(Review originally written at 13 March 2007)
Yes, this is your typical science-fiction Z-movie from the '50's, with all the usual and typical genre defining elements present in it.
Lots of use of army stock footage, weird looking aliens, absurd special effects, a non-existing/no sense making story, giants insects and of course an alien plot to take over the world. Can the movie be more typical? It really is a movie that is so ridiculously bad that you have to love it.
The alien plots to take over the world never seize to surprise me. This time aliens with giant bulging eyeballs (but further more they look and talk like normal humans) try to take over the Earth. Strangely enough the aliens tell every little detail (with also the use of an home-video from their planet and and plans, that conveniently also has some editing tricks in it such as fade-overs! Oh, the great and advanced alien technology!) why they want to take over the Earth and even hint at how they can be stopped. They're obviously an advanced and smart species but yet the best they can come up with to take over the Earth is with the use of giant tarantulas, lizards, crickets and other friendly looking animals.
Those animals really form the weirdest part of the movie, in which our 'hero' runs through some underground tunnels and runs into those large looking animals, that too obviously look like ultra-enlarged footage, with some hilariously bad 'monster' sounds put over it. The animals don't do anything at all, they're just sitting there but yet it is presented in the movie as some big dangerous moments, in which our 'hero' makes a narrow and hazardous escape. The scene goes on for far too long, it's too silly looking, it serves no purpose and it makes the movie as a whole even sillier and bad looking. It is what they in movie terms call a big WT# moment.
To be honest the movie really didn't began all that bad. Not that it showed much potential to begin with but at least the story seemed good and mysterious. However the more the movie starts to explain, the sillier it gets. And I mean really silly, as in bad silly. The movie gets totally unlikely and the plot starts to make really little sense after a while. Also of course the clumsy ending doesn't help the movie much.
It also is a really poor directed one, with bad shot sequences. Of course the movie most definitely also isn't helped with its special effects. You know, it's the sort of movie for which they used small plastic miniatures for the planes and archive footage for the action sequences.
Peter Graves, in a role before his "Mission:Impossible" series fame, holds up pretty well in his role, despite having to deliver some horrible cheesy and laughable dialog. He really seemed to believe in the movie and what he was doing. All of the other actors seem like they were being picked of the street.
Definitely recommendable for the lover of Z-science fiction movies from the '50's. Everyone else can obviously just better skip it for the obvious reasons.
2/10
Watch trailer
Yes, this is your typical science-fiction Z-movie from the '50's, with all the usual and typical genre defining elements present in it.
Lots of use of army stock footage, weird looking aliens, absurd special effects, a non-existing/no sense making story, giants insects and of course an alien plot to take over the world. Can the movie be more typical? It really is a movie that is so ridiculously bad that you have to love it.
The alien plots to take over the world never seize to surprise me. This time aliens with giant bulging eyeballs (but further more they look and talk like normal humans) try to take over the Earth. Strangely enough the aliens tell every little detail (with also the use of an home-video from their planet and and plans, that conveniently also has some editing tricks in it such as fade-overs! Oh, the great and advanced alien technology!) why they want to take over the Earth and even hint at how they can be stopped. They're obviously an advanced and smart species but yet the best they can come up with to take over the Earth is with the use of giant tarantulas, lizards, crickets and other friendly looking animals.
Those animals really form the weirdest part of the movie, in which our 'hero' runs through some underground tunnels and runs into those large looking animals, that too obviously look like ultra-enlarged footage, with some hilariously bad 'monster' sounds put over it. The animals don't do anything at all, they're just sitting there but yet it is presented in the movie as some big dangerous moments, in which our 'hero' makes a narrow and hazardous escape. The scene goes on for far too long, it's too silly looking, it serves no purpose and it makes the movie as a whole even sillier and bad looking. It is what they in movie terms call a big WT# moment.
To be honest the movie really didn't began all that bad. Not that it showed much potential to begin with but at least the story seemed good and mysterious. However the more the movie starts to explain, the sillier it gets. And I mean really silly, as in bad silly. The movie gets totally unlikely and the plot starts to make really little sense after a while. Also of course the clumsy ending doesn't help the movie much.
It also is a really poor directed one, with bad shot sequences. Of course the movie most definitely also isn't helped with its special effects. You know, it's the sort of movie for which they used small plastic miniatures for the planes and archive footage for the action sequences.
Peter Graves, in a role before his "Mission:Impossible" series fame, holds up pretty well in his role, despite having to deliver some horrible cheesy and laughable dialog. He really seemed to believe in the movie and what he was doing. All of the other actors seem like they were being picked of the street.
Definitely recommendable for the lover of Z-science fiction movies from the '50's. Everyone else can obviously just better skip it for the obvious reasons.
2/10
Watch trailer
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