Terror from the Year 5000

As a child I fell in love with 'monster' movies immediately upon seeing my first (Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman) on television. Fortunately for me I grew up in the fifties, an era prolific with cheapie horror and sci-fi films. A neighborhood theatre ran them almost exclusively at the time and I attended every Saturday (and sometimes a couple more days per week in glorious summer). Just couldn't get enough of this stuff.

I could take all the giant ants, scorpions and spiders, all the ghosts and haunted houses, the numerous editions of frankenstein monsters and invaders from space pretty well. For some reason, though, nothing frightened me more or stayed with me longer than the rare feminine monsters. Perhaps it was because women were always the loving caregivers (Mom, Grandma, my teachers, my sisters). When sick, or waking from a nightmare we always call for Mom. So, I think the idea of a woman being a vicious, scary thing was such a perversion of all I otherwise knew, the effect on me was especially chilling. I had no problem with the mutilated faces of men as in 'Horrors Of The Black Museum', 'The Black Sleep', 'The Unearthly' and so forth. But the visages of the female victims in 'The Hypnotic Eye' and of the niece in 'Frankenstein's Daughter' always made me squeeze shut my eyes.

'The Astounding She Monster' is a prime example of these fears - a malevolent, radioactive female relentlessly stalking me, her touch meaning sure pain and death. From the age of seven until seventeen, that particular luminescent character showed up in my nightmares. But the single most frightening thing I ever saw was the female terror that came shrieking out of the time machine in this movie, arms pumping in a marching style, coming right at me. Peeling off another woman's face to wear as a mask was incredibly disturbing. Yep - this was the single-most terror of my childhood movie-viewing. I couldn't even bring myself to keep my eyes open for more than half a second when the movie closes with a close-up of this hideously deformed feminist with a wicked widow's peak. Even at the age of sixteen, surrounded by buddies watching it on the late show, my body kept freezing with fear, though I didn't mention it to them.

Going by most of the reviews here, today's audiences, accustomed to the most graphic horror, just find this monster boring. But I'm still scared of this terror from the year 5000. Oh yeah, and the four-eyed cat gave me the creeps pretty good too.

As far as I know, this is the first American feature film about time travel via a time machine. A time machine was featured in the American serial BRICK BRADFORD (1947) and in the English comedy TIME FLIES (1944). Film firsts should be noted and applauded even if the films they appear in are otherwise unremarkable. TERROR FROM THE YEAR 5000 is a somewhat lackluster production with uneven performances and direction. I say that this film is shade a better than most other low budget quickies from 1958 in that its story slightly more imaginative. The time machine was something new to films in 1958, the bit with the hypnotic finger nails is certainly unusual and don't forget the four eyed mutant cat from the future. I thought the idea of having the future women at first mistakenly speaking Greek was a clever idea, since the present people had sent the future people with trinkets that had Greek writing on them. The make up for the future woman is quite poor, no wonder the director mostly kept her face hidden throughout. There is one scene where the scientists leave the island and go to a movie on the mainland. AIP studio heads must of come up with this scene to insert a little promotion. The film they go to see is AIP's I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN. Oh, by the way, I like the 1958 Edsel Corsair that Ward Costello drives.

AIP and 2.5 statue 5200 ad Florida swamps future---medallion asking for help

Currently, "Terror From the Year 5000" has an abominably low score of 2.5. This would indicate that this is a truly horrible film...but it isn't. Now I am not saying it's a good movie, but the picture clearly is suffering from "Mystery Science Theater 3000" syndrome. In other words, when a film is made fun of my the show, huge numbers of the viewers of the show go online and bombard IMDb with scores of 1. If you look at the bottom 100 films on IMDb, you'll also see that nearly all of the American films from the 1950s, 60s and 70s were skewered on that TV show as well. Often, much worse films manage to stay off the list simply because of exposure. So, if you are looking for a film as wretched as "Plan 9 From Outer Space" or "Robot Monster", well, you should keep looking.

The film is about a weird experiment going on in the middle of nowhere in Florida. Why this odd location? Because the project requires so much energy it would tend to interfere with the equipment of folks living nearby. And what IS this huge power draw for....well, to make contact with folks from the future! Eventually, they are able to bring objects from the year 5200! And, a bit later, they get a medallion that is begging for help! So is this future trying to contact us? And, is this a good thing?

Now I am not going to say that this is a great film. The 'monster' is silly but there are much worse examples from the era. Overall, an okay movie but certainly not an awful picture. The acting and direction are competent...not really good, but competent.

TERROR FROM THE YEAR 5000 (1958) was one of innumerable American International horror/sci-fi movies that flooded local TV stations in the early 1960s. I first saw it in 1961 when I was 9 years and unlike other AIP favorites such as THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN, THE SCREAMING SKULL, and EARTH-vs-THE SPIDER, it disappeared from the airwaves but there were parts of it I never forgot. I later found out that TERROR was one of a handful of AIP titles that were withdrawn from circulation.

I didn't see TERROR again until recently when I caught it on YouTube. This time around it made a different impression on me. Turns out that what I didn't remember was worth forgetting. The movie has lower than usual production values, cheap special effects, and performances that are singularly one note. The one exception is Salome Jens who plays the title character, a woman from the future mutated by radioactivity from atomic wars which took place after 1958. Unfortunately she's only in the film for the last 20 of its 66 minute running time.

While TERROR FROM THE YEAR 5000 is not a good movie, I do give it points for trying something different with the time travel twist. I'm glad I saw it again although I'm in no rush to repeat the experience. Salome Jens went on to a busy career on stage and TV as well as acting in a few movies. The same cannot be said for the others. The worst performance of the film can be awarded to the archaeologist's secretary which really must be heard to be believed. To be fair, according to imdb, she was the production supervisor and had to fill in at the last minute for an actress who quit.

Although interiors were shot at Poverty Row studio ZIV who produced TV shows in the 1950s like THE CISCO KID and SEA HUNT, several location shots were done in Dade County Florida. On the "you've got to start somewhere" front, Dede Allen, the film's editor, would go on to such major movies as THE HUSTLER, BONNIE & CLYDE, & DOG DAY AFTERNOON. Also the film has a great poster that promises far more than it delivers...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

(FYI, I caught this movie on YouTube.)

The average IMDb ranking is currently 2.5 for this movie, which is twice as low as it ought to be. This is not a great movie, it's not even a particularly good movie, but it is not in the same abysmal league as truly bad grades Z 1950s scifi.

Other reviews have noted some of the cool moments in the movie, such as the woman from the future at first speaking Greek, not knowing exactly what language is being spoken in the time frame to wish she has returned from the year 5000. There are a few other such moments, which exhibit more cleverness than the scripts from a good many other super low-budget movies of the era.

That's not to say the script is good. It's too talky, and there are long moments of melodrama which in the hands of a decent script writer could have been replaced by moments of Science Fiction plot and dialogue instead (without adding a dime to the budget). The acting is better than in many similarly low-budget movies, but it's still not good. The one exception is Joyce Holden, who has talent, and mostly succeeds in imbuing her lines with personality.

I myself don't find this movie worthy of repeated viewing, but for genuine fans of 1950s science fiction it is worth a look.