You get a warning pretty early on into this film that it has the budget that could probably buy you a bag of crisps and maybe a Coke at a cheap convenience store, and you don't even have to get past the credits.
The actors are literally no-names, none of them having starred in anything before. The director and editor both pulled multiple duties by writing, directing, editing, producing, and working on the SFX.
The plot is standard "we found a strange evil thing somewhere".
None of this is necessarily a bad thing. Alien used the same plot to explore very dark themes. John Carpenter made the brilliant Dark Star with almost no money.
Unfortunately, the difference is that those films were made by people with talent. Star Crystal, sadly, isn't.
We have tons of the bad movie staples, from shots holding too long on certain things and not enough on others, to abysmal acting. The opening scenes alone have about five establishing shots of the same darn spaceship. I get it guys, we're on the same ship, since no one moved anywhere, I don't see why you have to keep telling me about it.
I will say that some of the special effects are decent (for the time), but this would have worked better as a short film to generate a budget for something better. The alien has a cool icky feeling to it, all creepy flesh and slime.
It's mildly diverting for the occasional funny badness on display and ridiculously over-the-top school play acting.
Watch it if you can get it free.
