It! The Terror from Beyond Space [Blu-ray]

Director: Edward L. Cahn Edward L. Cahn

Overview

One of the best of the medium-budgeted science fiction flicks of the 1950s, It! The Terror from Beyond Space is set in "the future" (1973, to be exact). An rescue ship travels out to Mars to retrieve the only survivor of a space probe that has experienced some sort of cataclysm. That survivor, Col Ed Carruthers (Marshall Thompson) is accused of murdering his fellow crewmen. But Ed claims that the killer was a Martian monster, and hopes to prove his assertions by signing up for a second journey to the Red Planet. Before long, the crew members of this second expedition are being systematically killed off, and it looks as though Ed is up to his old tricks. As it turns out, however, Ed was telling the truth: there is a monster on board, the savage descendant of the once-mighty Martian civilization, who snuck on board when an irresponsible crew member left the door open. The monster stays alive by absorbing the vital body fluids of its victims-and there seems to be no way to stop this parasitic creature! If the plot of It! The Terror from Beyond Space seems vaguely familiar, it is because it was one of the primary inspirations for the 1979 sci-fi classic Alien.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/19/2015
UPC:	0887090099400
Original Release:	1958
Rating:	NR
Source:	Olive
Presentation:	[B&W]
Language:	English
Time:	1:09:00
Sales rank:	13,315

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Marshall Thompson	Carruthers
Shawn Smith	Ann Anderson
Kim Spalding	Van Heusen
Ann Doran	Mary Royce
Dabbs Greer	Eric Royce
Paul Langton	Calder
Robert Bice	Purdue
Richard Benedict	Bob Finelli
Richard Hervey	Gino Finelli
Thom Carney	Kienholz
Ray Corrigan	`It',"It"
Shirley Patterson	Actor
Paul Sawtell	Composer
Bert Shefter	Composer

Technical Credits

Jerome Bixby

Edward L. Cahn	Director
Jerome Bixby	Screenwriter
Robert E. Kent	Producer,Producer

Editorial Reviews

The monster in It! The Terror From Beyond Space was actually former serial king Ray "Crash" Corrigan in his well-worn gorilla suit, slightly altered for the occasion by famed monster maker Paul Blaisdell. And therein lies the rub. We see all too much of It!, to the point, in fact, where a zipper is clearly visible in one shot. By the end of the film, It! is less scary than ludicrous, never mind the good performances from the rest of the small cast. Not that the much-vaunted remake Alien (1979) did all that much better with a larger budget and supposedly more sophisticated special effects. A hand puppet, after all, is still a hand puppet. It!, in contrast, relied on a spaceship typical of the 1950s, a straightforward vessel with a straightforward crew performing in typical Jack Webb "just the facts, ma'am" style. Marshall Thompson, formerly of MGM, makes a stalwart hero, and Shawn Smith, formerly Shirley Patterson, a pleasant enough heroine. But where Sigourney Weaver's Ripley in Alien is decidedly a child of equality between the sexes, the otherwise competent female scientists in It! are compelled to serve coffee for their male colleagues.