapulco leaving him behind. In addition, his girlfriend’s grandfather, retired Colonel Farley (Keenan Wynn), who sees conspiracies around every corner, tells him to stay away from his granddaughter, Kathy (Cheryl Smith). After being chased away he has a run in with local deputies, Pete Unger (Dennis Burkley) and Jesse Jeep (Barry Cutler). After that he gets harassed by local bully, Chuck Boran (Mike Bobenko) and his sidekick, Froggy (Eddie Deezen).
Billy heads out to the desert to wallow in his troubles. While wandering around in the desert he finds the laser gun. He tries to shoot the gun, but it doesn’t work until he finds the pendant and holds it near the gun. Billy puts the pendant around his neck and begins shooting the gun and blowing up desert weeds. In outer space the two aliens realize that they left the weapon behind. Chastised by their leader, the two aliens find that Billy has found the weapon and is playing Space Ranger in the desert. The two return to Earth to seek out the gun and pendant.
The laser gun begins having an effect on Billy. With his newfound toy he starts blowing up people and cars, getting revenge on anyone who he feels wronged him. On his chest where the pendent lays he develops an unusual wound. Kathy convinces him to have Dr. Mellon (Roddy McDowall) look at it. Dr. Mellon takes a biopsy of the growth. By now Billy has become mentally unstable.
That night as Dr. Mellon brings the biopsy to the lab to analyze. Billy, now turning into a green monster, with the laser gun strapped to his arm, shoots Dr. Mellon’s car turning it and Dr. Mellon into a flame broiled mess.
While Billy is going through his melt down, an agent, Tony Craig (Gianni Russo), from a secret government department, is aware of what is going on and tries to track down where the laser gun is and who has it.
“Laserblast” was released in 1978 and was directed by Michael Rae. It is a low budget American independent science fiction horror “B” film.
This is your basic misunderstood teen, but with a laser gun movie. It’s not really all that great and the rubbery clay aliens leave much to be desired but there is a big camp value to this. In addition, there are a lot of really cool explosions. Enough of them to make you ignore the plot holes. There really isn’t much in the way of plot but if you’re into clay stop motion monsters and fiery explosions, from every angle, this movie has what you’re looking for.