It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958 film)
It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958), AKA It! The Vampire from Beyond Space, Terror from Beyond Space
Summary
"IT! It breathes. It Hunts. It kills! It reaches through space! It scoops up men and women! It Gorges on blood!" The first manned expedition to Mars is decimated by an unknown life form which stows away on the rescue ship, creeps through the air ducts, and kills off members of the crew one by one.
Details
- Release Date: 1958
- Country/Language: US, English
- Genres/Technical: Science-Fiction, Horror, black-and-white
- Setting: "1970s" (near future) Mars, Cthulhu Icarus
- Runtime: 1 hr 09 min
- Starring: Marshall Thompson, Shirley Patterson, Kim Spalding
- Director: Edward L. Cahn
- Writer: Jerome Bixby (screenplay)
- Producer/Production Co: Robert E. Kent Productions, MGM
- View Trailer: (link)
- TVTropes: (link)
- IMDB Page: (link)
Ratings
MPAA Ratings
- Rated: approved (equivalent to a PG for mild Violence)
Tentacle Ratings
A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:
- Ss___ (One and a Half Tentacles: Barely Lovecraftian; vaguely similar in tone)
Not very Lovecraftian; an alien vampire from a long-dead Mars sneaks aboard a spaceship and begins killing crew members one at a time in a film that bears a striking resemblance to the later and more famous film Alien....
Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.
Reviews
Review Links:
- Y.Whateley: A fun and mostly harmless little science fiction/horror movie, with a few unintentional chuckles and some genuinely atmospheric and creepy moments. On one hand, this is a 1950s vision of the far-flung future of 1973 on the first manned mission to Mars, where valuable, highly-trained, highly-qualified female team members are reduced to taking orders for coffee, the rubber-suit-monster comes off as a sort of low-rent Creature from the Black Lagoon, a space ambulance to a presumed-dead world is armed to the teeth with crates of WWII army surplus weaponry, and the space rescue personnel hilariously and carelessly apply More Dakka from the rifles and hand grenades and bazookas of the ship's bizarre arsenal within the confines of their rocket ship while playing carelessly with the ship's atomic reactor. On the other, Mars and the space ship are portrayed with some genuinely moody and atmospheric sets, and the scene where the monster's victims are discovered still alive in the ship's air ducts is powerful in its horror even by today's jaded standards. That horrific scene, and the hidden alien killer who makes crew members vanish one by one within a dark and claustrophobic rescue ship to a dark and foggy world, would provide an obvious precedent and inspiration for the infamous horror/sci-fi Alien (1979 franchise). In the end, it's a flawed but still effective classic of horror/science-fiction, right up there with The Thing from Another World (1951 film), Quatermass (1953 franchise), and similar 1950s classics from this crossover genre. It isn't based on any particular Lovecraftian work and doesn't claim any strong relationship to 'Lovecraftian' horror, but the mood and atmosphere are there, and this story of a small group of people besieged in a dark, isolated, and confined place by a dimly-glimpsed vampiric alien horror wouldn't be very far out of place alongside the likes of Lovecraft's "Colour Out of Space (fiction)" or "The Shunned House (fiction)", and should be quite a treat for fans of Lovecraft and science-fiction/horror film in general.
Synopsis (SPOILERS)
Spoiler Section (Highlight to Read)
A rescue ship arrives on Mars to find the sole survivor of the first manned mission, believed to be responsible for the murders of his crew-mates. When members of the rescue mission begin to disappear one by one, the crew begin to realize that the accused killer's mad tale of an alien monster is all too true, and the alien fugitive from a dry, dying world has sneaked onto the rescue ship, dragging victims into the air ducts to drink their blood. The crew does what any sane rescue mission in an enclosed rocket ship would do in this situation: they crack open crates of WWII army surplus M1-Garand rifles, Colt 1911 handguns, bazookas, and hand grenades, and hunt the creature through the space ship, until they trap it in the engine room, irradiate it with the ship's reactor, and blow it out of the airlock!
Notes
Comments, Trivia, Dedication
- This film, along with Planet of the Vampires (1965 film), seem to have been highly influential over Alien (1979 film)....
Associated Mythos Elements
- race: Martian
- location: Mars
- setting: Cthulhu Icarus
Keeper Notes
