After enjoying our Whistler movie on Sunday, Steven and I arrowed down on the DVR list to It! The Terror from Beyond. It was not until we actually started watching that we discovered the full title is It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958). It is a misleading title. The terror in question is not from beyond space; it is from Mars, which is right in space (that’s not really a spoiler; we find that out early on).
This time we got to hear some commentary from Ben Mankiewicz, and I knew my instinct for cheese had not misled me.
“Campy? Yes. Cheesy special effects? Yes,” Mankiewicz says. What could be better? He goes on to praise the plot, which has been credited with inspiring Ridley Scott’s Alien. I remember being pretty scared at Alien, and a little grossed out. I also remember that I ultimately did not like that movie, because I don’t like movies where everybody dies — or everybody but one (sorry, Sigourney Weaver). I hoped everybody wouldn’t die this time out.
The movie opens with the sole survivor of a mission to Mars which came to grief. A second mission is going to pick up the survivor and bring him back to earth to face court martial charges of murdering the other eight (or is it nine?). We see a press conference where a guy announces this and all the reporters rush out of the room. I don’t know why they didn’t stay and ask any questions. For example, why would you thing such a thing?
Cut to the ship. Having picked up the prisoner, they are about to take off.
“Hey! Why is that hatch open?” The guy sees on a monitor that it is open; we don’t actually see it.
“Oh, sorry, I was dumping out some crates.”
Gee, I hope nothing got in, don’t you?
At this point I said to Steven, “Oh, I see what the plot’s going to be. The monster’s going to start killing people off and they’re going to think that guy did it.” The plot is actually nothing of the kind. Maybe it was a silly thing to think. After all, what could the guy gain by killing his rescuers/jailers? They’re on a space ship, for heavens’ sake! It’s not like a bus or car he can hijack and drive somewhere else.
Still, I think that would have made a pretty good plot, especially if at first even the audience isn’t sure there’s a monster. In fact, we see the monster right away and there is no doubt in the minds of the crew that someTHING is doing the killing. First we see the monster’s feet. Then his three-fingered, claw-like hand. Then his ugly head.
This is not as suspenseful as it sounds. I mean, we’re seeing the monster; he is not merely hinted at. Then again, the lessons of Jaws were over ten years away. I suppose, too, that guys in suits are never as scary as CGI or whatever it was they used in Alien. Still, they tried.
I bet the guy that was going to the court martial feels just a little bit glad when people start getting killed by the monster. Well, maybe not glad, exactly, but inclined to say, “I told you so!” Sometimes it takes drastic measures to fight murder charges.
There is a bit of a love triangle among one of the women, court martial guy and one of the wounded crew members. She does a lot of hand holding, and, as usual in these situations, I don’t know what she sees in either one of them.
I thought it was very progressive of them to have women on the ship. Of course, they were the medical personnel not real astronauts, but still. They were on the ship, and they did stuff other than scream and be rescued. In fact, I don’t think they did scream, be rescued or do any of the stupid movie female things I like to complain about. You go, girls!
I enjoyed the movie. Ben Mankiewicz was right: the plot is good. The one thing that cracked me up was that every so often they cut to a shot of the space ship moving through space. Like they need to remind us.
It is a long, tall ship, looking a lot like whatever number Apollo was going to the moon when I was in first grade (roughly 100 years ago). I remember at that time being amazed that most of that big ship was fuel needed for take off. In this case, it’s all ship. The interior has a kind of a town house design. Each floor is accessed from the one below via a steep stairway and a center hatch which closes very slowly. There were a couple of times I would have been jumping on that hatch trying to make it close quicker.
I probably would have broken it and then the monster would have gotten us all. Maybe leaving one survivor. Just like in those movies I don’t like.
Mohawk Valley Girl 