Not of This Earth (1957)

The concept of a blood-sucking alien sounds cheesier than it is in this 1957 B-movie by Roger Corman, its quite classy when you compare it to most low budget Sci-fi films from the time, it doesn't show cheap giant monsters or anything like that (except for one short scene with a cheap little monster that felt really forced) its amusing because of how decently written it is.It has some good performances, likable characters and a good script, its campy, but works for the kind of movie it is. Roger Corman really was one of the best in his field, god knows how bad this could have been without him behind the camera, not only would it be bad, it would have been boring, and that's really the worst kind of B-picture there is.A decent sci-fi movie that's a little under budget at times but manages to be enjoyable. Also, the last shot of the movie works a hundred times better than the entirety of "It Follows."

Vampires from outer space! This flick is a classic of science fiction from 1957. Low budget, but very effective with good special effects, especially the transporter device. All- around good acting, especially Paul Birch as the blank-eyed alien and Dick Miller's comic relief as the hapless vacuum cleaner salesman- a role he would reprise in a word-for-word remake (1988). Miller also played the gun shop clerk in Terminator.Birch even effects a Bela Lugosi accent when inviting Miller into his basement to demonstrate his vacuum cleaner.The introduction has an amusing scene with teenagers and 50s dialog. An excellent copy of this movie is available for free on YouTube. The 1988 remake with Traci Lords has lots of T&A and is also on YouTube.

*** This review may contain spoilers ***This obscure Roger Corman film from 1957 is perhaps one of his best films despite that fact that many he has made are just terrible.The film is about an alien named Paul Johnson who comes for the planet Davanan. He is on Earth to drain blood from humans because radiation from a protracted nuclear war is causing his races blood to deteriorate. In some way he is a space vampire(not one that sparkles). Instead of using a flying saucer to come here, he comes using a matter transporter device, similar to the one used in Star Trek a couple years later. Another thing that interesting is that even though he comes from an advance alien race he is not very familiar to the way of Earth, like trying to drive for about Earth diseases. So I like this movie despite it being a Corman film. So I say give it a watch. But not the remakes.

I judge Corman movies by a different set of standards than I would a bigger budget effort such as "This Island Earth" or "The Day The Earth Stood Still" or even "Earth Vs The Flying Saucers". That's because this obviously sketchy 10-day wonder still has lots of rough edges and some of the seams are still leaking sawdust...but manages to entertain and amuse almost as well as those class "A" efforts.As usual, the screenplay has a derivative but somewhat intriguing premise: a space vampire with a basilisk stare scouts for a fresh blood supply for his home planet and kills, oh, a bunch of people to keep himself going and to send samples back to his home planet. Not the stuff of Oscar winners, but enough to drive a perfectly watchable science fiction movie.The cast is pretty good (in a "B" movie way), and they work really hard to make the ludicrous and stiff dialog work. Beverly Garland is always fun to watch (even in her early movies, she still has a lot of verve and moxie) and Paul Birch is perfectly cast for the part of the alien. He was born to wear wrap around sunglasses and act stiff and grumpy and vaguely menacing. (I've read that he hated working with Corman in this movie and actually quit before it was finished, making it necessary to use a stand-in double for some of the chase scenes.) On the other hand...the "police department" is two people (except for a spear carrier who shows up on screen and is killed inside of 2 minutes), the "hospital" is obviously a sound stage with 2 doors, the "monster" is a tentacled umbrella/catcher's mitt thing, the plot makes no real sense (one scene with Dick Miller is obviously there strictly for laughs) and the action scenes looks as if they were shot in 10 minutes with a hand-held 8 millimeter.Joe Queenan once made a movie (to prove it could be done by anyone), and he said at one point when it was near completion, it was a "movie" in the same sense that a hand typed manuscript with a crayon drawing of an Axe-murderer on the front was a "suspense novel". Well, that's what always comes to mind when I'm watching a Corman movie - the elements are there, but the polish and finish of a "real" movie are never put over the nuts and bolts to make it look like something you'd admire.Still, they kept things moving and there was even a bit of thought and sympathy at the end.