The Strange World of Planet X

I saw this movie recently on VHS. I was surprised at how compelling this film was. It took a while for the monsters to show but that's because great character development and a good plot outline was being established first. But when the monsters to show, there are some shocking scenes for even today.

The effects were very good as well as the acting, especially Forrest Tucker. They even managed to fit in a believable love triangle between the main characters. The logic of the plot pans out very well and was impressive. The movie flowed smoothly and the script well written. Overall it was a great 50s SF film.

"The Strange World of Planet X" (British, 1957; usually shown as "The Cosmic Monsters" on American TV) has been one of my favorites for many years. It's been said that films of this type don't appeal to anyone except the public, since they're usually despised by critics, but I found this film great scary fun to watch (throughout many repeated viewings) as well as a good example of how a low budget can be stretched. The performances are sincere; Forrest Tucker is his reliable self as the hero, and I particularly admired the performance of Martin Benson as "Mr. Smith", a benevolent visitor from afar probably inspired by Michael Rennie's "Klaatu" character in 1951's "The Day The Earth Stood Still". The film builds suspense quite well, and there are suitably harrowing scenes involving giant insects. This originally played American theatres as a double feature with another nifty British chiller, "The Trollenberg Terror" aka "The Crawling Eye", which also starred Forrest Tucker.

Not wanting to be left out of the giant bug craze that was infesting American theatres, British film makers conjured up "The Strange World of Planet X" (released in the US as "Cosmic Monsters") in which scientists messing with magnetic fields disrupt the ionosphere and allow cosmic rays to penetrate to the Earth's surface with deadly results. Taking a page from "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951), a messenger from the stars, complete with Klingonesque mustachios, arrives to warn us of our impending doom if we keep messing around with the unmessable. True to his prediction, the cosmic radiation generates voraciously hungry giant bugs as well as turns the local ne'er-do-well into murderous lunatic. It's up to heroic scientist Gil Graham (Forrest Tucker of "F Troop" fame) to stop obsessive scientist Dr. Laird (Alec Mango) before he destroys the world. The movie features great misogynic wisecracks about women scientists for viewers who delight in taking offence at such things, the typically high-quality acting one associates with British accents (Tucker, playing a Canadian is OK as well), and a cerebral, if plodding, story. Unfortunately the special effects are pretty limp - mostly macroshots of insects, worms etc (with a salamander thrown in for good measure) back-dropping a superimposed screaming or fainting woman (unexpectedly, there is one grim shot of a soldier getting his face eaten that is pretty good). The ending, although not spectacular, is satisfying although no mention is made of the massive outbreak of cancers that the National Health should expecting in the area over the next couple of decades. The movie is somewhat smarter that its American contemporaries ('The Deadly Mantis', 'The Black Scorpion', 'Tarantula', 'Them', etc) but not nearly as entertaining.

Of all the giant insects flicks of the 1950s, this is probably the worst. But as a low-budget sci-fi flick with a modest mystery, it's not so bad. First, the good news: Forrest Tucker and others are conducting magnetic experiments, which leads to a problem: the experiments allow cosmic rays to bombard the land, resulting in giant insects, reptiles and spiders. And they're all very hungry. A strange individual (Michael Benson) shows up to help. He's from another planet, naturally. Now for the bad news: the giant insects and reptiles and whatnot are simply regular creepy crawlies poorly enlarged through the camera lens. The one exception is a spider that tries to eat the obligatory helpless heroine (Gaby Andre). There's a bit of gore, but not enough to keep the kiddies away. Tucker is solid, as always, and Benson is oddly believable as the friendly alien. It has been suggested his performance was based on Michael Rennie's alien visitor in "The Day The Earth Stood Still."

I saw this movie once - over 40 years ago - and I still remember it very well. Even as a kid, very few movie really scared me, but this one did. The resident mad scientist does something that let in lots of bad cosmic rays and the local insects become giants. The school is a one room affair set in the middle of a forest. The giant insects attack the school trapping the teacher & the kids. Most horror movie monsters looked hokey - but the monsters in this were extreme close-ups of real insects. It wasn't until Alien that I saw a movie monster as scary as those giant bugs.