Moontrap

Moontrap
Theatrical release poster by Tom Jung
Directed by	Robert Dyke
Produced by	Robert Dyke John Cameron James A. Courtney
Written by	Tex Ragsdale
Starring	Walter Koenig Bruce Campbell Leigh Lombardi Robert Kurcz John J. Saunders
Music by	Joseph LoDuca
Production company	Magic Films
Distributed by	Image Entertainment (laserdisc) Malofilm Home Video Shapiro-Glickenhaus Home Video (video)
Release date	April 28, 1989
Running time	92 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Moontrap is a 1989 science fiction film from Magic Films. Written by Tex Ragsdale and directed by Robert Dyke, it was released on April 28 at WorldFest Houston. A comic book adaptation, featuring the film's production notes, was released on the same year by Caliber Comics. The cast features Walter Koenig, Bruce Campbell and Leigh Lombardi as a group of astronauts — Lombardi playing one from the distant past — who face an alien invasion by a race of predatory cyborgs.

On July 20, 1969, during the last phase of the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon, a robotic eye emerges from the lunar soil and takes notice of the landing module as it takes off. The eye buries itself again.

Decades later the Space Shuttle Camelot encounters a derelict spaceship in orbit around Earth. Mission commander Colonel Jason Grant (Walter Koenig) leaves the shuttle to investigate. He discovers a reddish-brown pod and a mummified human corpse. Both things are brought back to Earth, where it is found that they originated on the Moon some fourteen thousand years ago. Shortly thereafter, the unattended pod comes to life. It builds itself a cybernetic body with parts from the lab and pieces of the ancient corpse. The cyborg kills a lab technician and exchanges fire with security guards before Grant destroys it with a shotgun blast to the head.

Using the last completed Apollo rocket, Grant and fellow astronaut Ray Tanner (Bruce Campbell) go to the Moon on a search-and-destroy mission. They discover the ruins of an ancient human civilization. Inside, they find a woman in suspended animation who identifies herself in a rudimentary fashion as Mera (Leigh Lombardi). Mera later reveals the name of the killer cyborgs — the Kaalium. They survive the attack of a spider Kaalium and return to the landing module, with Mera wearing her own spacesuit but it turns out that the Kaalium have stolen the module. The Kaalium also shoot down the command module, leaving the astronauts stranded on the Moon. In subsequent attacks by the Kaalium, Tanner is killed, Grant and Mera are taken prisoner, and the Kaalium head to Earth.