Das Grauen kam um Mitternacht

America's first orbiting spaceship collides with a mysterious object and crashes to Earth, bringing with it an alien mother and her parasitical brood who are using the undead astronaut as an incubation chamber. After a number of inexplicable deaths, the humans decide to destroy the intruder but pause when the alien claims to be on a goodwill mission to save our species from ourselves. The film is a bargain-basement, Bronson Canyon blend of the vastly superior "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) and "Alien" (1979), but typical of a Corman opus (auteur brothers Roger and Gene were producers, Bernard L. Kowalski was director), is watchable in an eye-rolling way. The special effects aren't really special: the monster (recycled from a previous Corman film (typical)) is a hairy, beaked, lump that you never get a really good look at and the alien embryos look like fat seahorses. The acting is on par for a '50s B-monster outing, with the usual characters delivering the usual material (the 'science' in the script varies from reasonable to ludicrous (somehow eating a brain confers the power of human speech through photosynthesis)). 'Night of the Blood Beast' is a silly but short and watchable, although it never lives up to the lurid imagery on some of the posters and DVD covers.

The astronaut Steve Dunlap (John Baer) dies after crashing his rocket on Earth. His body is recovered by the base rescue team and examined by Dr. Alex Wyman (Tyler McVey) and Dr. Julie Benson (Angela Greene), who is Steve's fiancée. Out of the blue, Steve resurrects and Dr. Benson discovers that his body is impregnated with Alien embryos; further, the team finds that an alien (Ross Sturlin) has arrived in Steve's spacecraft.

When Dr. Wyman is murdered by the alien, Major John Corcoran (Michael Emmet) and Dave Randall (Ed Nelson) decide to destroy the creature. But Steve is mentally connected to the alien and believes that the creature has peaceful intentions and tries to protect it. But when Steve learns that the alien is an invader, he takes an ultimate decision to protect the earthlings.

"Night of the Blood Beast" is a funny and underrated low-budget sci-fi produced by Roger Corman. This type of black and white Z-movie, with bad acting and poor special effects, is part of my childhood and maybe that is the reason why I find most of them cult. "Night of the Blood Beast" is a sort of grandfather of 1979 "Alien" or 1999 "The Astronaut's Wife" and entertains. My note is five.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Most of the commenters for this film seem to be reviewing its budget rather than the film itself (hence the typical overuse of the empty headed all-purpose cliché "cheesy") but in fact this is one of the most intelligent and thoughtful science fiction films of any era. Anyone with sophistication enough to look past the obvious budget limitations will see a fairly solid study of human reactions to an unknown menace. BLOOD BEAST really has more in common with British science fiction of the time, especially the Quatermass films. Those who lump it in with other Roger Corman movies have, of course, the wrong Corman --- this was produced by brother Gene, who later went on to a successful career producing major studio films (TOBRUK, etc...). Gene Corman tended to inject a little more substance into his drive-in genre films that his more illustrious sibling. ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES, in addition to the expected cheap scares, also delves into Tennessee Williams territory with its low rent Big Daddy trying to deal with his unfaithful Baby Doll wife. BLOOD BEAST likewise devotes much attention to character development, presents several intriguing plot points, and ends on an enigmatic note almost unique in this type of movie. It's ironic that a cheap 50s drive-in movie like NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST should ultimately appeal only to more sophisticated viewers. MST3K fans should look elsewhere for their cheap yucks.

This interesting little abomination is easily the evil twin of BEAST FROM HAUNTED CAVE, another Corman low-budgeter from this memorable late 5O's drive-in golden era. There were many major and minor film gems, but not all were so bad, they're great. Some were interesting failures (like this Putrid Preciousness) and some simply sucked (like everyones' personal favorite, "The Cape Canaveral Monsters", whose prints need to be honorably enshrined - in embalming fluid).

NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST (As a kid, I just loooooved titles like that, fearfully imagining what that monster from the dark really looked like), due to its early scenes of eerie paranoia mood and subtle moments of terror, managed to humbly and very economically achieve this kid-scare trick, thus being reprieved from the embalming fluid fate. That impressivly irritating cheesey-weird organ (also used in SISTER BEAST'S HAUNTED CAVE) evoked the proper creepy atmosphere, which Corman was an efficient wiz at.

Those scary shots in the isolated woods in the Bronson Cave hilled area (interesting location with strange, silent mood as if there is some other lurking ominous presense nearby, watching) were nightmarish. That moment when something moved up right before the camera, blocking everything out was a surprising frightful moment - and those dark chilling shots of the woods, as something moves through the bushes - and that shadow of something very unworldly moving across the ground (actually the first monster 'Shadow Shot' filmed from that particular angle) - that shot of a giant shape moving outside along the window and that quick glimpse of IT! creeping down that dark claustrophobic hallway - BRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!

At 2:OO AM, in pitch black, that can cause those under-the -cover shivers (all I need is the proper female companion to hold dearly to). Then when poor old kindly Dr. Wymann loses his head - LITERALLY - when the two male leads find his body slumped over the bunk, with a fresh supply of high volume blood spilling down with major drip-drips. UGH! That was an early decapitation scene that really freaked me out. Maybe a life of crime would be safer than being an adventuresome scientist.

Then the "ALIEN" scene, with the mysteriously revived "deceased" astronaut standing behind one of those 5O's Whateverscopes, revealing utterly revolting animated parasites being bred in his body. (Are there any other kinds?) The alien blood beast is sure having its night: It impregnated the trespassing, intrepid astronaut - and made him bear its delightfully disgusting offsprings. Planned Parenthood miserably backfired with the worst grim forms of total dysfunction. What do you think of that? Any "hmmmmmmmm's" out there - or just prowling alien blood beast rapists. (AHHHH!!! NOOOOOW I GET THE TITLE! - DUH!!!). This is true science-fiction horror on its own gruesome little B-minus terms.

Well, I won't go on. You'll just have to see for yourself as to the mysterious fate of our scientific ground crew - and that enormously rude and overbearing blood beast. It's an old cheap B&W minus-B, but interesting if you happen to be in that certain 2:OO AM monster mood. LONG SHOCK THE BEAST BROTHERS!

P.S. That college age lady scientist was quite personally appealing to me at that formative late show age. The blood beast attacks her in the woods - maybe IT got infected by all that human contact - OR maybe it really does possess superior intelligence! Perhaps that's why this was her one and only film appearance. That's BEAST BIZ BABY! It's back to that bloody haunted night cave. GIVE BEAST A CHANCE!

This movie was not deserving of being MST3K'ed. It clearly predates the American space program, and didn't have a huge budget. But what this movie had was a decent plot that didn't use random action sequences to move things forward, and several very thoughtful moments. It owes more to literary science fiction than to the ray guns of space opera, a very good thing in my book.

Okay, I'll admit there were some very hokey lines and some very ludicrous special effects. But it was still a good movie, all in all.