Lord Buckethead has stood for Parliament against four British prime ministers, from Margaret Thatcher in 1987 to Boris Johnson in 2019. What many voters probably didn’t know is that the bucket came from an almost forgotten Star Wars spoof shot in Shelby, North Carolina.

That alone gives Hyperspace one of the stranger afterlives in low-budget movie history.

MGM was originally lined up to distribute the film, then backed away. Hyperspace became the sixth and final 3-D feature produced at Earl Owensby Studios, made in StereoVision during the same decade that gave us Jaws 3-D. The movie eventually slipped into release flat in 1986, while its 3-D version reportedly received only a one-week festival engagement in Los Angeles in 1990. Calling it obscure almost feels generous.

The plot is exactly as dignified as you’d hope. Princess Serina has stolen important radio transmissions from the evil Galactic Alliance, sending Lord Buckethead (Robert Bloodworth) after her. His navigation skills leave something to be desired, and he winds up near a sleepy Southern suburb where he mistakes local baker Chester (R.C. Nanney) for the heroic Captain Starfighter. Buckethead then grabs Karen (Paula Poundstone, Inside Out), who works at a transmission repair shop, because he’s convinced she’s the princess. Max (Alan Marx), a timid exterminator studying for a promotion, gets dragged into the rescue attempt. Cocky UFO scientist Dr. William Hopper (Chris Elliott, Groundhog Day) spots an opportunity to prove he’s been right all along and joins the chase.

Writer-director Todd Durham made the movie years before creating Hotel Transylvania, and the same affection for goofy monsters, broad comedy and genre parody is already easy to spot. What isn’t easy to hide is the budget. Sets are modest, costumes look homemade and the whole production has the scrappy feel of a movie assembled with whatever was available.

Then you get to the model work.

The alien ship miniature reportedly measured about six by five feet, weighed around 600 pounds and cost just $650 to build. It looks considerably more expensive than that. Composer Don Davis, years before The Matrix, helps even more by supplying a full-orchestra John Williams send-up and playing the joke completely straight. The score sometimes seems convinced it’s accompanying a much bigger movie, which only makes the contrast funnier.

Elliott, then a regular on Late Night with David Letterman, gets one of the best bits with a riff on Quint from Jaws. Poundstone brings her own offbeat rhythm, and Bloodworth understands that the funnier choice with Buckethead is to play the ridiculous costume as seriously as possible.

Not all of it lands. The jokes bounce between inspired stupidity and plain old stupidity, sometimes in the same scene, and there are stretches where 83 minutes feels surprisingly roomy. But there’s also something charming about a movie this determined to spoof Star Wars without remotely having Star Wars money. That lack of resources becomes part of the personality instead of something the movie spends all its energy trying to disguise.