Freddie Francis, who gave us Day of the Triffids and The Deadly Bees, among others, presents They Came From Beyond Space. Mr. Francis, who seems to have been Great Britain's answer to Roger Corman, obviously tried hard to make intelligent, compelling sci-fi movies, but was apparently restrained by tight schedules (and budgets).
This movie (based on a novel called "The Gods Hate Kansas"[???])is about a group of hyper-intelligent aliens who take over the minds of a group of brilliant scientists so they can enslave humans and build a spacecraft to allow the aliens to leave the moon, where they've been stranded, and return to their own planet. And the goofiness only begins there. There are many unintentionally funny moments in the movie (maybe not completely unintentional - it's hard to tell), such as the scene where the Main Scientist Guy discovers that the meteors that have landed in a Cornish farmer's field have come from the moon. The diagram that's apparently supposed to prove this is an ink drawing on a restaurant place mat with a large circle (maybe traced from a coffee cup bearing the bold legend "MOON".
Wow, I'm convinced!
There are many other funny scenes, but I don't want to reveal them for fear of spoiling the movie for our readers.
And spoilers they would be, for this movie, as goofy as it is (sometimes even looking like an old episode of Batman with Adam West) is actually very good. It is well written, the dialog is generally above average, the acting is good, and there is some genuine suspense. It's also refreshing to see a Pakistani actor cast in a prominent role, not as the Main Scientist Guy, but as the Auxiliary Scientist Guy, a brilliant man in his own right who assists Our Hero.
In short, this movie is worth seeing. You'll laugh, you'll be thrilled, etc. etc., etc. Best of all, you can probably get it on DVD for less than $10.
This movie (based on a novel called "The Gods Hate Kansas"[???])is about a group of hyper-intelligent aliens who take over the minds of a group of brilliant scientists so they can enslave humans and build a spacecraft to allow the aliens to leave the moon, where they've been stranded, and return to their own planet. And the goofiness only begins there. There are many unintentionally funny moments in the movie (maybe not completely unintentional - it's hard to tell), such as the scene where the Main Scientist Guy discovers that the meteors that have landed in a Cornish farmer's field have come from the moon. The diagram that's apparently supposed to prove this is an ink drawing on a restaurant place mat with a large circle (maybe traced from a coffee cup bearing the bold legend "MOON".
Wow, I'm convinced!
There are many other funny scenes, but I don't want to reveal them for fear of spoiling the movie for our readers.
And spoilers they would be, for this movie, as goofy as it is (sometimes even looking like an old episode of Batman with Adam West) is actually very good. It is well written, the dialog is generally above average, the acting is good, and there is some genuine suspense. It's also refreshing to see a Pakistani actor cast in a prominent role, not as the Main Scientist Guy, but as the Auxiliary Scientist Guy, a brilliant man in his own right who assists Our Hero.
In short, this movie is worth seeing. You'll laugh, you'll be thrilled, etc. etc., etc. Best of all, you can probably get it on DVD for less than $10.