They Came from Beyond Space

Throughout the mid 60s and early 70s Amicus Productions churned out a series of wonderful little horror anthologies including my favorite, TALES FROM THE CRYPT.

But, before launching into the more-profitable horror genre, where low-budgets were more easily forgiven, Amicus produced some full-length features, including THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE.

However, the music is overbearing; and, distracting. The acting is good; but, not outstanding. The special effects are okay, some even good. The launch of the moon rocket even looked plausible. And, who dressed these people anyway?

Well, that's the bad; but, the good is the sets are quite striking. The cinematography, as with other Amicus Products, was beautiful. And, I thought the plot moved along nicely.

However, the reason for my comment is the number of films and stories that this movie seems to have inspired (based on the book The Gods Hate Kansas, so not sure if it's the book or this film that's the inspiration).

Some think that Stephen King may have been inspired by this one. My thinking is that perhaps even the new series "V" may have been inspired by this. Especially the creepy comment by the security officer that the work would result in "saving" the planet, or all mankind. And, WHAT do they need all the bodies for -- both V and these moon creatures?!?

Amicus really defined the horror anthology genre for me. But it is good to see they had a fairly decent feature film before launching those. Next up: THE DEADLY BEES!

They Came from Beyond Space (1967)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Amicus production has some meteors crashing in a field but when scientist goes to crack into them, an alien race starts taking over their minds. Soon everyone is under the spell of the aliens but thankfully one man (Robert Hutton) has some steel in his head, which keeps him from being infected. I love a lot of Amicus movies and I've often enjoyed their films more than their rival Hammer but there's not too much love that can be shown to this movie, which is pretty to look at but deadly dull in terms of entertainment. The biggest problem is that it appears Francis, usually a top-notch director, falls asleep at the wheel because the movie has a deadly slow pace that doesn't help anything. To make matters worse is the screenplay, which is full of one dialogue scene after another and nothing being said is all that intelligent. The movie moves way too slow to begin with so adding all this dialogue isn't going to help matters. Hutton sleepwalks through his role but to his credit he doesn't have much to work with. Jennifer Jayne isn't that memorable and Michael Gough appears bored out of his mind. The "Swingin' 60's" certainly lends its hand to the visuals of the film, which are quite colorful and nice to look at. The sets aren't that bad either but this doesn't save an otherwise boring film.

In looking at this movie, it seemed to me that this was pretty close in concept to It Came from Outer Space, the sci-fi classic starring Richard Carlson and Barbara Rush. It was later remade as Night Slaves, a TV movie in 1990.

However, it was good seeing Robert Hutton, a perennial favorite in sci-fi films.

On the negative side, the editing seemed rather haphazard, with cuts and clips not blending together to add coherence and continuity. Also, the film lacked any of the background characters who were so good in what have turned out to be sci-fi classics. Made in England, They Came from Beyond Space has the location, but not the interest of the Quatermass movies.

Nine meteorites land in perfect formation in a field in Sussex, and in a plot device that bares no resemblance to Stephen King's The Tommyknockers, aliens take over the bodies of some scientists and some locals and start building a base in order to fire rockets into space. Only Britains top American scientist can stop them, as he's got a steel plate in his head that stops the alien frequencies taking over his body (told you – nothing like Tommyknockers).

This guy has got a special reason for trying to break through the alien's electric fence (which they acquired using taxpayers money!), his girlfriend's in there and she's all possessed by the aliens. Actually, the aliens are rather polite with the guy and frequently tell him to get off their property. They've also got these ray gun type things that knock the guy out. Turns out there's other government departments involved and they're all out to get into that compound and give those aliens a bally good thrashing, what.

Our top scientist is as persistent as an NPower salesman and gets into that compound, but not before a plague breaks out in the local village (in rather freaky fashion), so now he's got a girlfriend acting like a mysteron, people dropping dead everywhere, and a crazy sci-fi film set to run around. You'll have to watch the film to find out what happens next (and kick your television screen in depending on what you make of the ending).

Although tame and so very English in it's execution (it's charming in the formal way the aliens interact with our hero), the whole film is a lot of fun. It didn't take long for the aliens to set up their compound so it was nice to see how they could fill out the rest of the running time, which they do successfully, with gun fights, chase scenes and a funny bit where the scientist and his pal make their own versions of alien weapons.

So, if you like people wearing silver on their heads, cheesy alien stations and dodgy visual effects, this film is for you.

OK look ...this is not a studio blockbuster, or classic in the sci-fi genre by any stretch of the imagination. But this movie has an interesting plot, moves along very quickly, has a fun musical score and the acting isn't terrible. I wasn't expecting much when I put it on, and I was pleasantly surprised at how good it is. There are a million worse ways to spend an hour and a half of your life. Ignore the negative reviews and give it a chance.