First Man Into Space

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Audience Member This film is was scary for all the wrong reasons. The story honestly felt all over the place, and the acting was so poor it felt like no one was happy to be making this movie. This movie is only worth watching for the monster. That scene where he is talking about what it was like to be reduced to some meteorite monster, was just so sad. I don’t know why but that who sequence was just captivating and was the only part of the film I might actually remember. I also really liked the primitive special effects for him free falling back to earth, they were bad but impressive. Terrible B movie from MGM, and I’m shocked this was restored by Criterion. 1/5 stars. Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 07/13/24 Full Review Audience Member Pretty standard B-Movie fare fueled by space-race paranoia. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/22/23 Full Review Audience Member Good ideas in a low-budget film--Almost Bearable Baloney!! Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/22/23 Full Review Audience Member I saw this film by accident when I was 8 years old. It was part of a double bill with Disney's "Darby O'Gill and the Little People." Clearly, somebody in "scheduling" goofed, thinking "Darby," with its animated banshee sequence, somehow constituted a horror film, and therefore "First Man" was an appropriate accompanying feature. The result was a theater full of small children frightened into hysteria by the blood-drinking space mutant that returns from space after the first manned flight goes awry. I was so terrified by that mutated monster that I could not sleep, would not go into a darkened room alone, and overall suffered a Grade A childhood trauma that lasted for weeks. So from the perspective of a wide-eyed, suburban eight-year-old, this movie was highly successful. It was Scary! On the other hand, by the time I saw the film again decades later on VHS, it had somehow lost its ability to instill terror. In fact, it seemed downright cheesy, embarrassingly so. How could this B movie with sophomoric special effects have seemed so frightening back in 1959? This remains one of the great mysteries of my life. I guess I can chalk it up as one of those "you had to be there" things. Objectively, from a grownup perspective, this movie is pretty darned bad. But since it scared the bejibbers out of me at age eight, I figure those film makers must have done *something* right. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/18/23 Full Review Audience Member Criterion got the rights to this low budget (and I mean ultra low budget) genre flick about an astronaut who turns monsterous after a space flight. Too bad the monster effects are laughable, most of the movie is them talking about the aftermath of attacks, and the climax is about as strong as a wet hot dog bun. I award this film no points, and may God have mercy on your soul, Criterion. Rated 0.5/5 Stars •  Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 02/05/23 Full Review Audience Member Dated sci-fi flick about the first man who goes to space only to come back to earth as a blood thirsty mutant. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/13/23 Full Review Read all reviews

First Man Into Space

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