Night of the Blood Beast (1958)

I first saw this Roger Corman production on "Mystery Science Theater 3000." Despite the best efforts of Mike Nelson and his robot pals, NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST was excruciating. So what made me sit through the original, unriffed version? The same thing that once made me lick a cheese grater, I suppose.The film had an imaginative storyline for 1958: an astronaut crash- lands on Earth and is killed. There's just one problem: hours after death, his body stays warm and his blood cells remain alive. That's because there are alien embryos gestating inside him, which will soon exist independently of the astronaut. There is also a full-grown alien roaming the countryside who absorbs human knowledge by killing people and cutting their heads off.Though the title suggests a horror film, it's really sci-fi. However, unlike the best sci-fi, NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST offers nothing to think about once the film is over. The bland script serves up dull dialogue and characters, while the $68,000 budget ($578,000 in 2017 dollars) allowed for just a couple of sets. The director must have seen little need to move the camera, or else couldn't afford a dolly. In either case, the camera frequently locks in and doesn't move for minutes at a clip. The musical score has little to do with what's happening on screen. The monster is hilarious-looking, as are the shots of the dead astronaut's blood cells under the microscope. And the script leaves numerous questions unanswered:How was the astronaut impregnated?How was he supposed to give birth to those alien babies?Why do the aliens have to cut people's heads off to absorb their knowledge?Why don't the aliens simply come to Earth instead of hitching rides on our spaceships?Did the aliens wish to live in peace or to conquer us? The script is annoyingly vague in that regard.I'll end with the most quotable line of this 62-minute miasma: "A wounded animal that large isn't good!"

Mankind has sent the first astronaut Jon Corcoran in to space and his spacecraft returning through Earth's orbit crashes . A rescue team recover him only to find Corcoran dead . They take him back to the nearby base and realise his body still shows signs of life . They also realise he brought something back from space This has THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT written all over it , so much so that you wonder why Nigel Kneale , the BBC , Hammer Sudios or anyone else holding any copyright claim over TQE didn't take out any copyright litigation against Roger Corman . If nothing else it would have saved the audience sitting through a pretty terrible movie Very little happens . The rescue crew take Corcoran back to base and discuss the situation . Corcoran recovers and the scientific team find he's been taken over by an alien entity and try to find a solution to the problem . The BBC serial of THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT had the same premise and spent many , many scenes of characters talking in a very limited set of locations . That said at least script-writer Nigel Kneale managed to write an intellectually literate script that touches upon the human race about to a step in to the unknown . Here however the bland dialogue from Martin Varno never rises above generic B movie standard Bernard L Kowalski is hamstrung by an obvious lack of budget and can't really be blamed for failing to disguise the fact that space tracking station only has five members who comprise the entire cast save for the monster . That said he can be blamed for the lack of visual imagination with some painfully static camera work where the camera is constantly locked on and rarely moves . It also contains a very strange musical score by Alexander Laszio which will constantly take you out of the movie by reminding you of the Tornados hit Telstar but if you watch a movie this bad you don't mind being taken out of it

As I read reviews of old sci/fi-monster movies on IMDb, I am consistently sickened by the vapid, surface assessment of the movie's worth by a HUGE percentage of people. Many times these low-budget efforts have powerful statements to make if you look deep enough. For those of you that enjoy trying to figure out what kind of message a movie is communicating, please read on.Night of the Blood Beast was made in 1958, and it needs to be viewed in that CONTEXT. This was a time when America was still reeling from McCarthyism and communists were everywhere. During this era, there was no greater threat! So, in that CONTEXT, I offer the following: The babies growing inside the astronaut represent communism. If we accept communism/the monster for even just a minute and listen to it, it can grow and fester inside all of us. After gestation, communism/alien babies will hatch and destroy our way of life. Communsim/aliens will take over, and there will be no turning back. The monster is the voice of communism. He/she's the one that planted the seeds in the astronaut the same way that the seductive message of communism planted the seeds of a socialist paradise into the minds of weak, susceptible, and naive Americans. Accept their offer and all is lost! Everything we hold dear will vanish because our open mindedness will allow these seeds to germinate and take root. And like a weed that takes root, it is almost impossible to eradicate once it has done so. It must be stopped now!!! What's worse, this monster from outer space or communist rule!?!Actually, I should've written "What's worse, this movie or the coterie of pathetic pseudo-snobs that consistently fall all over each other trying to trash a movie based on childish and superficial assessments of that movie's value!?!" Yes, I mean you Michael Elliott, bensonmum2, classicsoncall, and Hitchcoc. You're all pathetic losers that need mental help. Why even watch and write about a movie like this if you're going to judge it by today's standards? You people need to get out more and enjoy REALITY. It's pretty sad when a casual IMDb user like me starts to recognize and remember these loser's names after a while because they write THOUSANDS of superficial, lame reviews. Get a life!

This slightly ponderous late 50's sci-fi-horror schlock isn't entirely a loser. It's about a manned space rocket that crash lands in a remote area. A bunch of scientists go to investigate and discover that the astronaut is in some kind of coma; he's being kept alive by alien embryos that have been mysteriously implanted in him. Anyway, the title alien monster soon raises it's head causing general havoc, including partial head removal.The main problem with the film is it's pacing. It takes quite a while for the Blood Beast to appear, and he really only comes into his own in the last 20 minutes or so. He is undoubtedly a completely ridiculous creation but that's really not a problem as he provides a fair amount of comic relief. At the end of the movie where we have the final stand-off and this ludicrous creature starts talking with the voice of the doctor he killed earlier, you will be doing well not to have a giggle. So too in the brilliant x-ray scene where we see the alien embryos floating about in the astronaut's body - it's just too funny for words.But unfortunately, the fun moments in Night of the Blood Beast come too few and far between. If you're a 50's sci-fi nut though then it's well worth checking this one out. Just don't expect too much.