Terror in the Midnight Sun

I have seen a lot of obscure films and am pretty sure that this one must have had the lowest budget in making it. There is a man-like creature that is HUGE- he probably stands 40-60 feet tall. Anyway the Eskimo villagers throw fire torches at it.As for the plot- there may not even be one, other than these people go out into the frozen tundra to look for a cheapie spaceship and then end up skiing half the countryside. I do however, appreciate this show's obscurity- there is , as far as I've ever seen, nothing quite like it- It makes "Plan 9 From Outer Space" look like "Gone With The Wind".

One thing to know about this movie is that it was made in two different versions. One Swedish and one American. Most of the ones who have commented this film has obviously seen the American edition that was edited and added with extra scenes.

From what I've read here and heard from others, the Swedish version is much better, still a really bad movie though, and it's a shame that only the American version has made it to the video market.From what I know the Swedish version only exists in one, maybe two, 35mm copies in Sweden and they are frozen for conservation.

I've seen it a couple of times and I cant help laughing. We used to show it here in Kiruna every year at our film festival, Arctic Light Film Festival, but had to stop because it was to expensive to thaw the film.

Actually it's a Swedish-American collaboration. A spaceship (that looks VERY much like a meteor) crashes in Northern Sweden before the eyes of some Samis. Some people, including the young geologist Erik Engström and the American Dr Wilson, travel up to a village in the vicinity to take a look at the ship - and Dr Wilsons beautiful niece Diane. At about the same time the aliens (who never speak, but sound kinda like synthesizers) release their pet - a hilarious, 3 metre high, furry monster with ridiculous teeth (you've got to see it for yourself). I guess you get the picture. Without spoiling any of the fun I can say that the rest of the story involves wrecking of Sami villages, a totally uncalled-for nude scene (well, almost) , and a love affair (WHO could it be between?). This is a 50's monster turkey with real class, it has all the cliches and very few dull moments. If you watch it until the end, you get to see a visual effect that is BY FAR the worst one I've ever seen.

This was a 1959 Swedish/American co-production. In the Lappland of Sweden a meteor crashes. Turns out it's not a meteor--it's a spaceship from another world. For no given reason--a huge, hairy monster comes from the spaceship, walks around, causes destruction and kidnaps a woman who has come with a team of scientists to explore the "meteor". Can anything stop this monster?

And what does it want?

There are lots of things wrong with this film--it has a romantic title song (for a SF feature!!!!); it opens with hysterically lousy special effects showing the spaceship landing; the monster doesn't show up until 50 minutes in (the film is only 70 minutes long); endless skiing footage; lousy acting (particularly Babara Wilson); laughable lapses in logic (note how conveniently Wilson's busted ankle is ignored). Also there's a pointless and fairly explicit nude shower scene which has no bearing whatsoever with the story! Still, it has an intelligent script; it's well-directed; takes place in a most unusual setting; has a very scary-looking monster and moves pretty quick. No classic but interesting.

It came to American in 1962. For some reason producer Jerry Warren destroyed it. He changed the title to "Invasion of the Animal People" (?????) and added John Carradine to the cast (probably for marquee value). Carradine opens up the film with the most insipid speech I've ever heard (it makes next to no sense) and narrates portions of it. Warren added dreadful new footage (badly shot and acted) which added nothing to the story; gave it a really silly new opening (involving Wilson); says it takes place in Switzerland (????); rearranged footage and cut out huge chunks. What is left is a hysterically bad, incomprehensible mess! I believe Carradine later said this was one of his worst movies (he's not kidding). It's known as being a camp classic.

But now BOTH versions are available on DVD. It's more than a little interesting to see how Warren totally destroyed a fairly good movie. It's a good thing the original is now available for people to view. "Invasion" gets a 1 (I wish I could give it a zero) but "Terror" gets a 7. Like I said, no classic but pretty well-done...and how many monster movies do you know that were made in Sweden?

If you like watching a bunch of people skiing around, you'll love this. An alien saucer lands in the opening round of the movie, and just sits there for about an hour of film running time before anything else involving it happens.

I saw this on one of those late night live-monster host shows, and the riffs the guy did kept the movie from being pretty boring. There's some scientists that want to see the "meteor" that came down, a romance between a couple who flirt on the ski runs, and some other folks that do a reenactment of the mob scene from Frankenstein. You have to wait a long time to see the creature, a really really big hairy guy with ugly teeth, and his brief scene is pretty campy. Still, I liked the Jolly Neanderthal Giant. As for aliens, they show up only once too, just staring at somebody. (One is seen a couple of times from the back, always watching TV).

Innocently silly and mildly amusing. There's loose ends at the end deliberately left for you to ponder. Or laugh at.