Kronos

As must always be kept in mind while viewing classic SF cinema, one cannot and should not extricate a film from its historical context. Kronos is no exception. This is 1950's SF movie making at its marginal budgetary best.

Certainly the storyline taxes credibility, involving alien possession of humans, but the ETs at least have a practical purpose for invading than just doing it out of spite. Plus, the dirty work isn't accomplished with sundry flying saucers and blaster rays, but by a huge robot.

The acting is an uneven mixture of serious and melodramatic that oddly adds to the dark overtones of the fims early scenes. The dialogue, littered with quasi-scientific jargon, flows at near poetic tempo.

Ultimately, it is the clever resourcefulness of our nuclear-scientist heroes that wins the day. Now that has to be worth watching!

Made in 1957, this ultra weird science fiction movie "Kronos" is a product of the then unknown UFO phenom and the Soviet Union's nuclear threat of the time. Before I describe this film, I have to tell you, seeing it first, at a very young pre-teen ager, this movie gave me sweaty nightmares of world destruction's dreams constructed by odd and powerful machines for many nights and many years to come that made me hide under the covers. These dreams of mine were terrifying to the extreme, and when I watch this film today, I can finally understand this.

A strange movie, made by "Regal Films" and distributed by 20th Century Fox, it adds genuine sci-fi terror with the combination of some very effective and occasional cheesy effects, and generally good acting. The story is just weird enough to be believable, which is the mark of a good sci-fi movie. It is a sort of a "War of the Worlds" film in a way. The new DVD widescreen video transference by "Image Entertainment" is very good considering the lack of quality of the original film's input. The sound is true and clear.

The film is in black and white and incorporates many stock footage shots of the era. Some of those shots include the proverbial rocket launches of a German V2. And then there are some very beautiful shots of the elegant first Strategic Air Command's swept wing atomic jet bomber the B-47 StratoJet in flight. Finally there is very rare stock footage of the first supersonic fighter in experimental form, the XF-100 Super Saber soaring. Interesting.

To summarize, a giant flying saucer, mistaken for an asteroid, crashes off the coast of West Mexico. Bubbling out of the Pacific a few days later is this giant metallic multi stepped cube. The cube's goal is to suck up all the energy in the earth for it's home world. The more energy it absorbs the more fantastically large the machine becomes. Bizarre side stories are how this cube's energy affects certain humans for it's aid. You have to watch the movie as this oddness is hard to describe.

The imagery of the alien machine is often really scary, as in some scenes the monster takes upon an electric greenish tint in the wide screen display and it's electric lightning is the stuff of bad dreams. But other images are a bit cartoonish. Those cartoonish images if left out of the film would have made it a much more effective a movie.

Nevertheless on a 1950's level this sci-fi movie is most effective in it's ability to evoke true paranoia. It frightens the beegeezuss out of me every time I watch it and I can guarantee that I will have a nightmare about the giant and massive cubic Kronos, the ravager of worlds, vampire of energy, tonight as I slumber. As Kronos makes it's way on the earth sucking up energy it makes this crushing high pitched pulsing noise as if metal upon rock. Very eerie.

The film stared perennial B-movie star Jeff Morrow as the scientist that figures out how to destroy Kronos. He reverses Kronos' polarity! Didn't Scotty do that on the Enterprise once to save the ship? The obligatory cheese cake 1950's sci-fi actress in this film was the very lovely Barbara Lawrence as the wasted film technician Vera, the ever ignored girl friend of Morrow.

For it's genre, this movie is recommended, for it's unique story, eclectic acting, decent script, terrifying and very spooky imagery.

It still gives me the heebeejeebies.

This movie reflects the cold war tensions of the fifties and captures the history of that time period on film. The movie is interesting for its presentation of modern age technology of its' time and the wonders that technology would bring. Movie goers who have been spoon-fed on modern digital animations and graphics will have no appreciation for the effort that went into this movie. This is obviously no academy award winner; however, one must view this film in its' proper context. A thoroughly enjoyable movie. 8 out of 10.

Scientist John Emory (`Rocketship X-M' ) is possessed by an alien intelligence which foces him to provide information for invaders who are en route to Earth in a huge spacecraft. Astronomer Jeff Morrow (`This Island Earth') spots the approaching ship through his telescope, but he thinks it's an asteroid on a collision course with Earth (never mind the fact that the image we see through the telescope is obviously a saucer-shaped object that zigs and zags insanely).

The spacecraft splashes down off the coast of Mexico, and the next morning `Kronos' is standing on the beach -- a giant, rectangular robot with four piston-like legs. Kronos begins it's destructive march across the country, draining power from everything it encounters (including an atom bomb which the Air Force drops on it. Impressive scene). Morris Ankrum makes a welcome appearance as a psychiatrist (insteand of a general, for a change).

The plot has an interesting basic concept, but the script is plagued by scientific inaccuracies and unintentionally funny scenes. Jeff Morrow and fellow scientist George O'Hanlon (the voice of George Jetson) make casual comments about `minor shifts' in the orbit of the approaching asteroid -- even though what they (and the audience) see in their telescope is a wildly zig-zagging spaceship. Morris Ankrum is electrocuted when John Emory throws him against a protective fence that surrounds a high-voltage transformer ( Wait a second -- Ankrum is electrocuted by a PROTECTIVE FENCE?).

Despite the embarassing goof-ups, `Kronos' is loaded with special effects by FX wizards Jack Rabin, Irving Block, and Louis DeWitt, who are also billed as associate producers.

Yep, it's black & white and low budget but the film has great ideas and is executed incredibly well for the small amount of money they had to work with. The score by Bert Shefter and Paul Sawtell is probably the best the duo ever wrote. In fact, the title theme was so good it was re-worked for IT, THE TERROR FROM OUTER SPACE. Some people have said they think that cartoon animation was used for walking shots of KRONOS. I think it is stop-motion model animation, especially since Gene Warren is one of those credited for special effects and stop-motion was his specialty. Regardless of how it was achieved, KRONOS is about as much fun as they get. The special effects, while dated-looking now were as good as anything else you would see at the time it was released. I love this film which fortunately, has been preserved on an excellent widescreen DVD. The film has an enduring quality about it and never ceases to entertain me no matter how many times I see it. If you just like to have a plain old good time watching a movie, then I highly recommend KRONOS.