Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: It! The Terror from Beyond Space
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Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema Rewind. This is Rob Lamb, and today we have a fun episode for you. This is our episode from 7-19-2024 about the 1958 space horror film It, The Terror from Beyond Space. This one's a lot of fun. It's considered one of the key influences on the 1979 classic Alien. Let's jump right in. ♪♪

Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb. And I am Joe McCormick. And this week on Weird House Cinema, we're continuing some of our alien-related explorations with a film that is frequently cited as one of the B-movie influences on alien scribe Dan O'Bannon, along with the likes of Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires, which we've discussed on the show before. But this week, we're talking about it, the terror from beyond space.

if you couldn't tell from the way Rob said it, there is an exclamation point in the middle of the title. I love midline punctuation other than a colon in a title. Like it's, it, this is two sentences. Yes.

I think we could have put a question mark in there as well, though. Like it, the terror from beyond space. We don't know. I really liked this movie, but I feel like the title is misleading. In what way is the terror from beyond space? It's just like a thing somewhere out there in space. It's from another planet, a known planet, actually. Right.

Well, I guess, you know, at this point, maybe people had seen enough movies where the terror is from space and they're like, well, can we get beyond that? What's the next logical step? It suggests some kind of like interdimensional Lovecraftian sort of origin. It's not there. This is a this the terror is from Mars. Yes.

I really like some of the posters for this particular movie. One of them that I pulled up and included in our notes here is the nice horizontal poster. We see some version of the monster holding a woman, of course, one of the classic staples of old monster movies, one that I love. And I love some of the promises on this particular poster. It says, "...it reaches through space."

It scoops up men and women. It gorges on blood. Now,

Now, is there any way to reach other than through space? I guess one could reach through time, possibly, with one's mind or something. Yeah, yeah. I guess a reach through space is a reach through time. I'm not sure. But it scoops up men and women. It scoops them. Here's the thing. It definitely scoops up men. Does it ever scoop up a woman? I don't recall it scooping up a woman. No, I don't think it does. No, it scoops up men multiple times. Yeah. Another case where the monster holding a woman is a complete lie on the poster. Yes.

I was trying to think, what's the name of the wrestling move that it does with the guy where it just like fully like, you know, presses a guy above above its head? That is fittingly, I believe, sometimes called a gorilla press, which is fitting because, as we'll discuss, we have a veteran gorilla suit actor playing our monster.

It, the terror from beyond space, a.k.a. Mars, has a sort of guerrilla-esque silhouette, especially in some shots. Absolutely. And the silhouettes work really well. This is a movie that has a, I think, especially for the time, a pretty great monster costume. There are some flaws, as we'll discuss, that weren't necessarily within the control of the monster suit maker. Uh-huh.

But more importantly, one of the, I mean, the most important thing about a monster suit is you've got to, you got to shoot it right. You got to light it correctly. You got to know what to show and what not to show. And they don't do that perfectly in this film either, but there are moments where it works really well. I agree. The movie has a

pretty good understanding of how to use shadows and how to obscure the monster so as to heighten the suspense and to use what looks good about the monster performance and try to avoid what doesn't look so good about it. And in fact, you may recall the director of this movie, Edward L. Kahn,

also directed another movie we did on Weird House, The Creature with the Atom Brain. And that was a hoot, of course. That one, I think, was much funnier than this movie. This one, I think, overall...

works better on its own terms when taken more seriously. But in both cases, the director was good at using like shadows of the creature instead of a direct shot of the creature. Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, it's obviously a lower budget, late 50s affair, but still, it's a fun and an effective ride. Like,

not everything is great, but everything comes together enough that it has this kind of structural integrity, this structural completeness that is very enjoyable. Especially when you consider that this film was shot in...

Well, as many as two weeks. I've seen two weeks cited, but I've also seen six days cited as the shooting period for this picture. Isn't that what John Carpenter said about it in the interview we watched? Yeah. Carpenter in, let's see, what was this, a 2015 appearance on Turner Classic Movies. He says it was shot in six days, which does not seem unreasonable given what we know about the director and productions of this time period.

It's a fun interview Carpenter does about the movie because he clearly has great...

affection for it. This is something he saw as a child and it, it stuck with him. Like, you know, his, uh, he, you can tell he's still, even as an adult going back and watching it, sees it with a little kid brain and, uh, and appreciates it in that way. And, you know, that, that's something I, uh, I always enjoy when I'm able to do it, when I'm able to like turn off adult brain and become a child again, watching a, uh, a movie maybe on the sillier end of the spectrum. Um,

And yeah, but he says another thing about the movie, which is that, OK, it does have some pretty large technical flaws and we can talk about some of those as we go on. But considering the how how small the budget was, how fast it was made, it's actually a pretty impressively effective piece.

picture, he says a quote about it. It's something like it has a great little engine that runs it or something like that. And I totally agree. There is a there is a strong sort of mechanical, tactile feeling to the plot and a lot of the scenes. And it works really well. It just kind of pushes you through.

Yeah, yeah. It's kind of, I guess it's like thinking about what is a car supposed to do? It's supposed to drive you from point A to point B. What's a movie supposed to do? Well, now the answer is a little more complicated, but essentially entertain us and tell us a story and allow us to be immersed in that story. And this film does all of those things. Even if you were to be picky about it, you could be like, well, look at that hubcap. Look at that tail light, you know. But hey, it all comes together and you make it to your destination. Look at that whatever chin or something poking out of the monster's mouth. Yeah.

And in the end too, you know, it's like we have some, some pretty, pretty solid performances in here. We have some effective scenes, uh, some that are, I think actually quite scary that still hold up and have a certain amount of tension and terror to them. Um, Michael Weldon in the psychotronic film guide praised it as a quote, pretty scary space horror. And, uh,

I think it depends what you compare it to. Obviously, it's a very interesting exercise to compare this to Alien, but it's also a little unfair to hold it to that level. But on its own terms, it has some scares, some jump scares, some creepy atmospheric moments. I really liked it. I agree. And I also agree that as far as the horror set pieces go,

I think O'Bannon correctly selected the best elements to lift. Like some of the best stuff in the movie is the stuff that gets copied over into the alien plot. Yeah.

So we'll have more to say about all of this as we proceed. But elevator pitch for this film, I think all you have to say is aliens stow away. I'd add another element. I'd say there's like two parallel elevator pitches. One is aliens stow away. The other is murder on Mars? That's true. I would say that's the B plot that sadly kind of gets shuffled aside. Yeah.

But it's a nice what if, like what if they had really been able to deliver both in equal volumes or if someone were to re-explore it today. Intriguing idea. Yeah.

Well, if you want to watch It, the Terror from Beyond Space before proceeding here, this one is pretty widely available in digital and physical formats, including a 2023 KL Studio Classics Blu-ray release that has a new HD master, a featurette, and I think three different commentary tracks. I ended up not being able to pick this one up. I think they do have it at Videodrome, but I ended up watching a quality stream of it that I think must be the HD master. And it looks pretty darn good.

The stream I watched also looked pretty sharp. All right, let's get into the people here. So we mentioned the director already. And again, we have talked about this director before because it is the one week wonder. It is Edward L. Kahn, who lived 1899 through 1963, who also directed The Creature with the Atom Brain that was released in 55.

So I've really enjoyed both of the movies of his we watched, but I recall Creature with the Atom Brain being more...

silly, being more very fun, but a more ludicrous, goofy, low-budget monster movie. And this one being surprisingly tight by comparison. Yeah, yeah. Creature of the Atom Brain had kind of a serial energy to it, like an old action serial kind of vibe. And this one is, you know, it's very identifiable as space horror, proto-space horror in many ways. And you can see why it was such an influence.

Creature with the Atom Brain was the movie that had the news broadcasts by Dick Cutting. Yes. Oh, good old Dick Cutting. Yes. So, uh, Kahn was a highly prolific, low budget director for three decades, directing 128 films. Um,

Many of you may be familiar with some of his 1950s horror and sci-fi films, such as 57's Invasion of the Saucermen and the Zombies of Moratau. 1956's The She-Creature, 1959's Invisible Invaders, and The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake. He also did a lot of westerns, action films, biker films, and various social exploitation films of the 30s, 40s, 50s, and early 60s.

So it just to give you an idea of like how fast he was pumping these out, how fast the one week wonder was getting these done. It the terror from beyond space is one of five con films released in the year 1958. Even Roger Corman only did five movies in 1958. Oh, wow. But he did do eight in 1957. There are some years where Corman was was pumping them out in such quantity that I just he's unequaled.

Yeah. Whenever you're feeling a little too proud of yourself, you think, have I made eight movies this year? Three of which are about atomic radiation and two of which have the word naked in the title. Yeah. Now getting to the screenplay, uh, the screenplay is by Jerome Bixby who lived 1923 through 1998, American writer and composer, a graduate of the Juilliard school of music, uh,

Who also wrote various short stories and two novels call for an exorcist and space by the tail both published in 64 his 1953 story it's a good life was adapted as an episode of the Twilight Zone in 1961 and also revisited in Twilight Zone the movie This is the one about the six-year-old boy with godlike powers that you know can like wish you into the cornfield and so yeah Yeah now

Now, If the Terror from Beyond Space was only his second produced screenplay following Khan's Curse of the Faceless Man from the same year. He also has a story credit on 1966's Fantastic Voyage. We often think about Isaac Asimov in relation to that picture, but we have to remember he only wrote the novelization. He was not involved in the screenplay. And also Bixby wrote four episodes of the original Star Trek series.

I'd say the screenplay, like some of the other things we've been talking about, you could look at from multiple angles. Is it high art? No. Is it is it super smart? No, I mean, it's got some kind of gaps and flaws in it and some some failed characterization. But for what it's for, what it is and for the level of movie this is, I feel like it's a pretty tight plot. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. It's efficient. It's economic. There's not really a dull moment. And it's got some nice little splashes of dialogue here and there, which, of course, are helped along by a really solid cast of character actors and some leading actors. Yeah, I agree.

And speaking of starting at the top, we have Marshall Thompson playing the character Colonel Edward Carruthers. Thompson lived 1925 through 1992, all American actor who we've talked about on the show before because he was in a little film from 1958 titled Fiend Without a Face.

Ah, this is the brain attack movie, the one that takes place at I think it's a research installation up in Canada or in Alaska somewhere sort of Arctic location. And the idea is that a remote military base that's doing experimental, I don't know, whether something or other gets attacked by invisible brains and spinal columns.

Yeah, a film that's mostly notable for really incredible stop motion brain monsters and some very squishy sound effects to go along with them. Generally not notable for the acting. In fact, I remember us just kind of commenting that Marshall Thompson was kind of like a square jawed.

you know, kind of boring actor. Like there was just, you know, very lukewarm performance. That is what I thought of him in that movie. I'd say he's a good bit better in this actually. Yeah. This film gives him a lot more to work with. He has a more complex character. So on one level, he is the square jawed chick magnet hero per usual. But especially early on in the picture, he's also the lone survivor of a terrifying encounter on an alien world where

who has subsequently been condemned to the firing squad, you know, all but officially for the murder of his crew. And so he is able to work with that. And you do see that in his performance. He has like kind of a nice haunted look.

especially throughout the first, you know, third of the picture. Framed for homicide by a star beast. Yeah. Yeah. It's an unusual type of character, but it's good. Yeah. So I set out to be kind of, again, bored by his performance as one often is, I think, with leading man performances from genre pictures of this time period. Um,

for various reasons we've discussed in the show before, but I ended up enjoying his performance somewhat. Totally agree. Better than average. Yeah. I'm not going to go through everything we said about him last time, but basically he's a guy who kind of has like two prongs to his filmography. There are the cult films and then there is like the good natured animal films. So he did like a horse movie called Gallant Best in 46 and then 65's Clarence, The Cross-Eyed Lion and so forth.

His final film role was a supporting role in 1991's McBain, an action movie starring Christopher Walken, Michael Ironside, and also featuring Louise Guzman in a supporting role. But I don't think I was familiar with McBain outside of

them yelling McBain on The Simpsons and having the fictional action hero McBain, which when I looked into it a little bit more, apparently this movie, the 91 movie McBain, came out after The Simpsons jokes. And because of it, The Simpsons had to stop making McBain jokes. I don't know if that's completely true, but that's the argument I've heard. I don't think they stopped doing McBain jokes. I remember McBain jokes going well into...

Uh, the last seasons I saw at least like season seven and eight. Hmm. Maybe they came back after a while and they had to like just, just hush it for a bit. I don't know. But then again, I thought I was familiar with Christopher Walken's filmography and McBain feels like one that just came out of nowhere that did not previously exist. And just suddenly I jumped onto a different timeline.

Which episode is it where McBain is delivering a pallet of UNICEF pennies out of an airplane and then he gets attacked by commie Nazi fighter jets? I don't remember that one. He has to jump down and punch through the cockpit. Anyway, if anyone out there has seen McBain from 1991, write in and we would like to hear from you.

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So outlast every adventure and outlive the moment. Buy a Tundra or Tacoma today. Visit buytoyota.com, Toyota's official website for deals. Or stop by your local Toyota dealer to find out more. Toyota, let's go places. All right, continuing on with the rest of the cast here. We're not going to do the whole cast because this is still one of those films where there are just a lot of, at least on the surface, interchangeable guys.

But I really lost track of the guys multiple times in this. Yeah. Though I did find it easier to keep track of them on the whole compared to a lot of movies because on the whole, the cast is pretty good. And, you know, we've got some nice character actors in there. And the screenplay also seems to be doing a little extra work to keep us from getting too confused. Well, yeah, but I am going to ding it for one thing, which is that they do a roll call of the cast for,

early on where you're like, oh, great. Fortunately, like all the cast members sound off, they call in on the radio, they say their name and it shows you their face. I'm like, this is a good way to just familiarize you quickly with all the characters and what their names are. But there are characters who don't participate in the roll call and

So later you think you know them all and then just random other people are in the mix. It's like, wait, I don't remember that guy. Yeah, some sort of caste system in play here. Did not say present. All right. So Marshall Thompson is playing our doomed guy or seemingly doomed guy who needs to be picked up from Mars because his mission to Mars ended in terror and death. Yeah.

We have this rescue crew coming in to pick him up, and that's where we get into the rest of the cast. And this mission is headed up by Colonel Van Heusen, played by Kim Spaulding, who lived 1915 through the year 2000. American stage screen and TV actor of the 40s, 50s, and 60s. I think best known for this film. He worked in various westerns. I think sometimes played a villain, sometimes played a hero. He has that kind of gaunt personality.

stern look that I think allowed him to jump back and forth between the two. Yeah, he played the character he plays in this movie is relatively stoic. You can imagine he's used well as kind of like a

moderately threatening man with dark moods. Yeah, yeah. I was reading on a classic film board about some of his roles, and apparently he played Doc Holliday in a 1954 TV western series called Stories of the Century, and apparently he played a villainous Doc Holliday in this. So Doc Holliday is like using his dentistry to torture people or something like that.

So that's the kind of range he had here. But in this, he's essentially one of the heroes, but there's some misunderstandings involved as well. All right. We also have the character Anne Anderson, one of the scientists aboard the vessel, played by Shirley Patterson. I believe she's credited on this as Sean Smith.

She lived 1922 through 1995. Canadian actress of the 40s and 50s. Best known for her roles in 56's World Without End, 57's The Land Unknown, and the 1943 Batman serial, which I've seen parts of. It's very hard to watch because it's boring. But anyway,

In this, yeah, she's a scientist, I think a geologist, but she's also the captain's girlfriend, apparently. This movie's approach to gender is not one of its most sort of future-anticipating moves. So, like, there are two women aboard the ship as members of the crew, and they are both scientists who...

but they are also the significant others of other crew members, and they have to do all the cooking and the serving of coffee. Yeah. Multiple reviewers have pointed that out. And it's not the only movie of the time like that, by the way, where there's like, oh, you know, there's one woman on this crew. She is a scientist. We are going to the dinosaur planet. She's also the ship's cook. Yeah, yeah. It's not one of the best aspects of the picture. There's no Ripley on this crew. Ripley would never.

Yeah. She would tell you to get your own darn coffee. And, you know, even if it is, and it's the best thing on the ship. So of course you should get your own coffee. The other female that you just alluded to on board the ship is the character Mary Royce. She's, she's essentially the mom of the ship. That's the way she's, she's supposed to be a scientist as well, but she's everyone's mom, I guess. She seems to fulfill that role for all of these, these men that are serving aboard the spaceship. Yeah.

Yeah, she sort of scolds them for making crass jokes and stuff. Yeah. Played by Ann Doran, who lived 1911 through the year 2000. Doran appeared to be in more than 500 movies and 1,000 TV shows from 1922 through 1988. She apparently started as a child actress, which of course helps.

If you're going to rack up these kind of numbers, but her many credits include the 1954 giant ant movie, them 1955 rebel without a cause and 1939 Mr. Smith goes to Washington. She, she was in two exclamation point movies. They don't do enough exclamation point movies anymore.

Wait, I just had to check. I thought them has an exclamation point. It does. Yeah, but I can't add that in the notes. Exclamation points followed by commas. I just start feeling crazy if I do that. I do hold it against you. All right. So that's Mary Royce. That's grandma or mom. Who's the dad character of the ship? Well, that's Eric Royce, played by Dabs Greer, who...

was honestly like really good in this. Like he doesn't really have that much to do, but sometimes in the ensemble cast of a particular film, you know, you have that, you know, obviously, you know, veteran character actor who can really just infuse anything he has to say or any scene where he's just present.

with a certain amount of dignity and seriousness. And that's where Dad's Greer comes in. He absolutely is the dad. Wait, is this the guy who's playing chess? And is he smoking a pipe or something? Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of smoking on board this ship. That's something John Carpenter pointed out as well. It's like everybody's smoking like constantly. If you listen to our most recent Stuff to Blow Your Mind core episode, this is also funny because we're talking about like oxygen levels on actual space flights. Yeah.

And some of the risks. And this movie is just completely alarming in light of all of that. Not only because of the smoking, but because of other things as well. I would say this movie's general understanding of pressurized exploration environments is a little fuzzy. So not only is everybody constantly smoking and shooting firearms inside of an interplanetary spaceship, they also just leave the door open on the surface of Mars. Yeah.

I mean, they didn't think anything would come in. That's the fatal flaw, but they didn't think there was anything that could crawl aboard. But anyway, yeah, Dabs Greer here is terrific. I think Carpenter also singled him out as being a fine presence in the film. Longtime American character actor whose credits include everything from 53's House of Wax. I don't think we mentioned him in that one. He's somewhere in the supporting cast. He's in 56's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which...

which is another film that absolutely holds up. And then you'll also find him in 1997's Con Air and 1999's The Green Mile.

I don't remember what he was in either of those. Well, I think looking at his dates, I mean, think of the oldest person you remember in either movie. And it might have been Dad's Greer. He should have. OK, so he's like smoking a pipe or whatever, playing chess, got extreme dad vibes. But they should have gone all in. They should have given him like a high backed chair to sit in and give him a basset hound.

That would have been good. Yeah. Every ship... I mean, if the Nostromo gets the cat, why shouldn't this ship... The name of which eludes me. It does have a name. But why does it not have a Basset hunt? Are you taking notes, Jerome Bixby? We're giving you good notes here. All right. I'm going to...

Skip over the rest of the human crew here, but we may refer back to one or two is when we get into the plot later on. But again, like top to bottom, everybody's good in this. There's nobody that comes on screen and you're like, why did they cast this person? Where did this person just walk in off the street? Like, no, they all seem to be experienced actors.

Agreed. Yeah, solid cast. And then our monster suit. I'm always interested who's inside the creature suit. And this one's kind of a treat because we have Ray Crash Corrigan, who lived 1902 through 1976, playing the Beast. He was a Hollywood physical fitness trainer turned actor and creature suit specialist. So this is a guy who, like some of these other gorilla actors, had his own gorilla costume, had his own suit.

And wore said suit, or I guess sometimes supplied suits if there was something specific they were going for that he could not provide. And I believe more than 30 different films from 1932 through 1958, just going through IMDb and looking for roles that he had that are called like Gorilla or Ape.

or something to that effect. This guy played a lot of gorillas. We've talked before on the show about ape suit specialists, these creature performers who just do gorilla roles over and over. I guess they formed a relationship with a particular suit or style of performance, and they're like, does your movie need a large ape, and I will play it. Yeah, I think it's one of those things where people don't necessarily realize how demanding it is

such a performance is until they either try to do it or they try and just get some rando to do it. And then they realize that, no, this is grueling. You know, it's going to be hot work. It's going to be sweaty work. And you're going to have to like change the natural positioning of your body, move in different ways that can actually just, you know, tear you down if you're not ready for it. Yeah.

So, you know, this is something that I'm always delighted to see that it still continues to this day. We still have actors active in film who have kind of made it their specialty to portray the physicality of gorillas and apes. Even if they're not necessarily wearing a suit, they may just be doing mocap, but they're still keeping the tradition alive. Hmm.

Yeah. So anyway, yeah, Crash Corrigan did a lot of this. He also did some like Westerns as well. He started playing cowboys, not gorillas. But he started the Corriganville Movie Ranch for Western films. And it was something that I think was open for tourism on the weekends and holidays for a long stretch as well. They would shoot Westerns here. And then he eventually sold it to Bob Hope, I believe, in 66. Yeah.

And you can still find it. It's out there. It's in California. It's called Corriganville Park, and it's in Simi Valley, California. So if we have any Californians who want to check in on that location for us and report back, we would love to hear from you.

All right, so that's the guy in the creature costume. But we also have to talk briefly about the guy who built the creature costume. This is Paul Blaisdell, born 1927, died 1983. Uncredited, but he is the suit designer and builder here.

So this alien design is not morphologically all that interesting. It is basically humanoid in shape. It's like a big sort of reptilian humanoid with a scary kind of bat face, would you say? Yeah, I mean, it's not a gorilla costume, but it's a gorilla actor in a suit essentially doing gorilla costume stuff.

Yeah. It's like a muscly humanoid reptilian with kind of a bat face. Yeah, yeah. Though as Guillermo del Toro has pointed out before, the gorilla costume is a great place to start with any monster. It's a hit for a reason. Yeah, the creature...

the claws look really good. The basic outline looks really good. And the face really isn't bad. I mean, there, there's a lot you can compare this monster to in the, you know, the fifties and sixties. And it's, this is above average, I would say. Yeah. I think how good the costume is depends on the shot. In some shots, it looks quite good, especially in shots where you're not seeing the whole suit moving at once. Um,

Uh, there are like some scenes where say the creature is reaching up through a, a, you know, hole in a hatch that it has clawed or is, uh, sort of busting through a door and you only see part of its body where the, the suit looks great. There are places where it looks less good, where, uh, like you're seeing the whole creature suit, the whole performer in the whole suit moving around in a space that's fairly well lit. In which case my feeling was both the mask and the suit, uh,

Something looks kind of odd about the fit of it. Like the material is kind of thin and it's less impressive that way. Yeah, and that is part of the story here, according to some of the sources I was looking at, is that they couldn't get Corrigan in for a proper fitting for the suit ahead of time for some various reasons. And so it doesn't quite fit him all the way. Most notably, we already alluded to this, but his chin is sticking out of the mask a

And they ultimately just, you know, did what they could to incorporate that into the design. But like I said, there are some shots where it looks quite good and is used very effectively, especially the shadowy ones. Yeah, I'm reminded a bit of The Thing from Another World, a film that does not have, I mean, it has a classic monster design, but it's not one of my favorites. But if you just look at stills of the monster, it's,

you're probably not going to be that impressed. But if you watch the film, there are some terrifying sequences with that monster. Again, filmmaking doesn't involve just putting a monster in front of a camera and shooting it. There are so many additional elements that go into creating the illusion of terror. Yeah, that's right. So still, on its own, I would say pretty great monster suit. They were working with a limited budget.

with some additional constraints, such as getting the actor in for measurements. And there were also some alleged performance issues with Corrigan for this one. You know, I don't want to get into the old movie dirt, but there are some allegations that maybe he wasn't in the best condition to perform for this one.

for this one and maybe there was some uh communication breakdowns between uh corrigan and the director uh so all that taken into account looks pretty good and yeah blaisdell himself was responsible for a number of classic 1950s monster costumes everything from the creature effects from 1955's the beast with a million eyes and the day the world ended to uh 1956's it conquered the world

Ah, that's a Roger Corman movie. That's the one where Earth is conquered by a psychic space artichoke. Yeah, those are not those are maybe not believable looking monsters. They are very laughable, but they also are unique. They stand out. Yeah, they're great.

They're pretty great in that respect. I've got a big poster of it conquered the world up on my wall here. Yeah. That's a fun film. We may have to come back to that one. Um, he also worked on the little, uh, alien flying creatures in, um, in not of this earth from 1957 that we talked about on the show. Um,

He worked on Invasion of the Saucermen from the same year, and he also worked on 1959's Teenagers from Outer Space, which I don't know if that one has creatures or not, but if I'm remembering correctly, that one is the one that has a great dog zapping scene where somebody shoots a dog with a ray gun and turns it into a pile of smoking bones. I know a lot of people don't like it when the dog dies, but the dog dies well in this picture. It's worth it.

Paul also wore the monster suit in several films, including The Day the World Ended, It Conquered the World, 1956's The She-Creature, and 57's Invasion of the Saucermen. He also helped make that giant hypodermic needle in 1957's The Amazing Colossal Man, which I hope we'll come back to on the show if they ever put it out on a proper Blu-ray release.

and he was a special designer on Attack of the Puppet People from 58, which we also talked about on Weird House. That one did have a lot of little people in a big world gimmicks and props. So I'm not sure what he worked on there, but I'm sure it was something spectacular. Okay, so we have crossed paths many times. Yes, yeah, and we'll undoubtedly come back to him.

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We'll be right back.

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Now, on the music end of the spectrum, there are three different individuals. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on them. We have Paul Sautel, or Sautel, I'm not entirely sure on that one. And then we also have Bert Schefter. Sautel was born 1906, died 1971. Schefter, 1904 through 1999. And then we have Paul Sautel,

the former Polish-born film score composer, the latter Russian-born pianist and film composer. They worked together on a lot of different pictures, especially a string of low-budget sci-fi films. They also did various other genres, westerns and so forth.

In fact, Sautel worked on the at least via stock music. His music was used, shall we say, in the U.S. release of 1963's King Kong versus Godzilla. And he actually has a composer music themes credit on 1965's Faster Pussycat Kill Kill, which I don't think we mentioned in our episode on that movie. So so we have those two. And then we also have Jack Cooke early.

who lived 1926 through 2017, uncredited composer, electronic music on this one. So Coker Lee was a pioneering electronic musician who contributed electronic sci-fi sounds to various pictures. He often worked

with the aforementioned gentlemen on their scores and their sound work. He developed many of his own instruments and contributed sound effects to such titles as The Black Scorpion from 57, Space Children in 58, The Colossus of New York in 58, Invisible Invaders in 59, and Robinson Crusoe on Mars in 64. He also did some work on the original Twilight Zone and Star Trek series. This movie didn't really have a

music themes that stood out to me, but there are some nice sort of ambient score moments that are very on the quiet side, but they're effective. Like when there's the spacewalk scene, I remember thinking the sound in that scene, mostly by actually by having a lack of sound in, in a very compelling way. And what was there was minimal, but, but effective. Yeah. Yeah. We have a wonderfully tense, atmospheric, unbelievable spacewalk sequence. Um,

uh, like that, that, you know, totally suspended my disbelief. Uh, and it has this wonderful, yeah, ambient electronic minimalist score going on that sounds nice and spacey. And I think we get a little splash of that towards the beginning of the picture as well. Yeah. And speaking of that, let's get into the beginning of the picture. Let's jump into the plot. They hit you right at the beginning with something that looks great, which is a

I don't know exactly how they composed the shot. I think what we're looking at is a miniature model set in the foreground with a painting in the background. But it is supposed to be, I guess, the surface of Mars, but it has these very steep,

jagged knife-like mountains reaching up above a desert plain and then the sky in the background is a night sky deep black with a transparent view of the stars and the constellations and it looks quite beautiful it's a great opening shot in the foreground we see a crashed spaceship of some kind now this is a black and white movie i don't think we mentioned that um

But yeah, it's black and white, but it looks great. And really, given the tone of the picture and the space horror, the red planet looks great in black and white here. You know, it is a planet that is supposed to be full of terror and death. And so this very inky black appearance to it looks nice.

And that hits you right with the title. It's it exclamation point in these giant animated block letters that are, I don't know, they're supposed to look like the, the wall outside, you know, the fortifications of a medieval city or something. Yeah. It's like made out of little blocks or something. It's, it looks great. I do love it. And it's, it's right in your face, whatever it is, it's going to be big.

So while looking at this, we get an opening voiceover, which says, This was the planet Mars as my crew and I first saw it. Dangerous. Treacherous. Alive with something we came to know only as death. This was what we faced when our spaceship cracked up in landing just six months ago. In January of this year, 1973. Ooh.

But it seems as if six centuries passed before a rescue ship arrived. For today, of all my crew, I, Colonel Edward Carruthers of the United States Space Command, am the only one alive. Now I will be going back to face my superiors on Earth.

in Washington. And perhaps there, too, I will find another kind of death. Oh, man, absolutely solid. Just a great start. And I don't know how metaphorical he's being there because they do end up talking about how he's going to face a court-martial and potentially a firing squad because he's suspected of murdering his crew and

But you could also read that as just like, oh, man, going back to Earth after what I have seen is like a metaphorical kind of death. Yeah, like I'm just I'm not at all going to be the same person I was and so forth.

Now, this is, again, a film from the late 50s set in the future of 1973. I just want to remind everybody about this cinematic setting. This is the same setting year for the events of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. We get that in the intro. This is also the setting for the opening sequence of the 1993 Super Mario Bros. film. What? What was the opening sequence? Oh, was that like when they're...

There were many dinosaurs or something. Yeah. When the eggs and the dinosaurs, the cross-dimensional, um,

crossing there. Oh, that's when the lady leaves the egg at the convent or whatever. Yeah, that's 73. So that's taking place in the same world. This is in the same world, same cinematic universe. Perfect. Also 1973. This is the year of the opening flashback sequence in 1996 is Space Jam in which a young Michael Jordan decides to take up basketball to prevent alien invasion.

I remember that opening sequence. It tugs at the heartstrings. There's like a single overhead light and he's out shooting hoops. Yeah, yeah. To protect the planet. So that's 73. I think he talks to his dad or something. Yeah. But in this 1973, everybody still has that same flat top haircut. Yeah. Everything is still 50s to the max. Yeah. This is a principle we've talked about on the show before about how every every

Time Periods Science Fiction just imagines that the future will take whatever fashion trends are currently hot at the time the movie was made and exaggerate them. So just like more like so the future is imagined by the 50s is super 50s.

And the future as imagined by the 70s is super 70s. Yeah. Like, you know, if shoulder pads are in, well, the future is going to be such shoulder pads you've never seen.

So anyway, we're here on the surface of Mars and we see the second ship, the ship that came to get Carruthers here. And it's one of these 50s movie rocket ships that's got the three fins on the bottom. And we see basically the whole length of it is inhabited. So for movie rockets like this, where is the fuel stored?

I don't know. Maybe they got like a central stem in the middle or something that's pumping it down. I don't know. We don't really get a good handle on that. And we but

But we otherwise do get a good handle of the layout of the ship, just not maybe where all the propulsion is handled. Yeah, we'll come back to that. And then I love they cut straight from this spaceship to the U.S. Capitol building. An alarmingly mundane cut after such a nice opening. But thank goodness they teased us with all this fun and off-world stuff before we go to what, like it's like a

press briefing at the White House. I'm sorry, the U.S. Capitol building. It's at the Capitol, yeah. It's like the Science Advisory Committee Division of Interplanetary Exploration. Fortunately, we will spend very little time here on Earth. It's just an exposition thing. A guy comes in, a guy who looks rather grizzled, actually. He's kind of like

mad to be there. And he gives an opening narration that sort of sets everything up for the plot. So I might as well read a transcription of it. So you know what we're dealing with here. The spokes guy says, ladies and gentlemen of the press, as you know, the first attempt to send a spaceship to the planet Mars was made six months ago. We knew that that ship, the Challenge 141, had reached its destination, but that's all we knew.

Teleradio communication with Mars ceased immediately, and we were forced to assume that the ship and crew had been lost. The man in charge of this expedition was a man who had become known to the world as the first man to be shot into space, the man who pioneered interplanetary space travel, Colonel Edward Carruthers. Two months ago, we sent a second ship to Mars to learn the fate of Colonel Carruthers and his crew.

The President has asked me to pass on to you this significant news. Colonel Edward Carruthers has been found alive on Mars. But there is a tragic side to this history-making event. Colonel Carruthers was the sole survivor of this first expedition.

One hour ago, we received a teleradio communication from Colonel Van Heusen, the commander of the second spaceship. This ship is now ready to take off for its return trip to Earth from Mars. And Colonel Carruthers is being brought back for a court-martial to face trial for the murders of the rest of the crew. That's a good setup, I think. It is a great setup.

Now, presumably this the second mission here is also doing some science. Right. I mean, they take scientists with them. It surely is not just a rescue slash arrest mission, but we don't really see any of the science that's going on. I mean, the only science that's really done is once the creature pops up, they do science about it. But yeah.

Well, I don't know what their original research project is. There is a geologist. There is a they specify a cold temperature physicist. And what is what is Mary supposed to be? She's like a doctor, basically a physician of some kind. Yeah. Yeah. Some sort of doctor. So, I mean, I guess they have all these scientists in case they need to tackle some problems later.

on the way or, you know, on the way back or on the surface of Mars. But presumably, I'm just going to assume there were some other science projects that also were handled in addition to our main plot points. So after this monologue, the press corps immediately bolt for the exit. They're practically climbing over each other to get out and file their stories.

Because in reality, I think this would be a really big news story. Murder on Mars, suspect apprehended. I can't remember. Did they give us any newspaper shots, any clippings? No, we don't see any of the kerning. Yeah. Murder on Mars. I can see it.

So we go back to Mars and the voiceover by Colonel Carruthers continues as we zoom in on the rocket ship. He tells us basically, you know, they're making preparations to return to Earth. The return journey is going to be four months long. And the crew of the ship are dedicated to making him face a court martial and a military firing squad. And then we go inside the ship and meet the crew. Now, the first person we meet, I believe, is Kim Spalding as Colonel Van Heusen.

He is he he's sitting at sort of a command seat and he sees a flashing light on the wall and sends an intercom announcement that the emergency airlock in C compartment has been left open. And he's mad about this. He's like, who left it open?

And then another character comes in. This is Paul Langton as Lieutenant James Calder. He's sort of the number two around here. He says, oh, yeah, I left it open. Sorry, I was dumping trash outside on Mars. Langton, by the way, lived 1913 through 1980. Another solid American character actor in this picture whose credits include a couple of classic Twilight Zone episodes in addition to some other stuff.

Yeah, he looks like a man who would be dumping crates. Well, they brought a lot of crates. This is a cargo-heavy craft. Man, they've got so many crates, you wouldn't believe. I will say that on the whole, though, the sets look really good. Like, it's definitely of the time, you know, all of the...

All of the electronics and dials and all, it looks very archaic and all, but in that lovable way, like you want to see this in a 1950s sci-fi. And I feel like they put together a very believable set.

If you normally tell me it's a movie set entirely within a 1950s spaceship set, I'm like, oh, this is going to look boring. But no, it actually, it's relatively interesting to the eyes for a bottle episode of this sort. Yeah, I never got a hint of cardboard off of anything. Everything feels like it is...

it is just hard steel. But the other thing about this plot moment is like, wait a minute. He left the airlock open. Now at first I was thinking, okay, maybe he only meant one of the two doors, but Nope. Then we see it. And both the inner and outer doors of the airlock are hanging wide open to the surface of the planet Mars. Uh, so Colonel Van Heusen presses a button and then they both begin to swing closed. Uh,

And this is one of many things in the movie that, you know, doesn't really detract from enjoyment at all, but it's just kind of amusing, like how far off of the scientific reality it is. You can just leave the door open to Mars. My brain was extremely forgiving of this moment, I think, because it's like they're talking about what's happening with the airlock. And not only did I assume that only one door was open, but my brain just went in and filled in the rest and just

made it be. So I didn't even really notice this error. Anyway, so we pan away from the doors as they close to see a dark storage room filled with crates and steel drums. And in the background, a shadow falls over the wall. And it's a shadow of a very broad-shouldered, very muscly-looking humanoid figure. Not quite human, but close to human. Just bulky, big, threatening, imposing thing. And

And then we see a foot fall across the floor. It's a close-up of this three-toed reptilian foot. And these feet move along as something is stalking through the cargo hold. And we hear a deep, rasping breath, almost like the growl of a crocodilian.

The feet are not the best feature of the costume. The claws are great because, of course, the claws are fully articulated. The feet are not. So the feet kind of feel like big rubber monster feet. But it's not too bad. At least they're not showing the whole monster yet. They're sparsing it out a little bit. So the colonel calls out for a name check on the radio. This is the thing I was talking about. It's like a convenient way for all of the characters to announce their names as it shows their face to the audience. Yeah.

Uh, so we, we meet Eric Royce. Mm-hmm. Ship dad. Very, very much the dad. Yeah. This is the guy who we said should have like a high back chair and a dog. Mm-hmm. Uh, we meet Mary Royce. Yep. Ship mom. She is the, I think we're saying physician. She does later in the movie, she does medical research and autopsies. Mm-hmm.

But she's also the mom. Yeah. She like scolds you for, for dirty jokes and, uh, and brings you coffee. There is Ann Anderson. Yep. Ship wife. Yes. Uh, there is major John Purdue. Yeah. I don't know. Ship uncle, I guess. Ship uncle, I think is, is very correct. Yeah. This guy needs a, he needs a Coors light in his hand. Yeah.

Then we got Bob Finelli. He's, I don't know, ship something. Yeah, he doesn't really last long enough to get proper classification. And Lieutenant James Calder. Yeah, other uncle, I guess. It is the ship of many uncles. But as I said earlier, for some reason, it's not the entire crew. There are at least two guys who do not

sign off on this roll call. We got Gino and we got kind holds and we'll, we'll meet them later. They're both red shirts though, right? Yeah. They are the first two to get killed. Yeah. Uh, so there's a takeoff and they leave the planet Mars and the ship leaves the atmosphere and we see the planet retreating into space on a view screen. And then finally we meet Carruthers, our main character, the prisoner and murder suspect on one of the middle decks of the ship. Uh,

Now, I want to talk for a minute here about the set of the movie. We've already talked about how as far as 1950s spaceship sets go, it looks pretty good. But there's another thing about the setting that I think works quite well.

And it's that there is a sort of comprehensible geography to the ship that you don't get in a lot of sci-fi movies from any period, really. The basic layout of the ship is a vertical stack of different decks that are accessed by these ladders, these steep staircase ladders. So you have a command deck.

deck on top. And then below that you have living quarters and then you have a laboratory and then you have a couple of storage decks and then you have the engine down below. Um,

Uh, and something about the arrangement of these decks in a way that feels like you can really understand where things are happening in the film. It's kind of unique. Spaceship layout is often vague in movies. It feels like it changes to serve the needs of the plot or for convenience of shooting. And this is a rare exception. It feels like you can understand where things are and what's going on. I think in part because of the linear vertical arrangement of the decks, uh,

as opposed to the normal horizontal arrangement of like hallways and doors. Yeah, yeah. This is a great point because you do have a good sense of where everything is in this ship. We get to see some maps. And

And it's not the case in other examples we can turn to. The one, of course, that I instantly thought about was Alien and the Nostromo. And I've seen Alien so many times over the years, but I don't know that I've ever had a great understanding of the Nostromo's inner layout. But then again, the Nostromo is supposed to essentially be a haunted house, right? So as long as you have some vague idea of the house, the basement, and the attic, and classify those however you will with the Nostromo, you're good to go. Yeah.

I guess there are going to be other sci-fi films where it pays to understand where everything is a bit more. Yeah, I agree that it's not always a drawback. I think that the confusing maze-like nature of the Nostromo makes the movie more effective because to the audience, at least, it's confusing where you are. It feels more claustrophobic that way. But in this movie, I think it works really well that you have such a grounded sense of place. I

Yeah, I would agree.

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after mile. So outlast every adventure and outlive the moment. Buy a Tundra or Tacoma today. Visit buyatoyota.com, Toyota's official website for deals, or stop by your local Toyota dealer to find out more. Toyota, let's go places. Anyway, Carruthers is sitting here looking melancholy as they drive into space. And then Colonel Van Heusen, the commander of the mission, he comes down the ladder from the deck above. He comes up to him and he says, what are you thinking about?

He says, then you think about those nine bodies you left down there? And Carruthers says, yes, that is what he's thinking about. But he protests again. He says, I didn't kill them. And then Van Heusen, shaking his head, says, still sticking to your story about a mysterious creature. And from this conversation, we learn that they never found the bodies of the rest of Carruthers' crew. But Van Heusen thinks there is still enough evidence to convict him.

Van Heusen starts acting like a prosecutor. He's articulating a theory of motive. He says, OK, when the Challenge 141 broke up upon landing, Carruthers realized that their limited food rations would not allow them all to survive until rescue showed up. So he killed all of his crew in order to extend his chances of survival until rescue to make more rations for himself.

And Carruthers, of course, maintains that his crew was killed by something, not me. I love this conflict. I think it's a minor tragedy that they don't do as much with it and that we know from the get-go that Carruthers is probably correct. You know, that we've seen the monster. We know there's a monster. So we believe him. We never really doubt him, even though the

the performance is such that we could read that into it. We could read guilt into it and so forth. Um,

so they don't they don't really explore this possibility as much as they could and they don't really explore another possibility that came to mind while i was watching it and that is that you could have both right you could have a situation where it's at least some members of the crew were killed by a creature and perhaps you decide well uh my chances of survival were better if uh there are fewer people to um consume the remaining rations and so forth like

I feel like I wanted more of I wanted this to be milked more and the film ultimately has to move past it and get to the main plot concerning what to do about the monster on the ship yeah I agree with all that but I think a very strong setup yeah

Uh, so then Van Heusen takes Carruthers to his cabin to show him something, which is a human skull clean and polished with a hole in the top of the head. And he says, there's only one kind of monster that uses bullets. So he says, you know, we found this near the ship. Now at first he says they didn't find any bodies, but he did find a human skull. I guess that's part of a body, but

And it's like, look, you know, we know you did it. Not some monster. Because look, this is a wound inflicted by a human. I mean, I assume they found a head and they had Mary boil it down to that skull. That was some of the science that was taking place before they left Mars. Can't bring a whole head back. Boil it down. The stew that night was so good.

It's a harsh planet. Yeah. Uh, by the way, I just, we started noticing, I think around the scene, uh, I watched it with Rachel and she was really struck by all of the shiny zippers on their jumpsuits. Yeah.

They got a lot of pockets. It's a great point. I didn't give this film a lot of points for its spacesuits and its jumpsuits, but those zippers are really shiny. So then we got another thing that's a little bit similar to Alien. There's like a mess hall dinner scene where everybody's sort of ribbing each other and having little bits of banter and jokes. Yeah.

Uh, they're talking about being excited to get back to earth. One guy's like, I'm going to jump out of the airlock and roll around in the grass. Um, now this is where we get to the thing we mentioned earlier that the thing that many reviewers have noticed, uh, which is that the, uh, the two women of the crew are just going around serving everyone coffee and almost like taking their orders. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So if it is comparable to the mess I've seen in Alien, it's like 80% more sexist. Yeah. The crew members are commenting on how every time Van Heusen sees Anne Anderson, the geologist, which must be often because they're occupying a small spaceship together.

They say every time he sees her, he floats, even though this ship is equipped with artificial gravity. Yuck, yuck. And then Anne Anderson replies, these days he seems more concerned with a man hunt than a woman hunt. Yeah.

You know, speaking of artificial gravity, though, one thing I wanted to mention about the layout of the ship is that this is a case where the artificial gravity is somewhat believable because I guess given the way it's laid out with the decks, it would be propulsion based. Yeah, linear acceleration. Yeah, yeah. Now, it doesn't work throughout the entire picture because they also walk on the sides of the ship. And I'm not sure how they're doing that.

But at least in small doses, you can say this, this, this works. Now, there are at least two established couples within the crew of this Mars rescue slash cop mission. So Eric and Mary Royce are married.

Again, Eric is the ship dad and Mary is the ship mom. And then Van Heusen and Anderson are, I guess, dating, but possibly their relationship is on the rocks because Van Heusen cares more about murder on Mars than he does about romance. It is his job. Yeah. He does seem extremely focused. Like he announces at dinner, quote, by the time we reach Earth, I'll have his confession on tape.

And... Doesn't Carruthers come down the stairs like right after that? Yeah. He's still looking for Lauren and he's kind of like, oh man, I'm right here. Yeah, that's right.

Uh, I guess this is an unusual circumstance for relationship troubles in storytelling. I mean, I guess in, in one, in the generic sense, it's not because people often have the issue of like work coming between them in a relationship, just not this kind of work. Anyway, we see Anderson showing some tenderness for Carruthers, the prisoner, uh, like she brings him a sandwich and she says such a cold, desolate world. We saw so little of it. I guess she's talking about Mars.

And they start kind of chatting and she makes clear that she wants to hear his side of the story. So he tells it. Here we're going to get a monologue that explains what happened from Crother's point of view. He says, we were all outside the ship exploring the southern tip of Sirtis Major. Suddenly a sandstorm came up and we started back. I was driving the jeep. So it was a jeep.

Sand was so thick we could barely see. We were almost back to the ship when Cartwright just disappeared. One minute he was there and the next minute he was gone as if something had plucked him out of the Jeep like candy out of a box. We heard a weird sort of sound. We thought we saw a dark shape running near the Jeep and started shooting at it. A few moments later, Kenner and the rest were all gone. By the way, Kenner was the guy the skull belonged to. We learned that.

I was the only one who made it back to the ship. When the sandstorm quit, I went out and searched all over. There wasn't a sign of them. Sirtis Major, by the way, is indeed a massive shield volcano in the eastern hemisphere of Mars. It was the first documented surface feature of another planet discovered by Christian Huygens in 1659. Ah, so that part is very real. But wait, I...

I would have assumed that this creature was picking them off one at a time. It sounds like his entire crew was killed all in one event right at the very beginning of the time he was there. You know, I mean, it's not out of keeping with what we know of natural world organisms. You know, it's like a fox in the hen house. What's called surplus killing or I think hen house syndrome sometimes.

Oh, yeah. So the Mars beast got excited in the presence of all this food, this human biomass and was like, yum, yum. I'm going to eat. I'm going to get them all. Yeah. So Anderson, she listens to the story and she's like, I don't know. I don't believe you, but I also don't disbelieve you. And we can see she's softening on him because she and Van have an argument about it. Van is a he's a hardliner and he wants to crack him.

him. And Anderson thinks it is not for them to judge his guilt. Oh, and then after this, Van calls Anderson chicken and he goes, okay, chicken, I'll let up on the third degree. And then they ask, what about everybody else? Do they believe Carruthers? And Lieutenant Calder says, Mars is almost as big as Texas. Maybe it's got monsters. Yeah.

This is a great line. And the actor delivers it perfectly. I really liked it. So time passes, ship drifts through space, but eventually we get to the first attack. And it occurs late at night when a crew member named Kineholz is sitting up. He's looking at what looked like architectural drafts or something, sitting at a table looking at these big sheets of

And we hear some crashing and growling in the lower decks and see a claw reach out from behind something and scrape across the top of a table. And good looking claws, as you mentioned earlier, Rob. But Kienholz goes down to investigate the strange sounds in the cargo deck. And here begins a sedate, slow, quiet, suspenseful investigation process as Kienholz goes down the decks one by one looking for the source of the sound.

And I really like the pace here. This is one of these scenes that's just mechanically quite effective. We have a good idea of what's going to happen, but I just like watching the investigation. It's kind of...

Calm but suspenseful at the same time and it reminds me of scenes in Alien like when Harry Dean Stanton is looking for the cat in the cargo area. Yeah. Yep. Solid reference point. Yeah, because it's it is is laid back. This guy's not like super concerned. He's not expecting to find anything. But we know what's down there for him. We know that this guy's going to get it any moment.

But that moment is delayed. And so there are several moments where we think it's going to jump out and get him and it doesn't. And then when it finally occurs, it's satisfying. It ends with a really good jump scare. I thought where the creature is like there's a scream and we don't see it. We see the shadow of the creature grabbing him and doing that wrestling move. You called it a gorilla press where he lifts the guy up above his head. Yeah. Yeah. Smashes him down. Breaks him. Yeah. Very well done.

Now, meanwhile, Carruthers is playing a game of chess with ship dad, uh, Royce, and he hears the scream in the crash when no one else in the room does. And he, there, there, he, you know, he's like, did you hear that? And they're all like, no. And he says, I learned to hear all over again on Mars. So it gave him super hearing and the men go to investigate. Initially all the other crew, they're very skeptical of Carruthers looking into this, but, uh,

Things do start to appear. It starts to appear that something is wrong. Kind Holtz is not at his post. They look for him in his cabin. He's not there either. Carruthers checks for him across the intercom and there's no response. After a while, I think it becomes clear to all the characters that really something is wrong and the whole crew wakes up and assembles to look for Kind Holtz.

They were like, let's split up. So they, you know, look in different places. And while isolated in the cargo area, another crew member named Gino Finelli is attacked. And the cigarette drops right out of his mouth. And is he going in to get more cigarettes? That's what it looks like, yeah. In their strategic supply of various tobacco products. Because there's also pipes being smoked on board. Very smoky spaceship.

So after the crew or after Gino disappears, the crew run around looking for him as well. Vance like it doesn't make any sense. There's nowhere on this ship for a man to hide. But we see Carruthers walk past a metal grate in front of an opening that says air generation and moisture recovery section. So it's like an air duct access area.

And he's standing there and then suddenly we see behind him a limp hand drops down on the other side of the grate. Another good jump scare. And they recover Kienholz's body from the air duct and it has a very creepy appearance. It's zombie-like with pale skin and dark sunken eyes. I love the makeup on the victims of the monster here. Yeah, this has been some sort of unnatural death has occurred here.

And I guess this is another area where I kind of wondered, like, why didn't they try and keep the heat on Carruthers by saying by casting some suspicion on him for this murder? But I guess at the end of the day, we have to remember this is a short film and it's it's it has deadline. So we don't have we don't have room for for too much more additional plot shenanigans. We've got to we got to get to the good.

So they conclude that Gino may also be somewhere in the air ducts. So they move a bunch of crates out of the way and get to an access vent. And Lieutenant Calder crawls in with, he's got a pistol on his, on his belt and,

And here we got another big similarity with Alien, these scenes of a leader of the crew crawling into these large air ducts to look for a victim and look for a creature. And this scene I thought was also great because he crawls through the ducts and then finds Geno in there also with this incredibly creepy makeup, the war boy zombie look.

Yeah, yeah. This is indeed a great sequence. You can definitely see this as having an influence on the duct scenes in Alien and on deleted scenes that they ended up not using in the theatrical cut involving finding cocooned members of the Nostromo crew that are being slowly transformed into eggs.

Again, not a part of the theatrical cut of the picture, but available in an extended cut that came out years later and in deleted sequences. Yeah, yeah. So there's a creature jump here. The lieutenant's trying to get Gino, but the alien pops out and it slashes at him with his claws and he ends up shooting at it. So he crawls back out. They seal up the entrance to the air duct and then...

in a hilarious move. They trap the air duct opening with a bunch of grenades. Why do they have grenades? Oh my God. So this is, of course, the huge difference between alien and yet the terror from beyond space because an alien, they have,

Very few, almost no weapons. It's basically improvised. Improvised weapons. Yeah. Like they have to make their own flamers. You know, they have a harpoon gun, of course, that gets used later. But for the most part, they're having to make it up as they go. Make up like a cattle prod type device. Yeah.

Here, they are armed to the teeth. And this is the, you know, we saw the pistol earlier. And you're like, okay, I guess they have one pistol on board. They were going to make an arrest. Fair enough. But this is where we find out, oh, they have an entire, like, small, like, wooden crate of grenades, like military grenades.

And yeah, they have like, they like string up a bandolier of like eight of these things for the entrance to the air ducts. Why do they need that many? Would, would, at that point, would eight be any better than one?

And to say nothing of the hull of this ship, this ship's hull is just absolutely impregnable. And this is just the first sign of it. We will have even more evidence of this as we move forward. So the humans fall back to the upper deck and begin to review their arsenal. Once again, talking about all the weapons they have, what? We see this table with just, it's guns, guns, guns everywhere. Yeah.

They have so many weapons, like it's pistols, it's high caliber rifles. Like, why did they bring all this stuff? I don't know. A bunch of. Yeah. And they've got a bazooka. They've legit have a bazooka. Like the bazooka made me laugh out loud because I was already thinking this is too much. And then they have a bazooka and they're going to they're going to load it up and potentially use it on board the spacecraft.

With computer equipment right behind it. Yeah, yeah. Not that it matters at that point. Perfect.

Meanwhile, Mary and Anne are checking out the body of Kienholz. They're like, what happened to him? He looks very desiccated. He looks in bad shape. He looks shiny and chrome. And Mary says, every bone in his body must be broken, but I'm not sure that's what killed him. The shriveled up effect. I'll have to do an autopsy. So she's going to do an autopsy. Meanwhile, Van Heusen asks Carruthers, okay, he's like clueless.

clearly you were right. Do you know what it is? And Carruthers says, no, he may have faced it before, but he doesn't know how to beat it.

And then dad comes in with some thoughts. So dad's like, you say it's man-shaped humanoid. Here's his explanation. He says, perhaps there was once a civilization on Mars. It ended. Disease, war, something terrible. The Martians that were left went back to barbarism, savage murders. Maybe that's what we've got on board. I mean, he delivers it perfectly here, though. I mean, it's like the

The performance is solid enough that I'm like, yeah, yeah, I think that might be it. And again, this is Dabs Greer. So, you know, solid actor here. It makes you believe it. They also reason out that the alien must be intelligent and not just an animal because it's able to open doors and close and travel between compartments. And they deduce a motive for the attacks. They say, it's hungry. It's eaten us. All right.

So some time passes and there's a scene where the monster trips the traps. It's crawling through the air ducts and it tries to crawl out and the grenades blow up in its face, but it is not killed. Instead, it seems just really annoyed and starts running around smashing boxes in a rage.

So at this point, the crew go down to meet it with pistols drawn and there it is right there. It, uh, it grabs a rifle from one of them and just bends it in half, basically ties it in a bow. That's a great scene. They, they retreat blasting the monster. They,

There's a really well-staged shot here that looks great where the monster is like clawing its way through a closed door from like it's very it's lit very brightly from behind, but clawing its way into a darkened room with the smoke coming out is beautiful. Yeah, this is a great shot. I love this one. Yeah, really cool. And Carruthers shows bravery here is there, you know, he covers their retreat as they go back up the ladder and they close the hatch. It's like, OK, so that didn't work at all.

Next, Mary suggests an idea. He says, we've got gas grenades. Gino made them. He says he made them in case they ran into any dinosaurs on Mars. Time to bust out the chemical weapons aboard the spaceship. So they put on gas masks and they open the hatch and chuck the gas grenades down. But the creature is like right there. And so when they open the hatch, it starts reaching through and it gets some good swipes in on Van Heusen's foot. It's like, oh, that's...

It claws up his boot really bad. Yeah, this is one of those moments where it's not a bloody film, obviously. But these moments where stuff does happen, I kind of felt like it totally flayed his foot. Even though you see nothing graphic, your mind fills in the rest and it's horrifying. Yeah, yeah, totally. But they do manage to get the door closed again, but the gas grenades obviously did not affect it. It did not subdue it.

So we get autopsy results and Mary Royce tells us there is not a molecule of oxygen or a drop of water left in Kienholz's body. Every ounce of edible fluid in his body is gone, in which case I would think it would be more significantly reduced in volume than it appears. Yeah, I think it would it would look more like yeah, it would look more like a zombie husk is what it would look like. Yeah. But limitations. Fair enough. Yeah.

So they reason, they start thinking about this. All right. Mars is a world without oxygen or water. That's what they believe. So this creature's entire being is designed to feed on the oxygen and water contents of smaller creatures.

So that's what it's doing. It's trying to get them so it can suck out all of their oxygen and water. Meanwhile, there's some stuff going on with the monster. It's like sort of laying siege to them, to the crew members that are holed up on the upper decks. It's trying to claw its way through the hatches. And we learn from Mary that the slashes on Van's foot are infected with an alien bacterium of some kind, and it's making him sick. And I got to say, there is something interesting

The romantic subplot of this movie is shockingly cold and weird. Like, basically, the moment we find out Van Heusen is infected with the alien pathogen, his girlfriend, Anderson, starts moving in on Carruthers. She goes up to him and she's like, you were right, we were wrong. And she's grabbing his hands right in front of Van on the cot. Yeah, it's an icky love triangle that I don't think we really need it.

I think it seems especially cold because it's like she turns to Carruthers as soon as Van becomes weakened. I don't know. It feels sad. Yeah. Like, yeah, like she like she can't exist without a strong man around her. And so she has to just jump ship to Carruthers now. Like, I don't know. It just did. Yeah, I guess it doesn't really work.

it's not like completely believable and just feels if it is believable it's cold so it's like what how am i supposed to feel about this yeah so i think the romantic subplot i mean i would say it's kind of unique yeah for this sort of movie but i don't know if it really works as like generating any like romantic feelings other than like oh that's weird and kind of dark but yeah the the kids were making out to this apparently right like how did how they feel about it yeah yeah

Okay, next plot development. Space Dad. Dad has a plan again. They can get in behind the creature by putting on EVA suits and doing a spacewalk on the outside hull of the ship down to the deck below it.

And I really like this set piece. So it's Carruthers and I think Lieutenant, oh, it's Lieutenant Calder also. So they suit up, they put their suits on and they go out on the outside of the ship and walk down the hull. I thought this scene looked great. It sounded great. I love the atmosphere. It's creepy quiet in a really compelling way. Very strong. Yeah. Firing on all cylinders. And we're really not even seeing the monster for the most part during this sequence. Yeah.

I mean, we get some hints of it because, as we'll discuss, they're having to distract the monster in order to try and pull this off. That's right. So the plan is that the people left inside the ship distract the beast while making a, they're making noise up above while the strike team gets in behind the beast to set a trap. They're going to electrocute it by rigging wires to the metal stairs. So this is basically the plan from the thing from another world. They're going to,

You're going to shock it from below. Yeah. Yeah. They're going to pull a thing from another world on it. Um, I was really concerned that it was going to work because, because I mean, they also did this in creature, which we watched a couple of weeks ago. Oh yeah. Yeah. Uh, and it's sort of worked in creature, but only temporarily. It doesn't even, doesn't even appear to work at all in this. Like the, the crawls down onto the stairs, they've got the wires rigged up, they zap it.

And it's just like, oh, no, I'm not happy. So it attacks them. Lieutenant Calder gets his leg broken and is trapped behind a large metal cylinder. He's got a blowtorch in his hand that he can use to protect himself from the beast, which

while Carruthers escapes to the outside, and I think he makes it back up the outside of the ship hull to everybody else. Yeah, I don't know how long he's supposed to be stuck down there, but it seems like he's probably down there for hours, the monster lunging at him every few seconds and him having to...

hold a blowtorch up to protect himself. Yeah. He's talking to the rest of the crew via radio and he's like, yeah, I'm stuck down here. I can see it. It's looking at me and every time it comes for me, I hold the blowtorch in its eyes. It's a predicament. He's in a tight spot. He's in a pickle. Yeah.

Um, so later we learned that Van's infection is taking a turn for the worse. He is delirious and the bacteria are, uh, they're attacking his bone marrow. They say it gives him a condition similar to leukemia and the romance between Anderson and Carruthers really picks up, but they, the crew decide, okay, Van, he needs blood. So we got to go down to storage to get blood out of the blood, blood box. He needs blood.

So Calder witnesses the creature going into the reactor room and here Carruthers sees a chance to act. So they remotely close the door to the reactor and seal the creature inside. And then a team of men goes down to get the blood. So they're blood jacking and they've only got a tight window to get the blood in. But in the middle of all this,

A delirious van gets the idea to open up the reactor core with the creature in the reactor room saying, OK, the radiation will kill it. We couldn't kill it with grenades, with gunfire, with gas grenades, with electricity, but we can try radiation.

And so he does this, unfortunately, while the bloodjacking team are down there right next to it. And this, of course, just makes the beast furious. The radiation does not kill it, drives it out of the reactor room where it meets the bloodjacking team and kills a crew member named Bob. So the remaining the surviving crew members retreat to the upper deck. They're up in the command deck.

And here we're sort of approaching the final showdown. Somewhere around here, Van really catches on what's happening with Anderson and Carruthers. He's like, are you going to him now? Are you leaving me for him? And she's just like, let's talk about it later. And this goes up to a final showdown where they're sort of like...

They're dug in. They've all got their weapons aimed at the hatch coming up from the floor below where the creature is. And finally, the creature starts busting through the hatch, tearing through the metal, coming up into the room. And they literally blast it with a bazooka. They even fire the bazooka. And I think Mary fires it, right? That sounds right. Yeah. She may have to fetch coffee for everyone else, but she gets to fire the bazooka. That's right. And it doesn't kill everyone.

Yeah. Or even the monster. Or the monster. But they've already tried explosives. Why would this work?

Uh, but finally they get the idea, Hey, everybody put on your EVA suits. We're going to vent the air out the airlock. And here we have another comparison with alien, right? How do they defeat the alien? How does Ripley, the only one left defeat the alien at the end? She vents the atmosphere in the escape pod to the, uh, to the outside and the creature is blown out of the airlock. Now, in this case, uh,

The alien is not blown out of the airlock, but venting the atmosphere out of the command deck causes the creature to not have the air it needs to breathe, and it dies by, I guess, suffocation.

Yeah, it's still satisfying. In a way, it's even more satisfying because I thought, oh, they're going to blast it out the airlock. I've seen this before. Granted, from a film that comes decades later, but it was still, it was refreshing that it wasn't quite that solution. It was this alternate solution. Even if it's also a solution that if you think about it too much, you might ask, well, why didn't they try this earlier? Yeah.

But that can often be the case with films where they try multiple solutions to a given problem. It's always the last one you try anyway. So finally, we go back to Earth to the spokesman at the, you know, he's doing a press conference at the Capitol building. And he says, you've been called here again to receive further information about the story which you didn't hear last night. I will read you the text of a teleradio message received from the Challenge 142 less than an hour ago.

This is Eric Royce talking. Of the 19 men and women who have set foot on the planet Mars, six will return. There's no longer a question of murder, but of an alien, an elemental life force, a planet so cruel, so hostile, that man may find it necessary to bypass it in his endeavor to explore and understand the universe. Another name for Mars is death.

And then it just goes straight to the end. I love that the last words the movie has to say are not about like the indomitable spirit of humankind or about the courage of the people who gave their lives fighting against this beast. It's like Mars is...

terrible. Don't ever go there. It's just trash. Mars is death. Mars is dead to us. We're just going to skip over that. What's next? What's the next one? Because we're going to go there instead. Nothing on Mars for us. Jupiter is life. Maybe. Maybe. But yeah, but you know, it is kind of a hint of some of the, I don't know, partially cosmic horror inspired stuff to come, including alien, like this idea that, yeah, humans should never have left Earth.

And of course, they're going to encounter unspeakable horrors out there because we were not meant to know of it. Mm-hmm.

So as we said earlier, it, the terror from beyond space, I feel like a pretty strong thumbs up for what it is. It is a modest science fiction movie. It's kind of, it has bottle episode vibes, but given all that quite strong. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I was really impressed with it. I think this one was, it would have scared me a bit if I'd seen it when I was, when I was a lot younger. And I would love to hear from folks out there who saw it in it and on the, on the big screen at some point or in a drive-in environment, that would have been neat. Yeah.

Again, the performances are solid. The monster costume, for the most part, looks really good. I neglected to mention that there are some shots where, at least in silhouette, it reminds me a bit of the aliens from Earth Girls Are Easy. But, you know, something about the head shape kind of reminds me of the helmets that those aliens have. But again, for the most part, I love the monster here. All right, there you have it. It, the terror from beyond space. We're going to remind everybody here that

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