The Space Children

Leave it to the director of several excellent 1950s sci-fi flicks to take a no-budget plot and turn it into one of the best and most intelligent Cold War melodramas of the period. CHILDREN concerns a brain-like alien blob that teleports to Earth with the purpose of stopping the American military from launching a nuclear weapon into orbit. To do so, it enlists the aid of several children residing on base. For reasons best known to the script writers, the blob keeps growing in size, until it is the size of a tank. The acting is at least of TV quality, the production solid. No big names in the cast, but pay attention to the actress playing little Edie. This actress dropped out of Hollywood early on, which is a shame since one can see her potential here. For old-time TV buffs, watch for Uncle Fester, the Professor (minus Maryann) and the McCain kid.

Last year I watched TCMs documentary WATCH THE SKIES. Seeing the clips from this movie, I vaguely remembered seeing it but wasn't quite sure. Since Steven Spielberg gushed about it I thought I would search for a copy. I finally found a copy and watched it with my twin brother and a childhood friend of mine. Having seen it, I realize that I did see this movie. My brother and friend also remembered it and we agree that it was probably in the very early sixties. I was at most six years old at the time. When your six you don't concern yourself with the BIG MESSAGE. What I really liked was monsters and aliens. This movie does not feature any exciting encounters with either. I guess the reason I liked it at the time was because kids were the main stars of the picture. They really don't do much, in fact nobody really does much in this picture, but that really doesn't matter. Seeing it again as an adult, I am tempted to roast this movie for it's lack of production values, obvious low budget, lack of action and highly unrealistic storyline. I agree with another reviewer, what is an unemployed drunk doing at a top secret missile facility. Why are children allowed to run all over the place? But why bother? It doesn't really matter. There is a message here no matter how clumsily conveyed. The movie has good nostalgia value and that is probably the real reason I like it.

While not Arnold's best film, IMHO (I find it a bit preachy and badly hampered by the rubbery silliness of the Big Alien Brain), this is still a memorable film. Though set in a beachfront area it happens mostly at night, using Arnold's typically haunting black-and-white compositions to set an appropriate tone of strangeness and isolation. The children, alienated from their preoccupied and overworked parents, are almost adopted by the space creature, which takes them under its protection (a drunken and abusive father is disposed of soon after the brain's arrival) even as it enlists them in its pacifist mission. At first fairly typical kids, they quickly develop an air of gravity and wisdom that remains after the alien departs, suggesting a lasting, even evolutionary effect. The film's title is perfect: the kids do become Space Children, more in tune with alien than human thought.

I've seen a lot of weird things on IMDb, but the rating for The Space Children is as puzzling to me as any I've run across. 2.1?!?! I couldn't disagree any more. 2.1 is getting close to Manos territory. The Space Children may not be the best movie I've ever seen, but it doesn't deserve a 2.1. Why the low rating? I blame MST3K. I enjoy the show, but as I've argued any number of times, some of the movies that they lampooned didn't deserve it. Take a look at the reviews on IMDb. You can split them into two wildly divergent groups - those users who appear to only know The Space Children because of MST3K and those who have seen it on its own. The comments from the MST3K crowd always seem to mention Uncle Fester (Jackie Coogan) in a bathing suit as if it's one of the most important moments in the film. In contrast, many of the comments from non-MST3K viewers reminisce about seeing The Space Children during their childhood. Maybe it's not just an MST3K thing but an overall generational thing as well. Whatever, I tend to side with those who enjoy the movie for what it is.

And what is it? The Space Children is a nice little cautionary 50s sci-fi film that speaks to the dangers of nuclear proliferation. Jack Arnold, one of the best genre directors of the 50s, does his usual workmanlike job with the movie. It's not flashy, but it certainly looks good. The Space Children obviously was made on a limited budget. As a result, the special effects are also limited and Arnold focuses more on the people. A lot of what happens is implied. But that's not necessarily a weakness. Too often, low-budget sci-fi films from this period look ridiculous because of the desire for elaborate special effects (i.e. monster and aliens) that outstripped the funding it would require. The acting, while not outstanding, is solid. Even the kids, who can be annoying at times in this kind of movie, come off looking pretty good. The cast will be familiar to many who grew up watching television in the 60s. Overall I've got no big complaints with The Space Children. Not a bad way to spend just over an hour.

This was director Arnold’s penultimate of seven horror/sci-fi outings from the same decade and, in retrospect, the least of them. Its focus on children (the title itself is ambiguous – since the kids don’t come from space but rather are ‘possessed’ by aliens into sabotaging a rocket-launching station!) draws parallels to later genre classics such as VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960) and the unrelated THESE ARE THE DAMNED (1963): like the former, the children here are able to influence the actions of their elders and, as in the latter, much of it takes place against a backdrop of remote cavernous surroundings. As for the alien itself, it’s nothing more substantial (or imaginative) than a growing, glowing glob!

Being just 68 minutes long, this undeniably earnest film can’t hope to fulfill its aspiration of being a profound anti-nuclear parable; for one thing, the characters are mere stereotypes – an average American couple with their modest dreams and dilemmas, a bubbly yet cagey neighbor (played by Jackie Coogan, of Chaplin’s THE KID [1921] and TV’s THE ADDAMS FAMILY fame!), another’s a drunken boor who mistreats one of the boys and his mother, plus the requisite number of dedicated but callous scientists and military personnel. Actually, I was wondering all through the picture why the alien didn’t simply possess one of the parents or scientists – surely his attempts at persuading colleagues to halt the missile project would have had greater chance of success, since the children’s clandestine activities merely irritate the hell out of the people at the base engaged in such a secretive operation! That said, unexplained events that occur – such as the driver of a fuel truck losing control of his vehicle or nominal hero Adam Williams losing his voice and the faculty to write when trying to divulge the presence of the alien to his superiors! – come across as creepier when caused by innocent-looking children and, besides, their presence near the test site is more likely to be overlooked than rouse suspicion of any foul play.

In the end, the film is tolerable (the print, then, seemed to be culled from a TV screening – since the picture fades in and out every once in a while, sometimes even in mid-sequence, where the publicity spots may have been inserted – with a good deal of hiss on the soundtrack!) but rather uninspired and, what’s more, is defeated by the low-budget. Though genre expert Arnold had proved time and again what he was capable of doing, it suffers especially in comparison with the two DAMNED films mentioned above or even a third such title, CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED (1964)…which I actually need to re-evaluate myself, but recall being an underrated achievement on my sole viewing of it so far.