![]() The "Fun Facts" section on the back of the Midnite Movies DVD proudly exclaims that this film formed the main inspiration for Ridley Scott's film "Alien". I am not sure how Carpenter knows this, but if it is true we could perhaps give them even more credit: this is a production above and beyond the average quickly-produced garbage. John Carpenter claims the film was shot in six days. Even the design of the ship seems like it took a fair amount of effort. But I think it still ranks a cut above many (or most) of the science fiction films of its day. And the way they walk outside the ship in zero gravity. The alien is obviously a man with a rubber suit. The film has its level of "cheese", with people smoking on a spaceship (which seems like a bad idea, but I guess you could smoke on airplanes so maybe it made sense). And you can sort of see the similarities, or at least the general plot: after landing on an alien world, explorers from Earth unknowingly pick up a deadly creature that hopes to kill them all. This film's claim to fame is that it inspired "Alien". The first manned expedition to Mars is decimated by an unknown life form. Still, it's dandy and intelligent entertainment. The only negative, and it's a minor one, is that the film (like the others listed above) is rather claustrophobic. The acting also is pretty good, as is the script and the monster costume is pretty decent It's obvious that this movie was not just tossed together and is definitely a better than average film of the genre. ![]() The look of the ship is very much like a 50s sci-fi film, but it looks a little better-larger and less fake than you'd find in a typical rocket film of the day. ![]() While it looks like they are all about to die, there is a bright side-at least now they know that the guy under arrest is innocent! The rest of the film consists of the crew's efforts to stop the monster and make it back alive-and it sure doesn't look like it will be easy. However, what no one realizes is that they also have accidentally transported the REAL killer on the ship as well and after a while, its insatiable blood-lust is unleashed. Logically, they assume that the surviving crew member had killed his comrades, so they pack him aboard and take him back for a court martial. It seems that his ship was the first on the planet and when a rescue crew arrived, only one man was left from the crew-the others had been murdered or just disappeared. The film begins with an astronaut under arrest and on his way back to Earth from Mars. There are a lot of similarities to each other-and all are excellent and very tense sci-fi thrillers. What I wouldn't give for another chance to see two movies and three cartoons for a quarter, through the unjaded eyes of a nine-year old boy, still able to be scared out of my wits by a guy in a rubber suit.In many ways, this film looks as if it was inspired by THE THING and in turn, this film seems to have inspired ALIEN. I saw just about every monster/horror/sci-fi movie made in the 1950's on one or another of those wonderful Saturdays at the Lincoln Theatre, and the only other one that made me run out was House on Haunted Hill. My mom would give me 35 cents, 10 for the comic and a quarter for the double feature with cartoons in between) up in front of my face so I couldn't see, and ran up the center aisle, out the doors, and away from that horror. ![]() I threw my comic book (I always bought one for 10 cents on my way to the movies on Saturday afternoons. The creature had stuffed the body in the ductwork. There was a scene I remember where a crew member opened an air duct access hatch (or what, as I recall now, looked like one), and a hand fell down in front of him, obviously belonging to a dead colleague of his. I didn't sleep well for many nights after that. I haven't seen this movie in 46 years, but the thing I remember about it is the fact that I was so terrified watching it, at nine years of age at the Lincoln Theatre in Kearny, NJ, that I had to leave before it ended.
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