Set in a dystopian future where humanity is a spacefaring race ruled by a sole person called "The Master," the film features a space crew confronting primal fears after they are marooned on a distant planet.
The film has many of the hallmarks associated with the "B-movie" style Roger Corman became known for: low budget, up-and-coming production personnel, and exploitive material, including a notorious scene in which a worm sexually assaults Taaffe O'Connell.
It is also notable for its production design and visual effects, which were created by James Cameron in one of his earliest filmmaking credits.
On the world of Xerxes, the Planet Master, someone whose face is obscured by an aura, instructs one of his military commanders to take the spaceship Quest to Morganthus.
As he tries remove it, a piece breaks off and begins sliding through his skin, forcing him to sever his arm to keep it from entering the remainder of his body.
Ranger and Specialist Cabren later discover that the planet creates monsters to attack people based upon their individual fears.
The pyramid is an ancient toy for the children of a long-extinct race, built to test their ability to control fear.
His ability to find low-tech solutions to such problems reportedly made him a favorite of Corman and eventually allowed him to pursue more ambitious projects.
Kizer reveals that the originally scripted version of O'Connell's "Dameia" character would see her die topless while being stripped and consumed by a monster.
After informing director Clark and actress O'Connell of the changes and having both of them balk, Corman decided to direct the worm scene himself.
The final released scene in film and VHS versions still contain segments with O'Connell's facial expressions and side views of her or the body double moving up and down underneath the worm, indicating that the cuts were probably made in or around those sequences.
Several countries still found this too explicit and either required the worm scene to be cut short or deleted entirely, or even denied the film a theatrical release outright.
The worm scene can be seen again, in part, during the opening credits of a later Corman produced film, the 1988 remake of Not of This Earth directed by Jim Wynorski and starring Traci Lords.
O'Connell, in a separate interview with Femme Fatales magazine, interpreted that Dameia was frightened by her own sexual desire to completely submit to someone or something powerful, which the phallic, tentacled monster lethally provides.
O'Connell also relates in the commentary how physically challenging the scene was and how the maggot prop made for the film, which weighed in at over a ton, almost collapsed on top of her at one point, which could have potentially killed her.
There was a remastered and authorized Region 2 (Europe) Italian disc available from Mondo Home Entertainment released in 2006 which is now out-of-print.
[10] The lack of authorized discs for so many years has led to numerous unauthorized copies of the movie being sold online and elsewhere.
[12] The film was released in Germany in a dual Blu-ray and DVD uncut 2-disc limited edition mediabook from BMV-Medien Entertainment on April 19, 2012.
The success of Aliens, which shares Galaxy of Terror's grim and dark visual aesthetic (completed with a much greater budget) has in turn influenced a variety of later films.
Another mainstream sci-fi/horror film that seems to have borrowed directly from Galaxy of Terror's plot line of astronauts facing base fears is Event Horizon (1997).
Brothers Robert and Dennis Skotak, respectively co-production designer and VFX cinematographer, would go on to win Best Visual Effects Oscars for Cameron's Aliens and Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
VFX camera operator Randall Frakes would be a synethsist on Aliens and an uncredited story writer on True Lies (1994).
Iya Labunka, later a film producer and wife of Wes Craven, had an early job as a prosthetics fabricator.