In the far future a hand-picked team of space explorers are picked by their leader, "The Master" to go to a strange planet on a rescue mission. This planet, however, houses an ancient pyramid structure that has a strange effect-- it brings their fears to life. And it seems a lot of these people have fears of slimy things like worms, since that's what the majority of the monsters are. This Roger Corman produced movie also arrives on the heels of ALIEN, so there's a definite similarity there....
The nastiest scene is a woman getting raped by a giant maggot. I think that's the first time I ever saw that in a movie....
It also has a great cast, with Robert Englund (NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET), Sid Haig (BEYOND ATLANTIS, DEVIL'S REJECTS) and Ray Walston (STNG and MY FAVORITE MARTIAN). It's also Erin Moran's (HAPPY DAYS) feature debut.
While the special effects are good, the movie is almost totally lacking in characterization, which is a bit tough when the whole gist of the story are these people confronting their worst fears. It's basically a ninety-minute movie that needs about another forty-five minutes of character development.
James Cameron was one of the production designers, so the movie looks very familiar, like TERMINATOR and ALIENS.