The Night Caller

There are already quite a few good comments on this unusual film already. However a major difference is the utterly splendid opening instrumental score over the opening credits!The USA release has lounge type of male vocalist singing the films title!- it is dire indeed.Not so the British release, It is very memorable, and have only recently tracked it down though spent decades trying!A superb piece by Alan Haven called "Image" It seems to encompass everything; it is a mixture of spooky organ music set to a mod (ish) and moderate jazzy tone.Quite unnerving it seems to warn the viewers what lies ahead. The opening scenes have a tracking shot showing London by night, and perfectly fits the mid-sixties feel and period of the time. Medra was scary!!

It's the scientists vs. the anomaly, in England, Earth. What in the world is this, they ask. Can't just ask, gotta investigate, because this could be harmful. I love this sort of story, with it's Twilight-Zone atmosphere and low budget. Too often sci-fi movies rely on the visuals, no science, no heart. Not the case here. Danger, Earth!

I don't know why they had to have John Saxon play the leading role in this movie; the Production Team could have chosen one of several dozen British actors who would have done a better job and better fitted the role. But then perhaps the film had American backers and they were calling the tune. Speaking of tune, the introductory song/music on the DVD version of the film is pathetic and totally incomparable to the original brilliant 60s pop instrumental "Image" with its Telstar-type organ backing. All that aside the movie is one that joins many other British SF films in the ranks of fame and is not totally unfaithful to Frank Crisp's 1963 novel "The Night Callers" on which it was based. It has moments which are slightly unnerving, particularly when the proposed candidates for shipping back to Ganymede are being interviewed by the man (monster) behind the shadows. Generally speaking there were very few dull moments and the pace of the plot was just right. Perhaps the ending could have been extended and more seen of the hideous alien with the claw-like appendages. Denham shines out above anyone else in the male cast leaving Saxon looking on from the sidelines as if he were a last minute, and not totally comfortable sub. A must see gem of a movie and despite the absence of the original introductory music the DVD will make a good addition to any SF Movie Buff's collection.

Almost intelligent British sci-fi with a Mod theme. The black and white cinematography is stylish and some of the sets and clothes have a nice Mod feel, but it never turns into a full style fest. There is one quite odd scene with two distraught parents doing a sort of Stiller and Meara routine for the police and scientist. John Saxon is as hot as can be, but alas, never gets around to removing his shirt or even unbuttoning his collar. What a waste of his greatest talent. The one thing that makes this worth watching is the gay character. Aubrey Morris, best known as the long-suffering but sadistic quasi-pedophile caseworker from "A Clockwork Orange", plays Mr. Thorburn, a purveyor of used books, and, I suspect, naughty magazines, perhaps even male physique pictorials. When the police superintendent comes to question him, he gives the cop hell. The subtext makes it obvious that he has been harassed and probably jailed for his proclivities, but he doesn't let that stop him. Commenting on the unearthly green eyes of the alien, he says "I love men with fine eyes, don't you superintendent?" then blows him a kiss when he leaves. Four years before Stonewall, he's still getting busted, but he's very much in control of his interaction with the cop. The ending of the movie is utterly cheesy but what did you expect from a movie called Night Caller from Outer Space?

Whether you refer to it as "The Night Caller From Outer Space" or by its alternate title, "Blood Beast From Outer Space" (OR, as it simply appears on this great-looking Image DVD under its original British appellation, "The Night Caller"), this sci-fi film from 1965 is an intelligent, restrained, moody and highly effective winner. In it, scientist John Saxon, working at England's Falsley Park research station, grapples with a mysterious sphere that has touched down on the moors, direct from the Jovian moon Ganymede. The film cleaves fairly evenly into two discrete sections. In the first, Saxon and his Falsley coworkers (including blond, no-nonsense Ann Barlow, played by the excellent Patricia Haines) conduct tests on the sphere and endeavor to puzzle out its mysteries. In the latter half, Saxon assists Scotland Yard in its investigation of the disappearances of several dozen young women, all of whom had answered an ad for a modeling job in "Bikini Magazine." Whereas the film's first segment suggests nothing less than a British variant of the classic TV program "The Outer Limits," the second half turns quite noirish as director John Gilling (who, the following year, would helm, for Hammer Studios, the psychotronic greats "The Plague of the Zombies" and "The Reptile") utilizes moody nighttime photography, deep shadows and disorienting camera angles; call this film sci-fi Brit noir. "The Night Caller" is fairly reminiscent of another Shepperton Studios film that I recently saw, 1964's "The Earth Dies Screaming." Both are modestly budgeted but well-done films featuring stunning B&W photography and helmed by directors more often associated with Hammer (Terence Fisher, in "Screaming"'s case). With the exception of "Night Caller"'s very odd opening theme song--a tune sung by Mark Richardson, and more suitable for a Western or romance movie--and a somewhat weak ending, the picture is a surprisingly gripping entertainment throughout.