Audience Member
Slow moving and long winded w/super-low-budget monster. Hang up!
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
01/17/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Slightly inept and not thought through 60s Brit chiller whichis nevertheless enjoyable, brutal (for a 60s movie) in places and featuring a wonderful cast of British stalwarts. Without the one sci-fi connection it could be a standard pervy murderer thriller. Filmed in glorious monochrome.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/15/23
Full Review
Audience Member
THE MUMMY'S SHROUD director John Gilling made the black and white, science-fiction/horror chiller THE NIGHT CALLER FROM OUTER SPACE about a lone alien who invades Earth on a mission to recruit women to help rejuvenate its doomed population on a moon near Jupiter. This interesting epic displays enough subtlety to win it points. Scenarist Jim O'Connolly of HORROR ON SNAPE ISLANDâ adapted the Frank Crisp novel and keeps things pretty straightforward. The only radical departure from the norm is a huge claw of a hand that is metaphorically used to suggest the hideous quality of the elusive extra-terrestrial. The surprise ending is what sets this tale of terror aside. Clearly, Gilling and Oâ(TM)Connolly played down the more sensational aspects to make this plot tolerable to non-sci-fi audiences.
Scientists Jack Costain, Ann Barlow, and Professor Morley monitor what they initially believe is a meteor traveling at 10-thousand MPH until it penetrates the Earthâ(TM)s atmosphere and lands outside London. The military are waiting for them at the landing site of the UFO when they arrive to investigate. They find what appears to be a harmless 6-inch sphere. Professor Morley (Maurice Denham of COUNTESS DRACULA) and company have the army transport the sphere to their Falsley Park, Government Radio & Electronic Research Establishment laboratory . The Major (Jack Carson of DOOMSDAY) deploys his men around the laboratory. After Professor Morley and Dr. Costain (John Saxon of PLANET EARTH) leave for the evening, Ann (Patricia Haines of VIRGIN WITCH) sticks around to transcribe notes but notices that the room housing the sphere is glowing. Indeed, the sphere in it is what is glowing. She approaches the door and is shocked when a huge scaly-clawed hand appears. Not surprisingly, the Major refuses to believe that a monster could have scared Ann. Costain opens the window to the room and spots a suspicious looking track. Even after an impression is made of the foot-print, the Major remains doubtful and chalks it up to a practical joke played by his men on the Ms. Barlow. Meanwhile, Morley suggests that the sphere acts as a receiver for the transmission of matter from another planet. When he tries to observe this phenomenon, he dies. The sphere vanishes and the Major tries to stop the automobile barreling out of the complex. He fires several shots at the car but is struck and dies.
THE NIGHT CALLER FROM OUTER SPACE lurches off into a new dimension with news that some twenty-one young women have disappeared without a trace. Costain approaches the newspapers with his outrageous story about a space creature, much to the chagrin of the Scotland Yard. Initially, they suspect that Costain is trying to drum up publicity for himself. Superintendent Hartley of Scotland Yard (Alfred Burke of HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS) discovers that the girls responded to a classified advertisement in a magazine called Bikini Girl. They contacted a tall, mysterious figure named Medra at a Soho bookshop. Ann decides to offer herself as a guinea pig against Costainâ(TM)s protests. The sordid bookseller Thorburn (Aubrey Morris of âA CLOCKWORK ORANGE) fronting from the beast is murdered before Ann enters his shop. When Ann confronts the being, it wastes no time and murders her moments before Costain and Hartley burst in followed by a squad of policemen. The alien literally interpreted the fear that it saw in Ann and realized that she had not come to him with any intention of fulfilling the advertisement.
Hartley has a stroke of luck when a woman tells him about her encounter with Medra. She explains that Medra behaved in a nice manner when he interviewed her and she felt no fear in his presence. Scotland Yard stakes out her apartment. The alien pulls up in the car that it used to escape from the research laboratory and Scotland Yard chases it to a remote urban location where the monster--a tall fellow who appears to be half-human and half-beast reveals that it came--as the scientists suspected--from Jupiter's third moon, Ganymede. Basically, it He put in plain words that he arrived on Earth to assemble women for genetic experiments to help Ganymede's population, a mutant race of mutants that survived atomic warfare long ago. As our heroes watch, the tall, mysterious thing leaves Earth in the sphere and heads home to Ganymede.
THE NIGHT CALLER FROM OUTER SPACE qualifies as intriguing. Not even the audacious looking claw that looks straight out of a really bad monster movie makes the film look phony. The performances by a largely British cast with American character actor John Saxon contribute to an air of credibility that bolsters the suspense and tension in this 85 minute thriller. The most interesting and offbeat character is the sleazy, low-life magazine dealer that Audrey Morris plays with obvious gay tendencies. The plot about aliens abducting women to procreate with them seems a bit outlandish. However, in 1965, this plot had not been done to death as it would later be. Nevertheless, the ending with the alien getting away with its crimes makes this an atmospheric and above-average sci-fi film.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
01/17/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Intelligent but talky, with one of those so-bad-it's-good theme songs.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/27/23
Full Review
Audience Member
This is a hilarious satirical send-up of low budget British sci-fi movies...many critics don't "get it," take it seriously, and down-rate it. Parts of this movie are as funny as the best stuff by Woody Allen or Marshall Brickman...John Saxon plays it deadpan straight, but it's a hoot.
George M. Ewing, Active Member, SFWA
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
01/18/23
Full Review
Audience Member
An enjoyable little British sci-fi thriller, that plays a bit like a crime drama, but is interjected with some quite creepily shot and surprisingly graphic horror moments and a sci-fi concept, 'Ganymede needs women!' more reminiscent of the 1950s. Maurice Denham and John Saxon are scientists trying to track down Smith/Medra before he kidnaps all of London's pretty girls. Warren Mitchell and Marianne Stone have an amusing scene as worried parents and Ballard Berkeley,John Carson, Jack Watson and Aubrey Morris also appear. Medra's voice is a highlight, sounding somewhat like John Van Eyssen.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/24/23
Full Review
Read all reviews
Continue with Google
>
