Movie Info
Movie Name: It! The Terror from Beyond Space
Studio: United Artists
Genre(s): Horror/Sci-Fi/Fantasy/B-Movies
Release Date(s): August 13, 1958
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
People taste sour!
It is 1973, and Colonel Edward Carruthers (Marshall Thompson) is accused of murdering his team of scientists on Mars. When the crew is sent to retrieve Carruthers, he claims that he isn’t responsible. As the ship heads back to Earth, the crew learns Carruthers might be telling the truth and that the threat might have come aboard with them.
Directed by Edward L. Cahn, It! The Terror from Beyond Space was a typical 1950s, B-Movie. It was used as the basis for Ridley Scott’s Alien and has since been published as a comic book by Millennium Publications and IDW.
It is pretty basic sci-fi fodder. The sets and costumes are typical for the period. The set design however is kind of interesting in that it is supposed to be a rather tall and narrow rocket and therefore the characters get trapped above the evil alien and isolated from the rest of the ship. A number of floors are established in the movie, but it is hard to keep track of the floors and where the alien is since the floors kind of resemble each other.
Come out, come out wherever you are!
The ship set-up almost makes it a problem solving movie with how to get the alien out of their ship so they can continue to Earth since they need access to the ship. This leads to a space walk to get to the lower levels of the ship, underneath the alien. The effects aren’t great, but it is a pretty clever premise that was really used by Scott in Alien (with the acid blood causing the main problem). In traditional B-Movie form, the story is wrapped-up rather abruptly with an unsatisfying ending.
The only problem is that the creature is just kind of strong and lumbering. The costume isn’t very good and it just looks like a bigfoot with a reptile face and claws. The tongue sticking out was a design made to solve the problem of the actor Ray Corrigan’s chin showing out of the mouth. There were also eyehole issues that led to more design changes in what was supposedly a very short shooting schedule (it was reported to be only 6 days).
It! The Terror from Beyond Space is a decent story with bad affects and average acting. It is understandable why someone would see the story’s potential and rework it into something like Alien. If you want a standard (short) ’50s sci-fi film, check it out…it is often a cheap buy.
Related Links:
