“When they want to give the solar system an enema, this is where they stick the tube in.”

Star Wars has got a lot to answer for. Who’d have thought we’d still be banging on about it nearly 50 years after the first film came out?

Of course, Star Wars has aged reasonably well. But even the audience of 1979 Can't have been impressed by the so-called "special" effects of Saturn 3, a film so uniformly dreadful in all departments (the space scenes, the acting, the dubbing, the apparently-very-expensive robot monster), that it's gone beyond the term "cult" into new territory altogether.

The film even starts in a kind-of 2001-meets-Star Wars way, with the silent majesty of space being interrupted (silently) by a huge space ship flying in (from the top of the screen). Sadly, the scene is wrecked by the inclusion of an obviously painted planet in the background…

But onwards, and downwards… Captain James is late for the launch of his ship. Hurrying along he meets Vince, who failed the "mental test", apparently. Keen to pass it this time, Vince embarks on a bit of extra-curricular homework - ejecting the poor Captain out of the airlock, so that he explodes in deep space. I’d say that bumps him up to a pass grade.

James' shuttle takes off in a cloud of dry ice (wonder who's driving it?), and we're treated to yet more dire SFX as it navigates "the rings of Saturn". The ship is on its way to Saturn 3, an experimental food research station. "When they want to give the solar system an enema, this is where they stick the tube in," apparently. Good to see that even in the distant future, the art of vaudeville isn't quite dead. You know who wrote this? Martin Amis. Yes, that Martin Amis.

Vince (or Captain James, as his hosts on the space station assume him to be) is Harvey Keitel (yes, that Harvey Keitel), looking quite surprised that not only has he ended up in a Z-grade sci-fi/horror film, but that someone appears to have redubbed his voice with a strange English accent. He's brought drugs with him (tut tut) and an enormous robot called Hector, which is in pieces at the moment, but when finished will have a human brain.

His hosts on Saturn 3 are none other than Kirk Douglas (yes, that Kirk Douglas) and Farrah Fawcett (yes, that… ah, you get the point).

Keen to improve his mental rating, Keitel starts with some heavy-handed chat-up lines to the unimpressed Farrah ("You have a great body, may I use it?"), and continues by telling the pair that when Hector (the robot) is finished, one of them will be "obsolete" (cheers).

While Kirk and Farrah enjoy a "blue dreamer", a pill which gives you wet dreams (apparently we were to be treated to a steamy kinky sex scene at this point, but it got cut), Keitel gets Hector up-and-running. It's at this point the casual viewer might begin to get an inkling of just where the budget all went - the robot is actually almost impressive - until you get to its head. It hasn't got one, just a CCTV camera. Plastic tubes and chrome-plated shin guards don't come cheap, and they obviously built old Hector from the ground up, suddenly realising that all the money had gone when they got to his shoulders. Oops. Although having said that, the design allegedly comes from a drawing by Leonardo Da Vinci. Yes, I don't believe that either.

"He doesn't like to be laughed at…" says Keitel. That's a shame, because he's hilarious. Unlike what passes for jokes on Saturn 3.

For some reason, Keitel's lecherous thoughts about Fawcett are being transferred into the robot. In the film's one queasy scene, he demonstrates Hector's sensitivity by getting the robot to use its big clamp-hand-things to remove a speck of grit from Farrah's eye, but things are going from bad to worse. Hector is actually barking mad - he kills the dog (did I mention they had a dog? They had a dog), and even Keitel realises that when it comes to mentalism, he could learn a thing or two from the big silver guy with no head.

Things end in a welter of naked Kirk Douglas, sweaty chase scenes and some quite nasty gore effects (especially considering the film's rather tame A certificate). People get their hands chopped off, and robots (mentioning no names) decide to impress the girlies by ripping people's skin off and trying to wear it. Delightful.

It takes a while to get to it, but Saturn 3 does finish on a horror high after a fairly dull first half. Hector, with his ability to perform intricate surgery or casually snip off a limb, could have been a terrifying foe. It's a shame the money ran out.