Rating: C+
Dir: Bernard L. Kowalski
Star: Michael Emmet, Angela Greene, John Baer, Ed Nelson
The first man in space, John Corcoran (Emmet), apparently dies on re-entry when his craft crashes back to Earth. His body is brought back to the research centre, where things get weird. Station comms get blacked out, cutting it off. Corcoran’s vital signs are not those of a dead man, and his blood contains a third type of cell, neither red nor white. Oh, yeah, and there’s a monster rampaging around the base. After the lead scientist is killed, John returns to life, with an apparent mental connection to the creature. He feels its intentions are good; his colleagues, in particular Steve Dunlap (Baer) and Dave Randall (Nelson), are less convinced of its benign agenda.
This is an early Corman production. However, it’s lesser-known little brother Gene who ran this, with Roger acting as executive producer. It’s an oddity, containing some elements well ahead of its time, and others which are laughably dated. The former would be John acting as an incubator for an alien lifeform, and the way the creature “learns” by absorbing its victims. For example, gaining the ability to speak English by eating the lead boffin’s head (off-screen, and barely implied – hey, it was the fifties). On the other hand? The beast, which is bad “man in a suit” level, and that’s allowing for the standards of the time. Any time it appears, is basically the film rugby-tackling the audience’s ability to suspend its disbelief.
Somewhere in the middle is its depiction of gender roles. The fact two of the five members of the research team are women is surprisingly progressive. The way they are called “girls” and basically reduced to reaction shot mannequins whenever the creature shows up? Not so much. Dr. Julie Benson (Greene) is engaged to Corcoran: cynical viewers may suggest that’s how she got the job. At least, until the wedding, when she’ll naturally have to give up her career, to have some babies. I did appreciate the literally xenophobic approach here. This becomes especially strident at the end, when the creature (a suit repurposed from Teenage Caveman, shot a few weeks earlier) makes a heartfelt plea for mankind’s cooperation. It receives a warm reception. Positively toasty, in fact.
Running a brisk sixty-three minutes, the movie was released on a double-bill with She Gods of Shark Reef, and you could argue which was the B in that pairing. At least She Gods was in colour, but it had sat on the shelf for eighteen months. Interesting to compare this to The Quatermass Xperiment, from three years earlier. The British production is better regarded, certainly; yet I feel this is more entertaining, albeit not entirely in ways the makers may have intended. On the other hand, it managed to surprise me at certain points, and I genuinely didn’t know how it would end. Those are things which Kowalski’s subsequent B-flick, Attack of the Giant Leeches, more charming though it was, could never realistically hope to achieve.