Monday, December 29, 2008

Movie review – “It Came From Outer Space” (1953) **

A space ship crashes in the desert, but everyone thinks it a meteor except for astronomer Richard Carlson. The space creature looks like an eye attached to a jelly fish and possesses people – cue some monster POV shots for 3D. Carlson has a girlfriend (Barbara Rush) who is also loved by the sheriff (Charles Drake) – and she winds up abducted, which is a little reminiscent of the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Despite the famous title and decent premise this isn’t very interesting story – a lot of running around and humans looking like zombies, without every the feeling of menace of something like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And there’s no personality monster like Creature. The aliens turn out to be quite benign – they’re only taking over human bodies so they can do work (they’re worried if they appear in their true form humans will be revolted, which is very considerate).

Fairly bland cast full of names familiar to B picture lovers – Carlson, Barbara Rush (who, for whatever reason, presented a whole bunch of Oscars), Charles Drake, Russell Johnson. I loved Russell Johnson’s trashy girlfriend. Decently directed by Jack Arnold, but just bland.

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