Cem Lamb This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Skyler Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

GusF Terence Fisher, one of my favourite directors, handles the film with his usual level of style and flair and it has some very impressive visuals. In spite of its low budget, it looks great. His deft sense of casting is on display particularly as regards Christopher Lee (who, as always, makes a great leading man), Peter Cushing, Jane Merrow, Patrick Allen, his real life wife Sarah Lawson, Thomas Heathcote and William Lucas, almost all of whom also appeared in one of Fisher's many great Hammer films.What lets the film down is the pedestrian script - it's hard to take a film seriously when it has lines like "She's a slut and I wanted her body!" - and the dull love triangle between the Callums and Angela, which is admittedly well acted by Allen, Lawson and Merrow. I hope that his affair wasn't a reflection on Allen and Lawson's actual marriage! Cushing, who is credited as a "guest star," is as great as ever, particularly in his one major scene with his frequent on screen nemesis Lee, but it's really nothing more than an extended cameo. It more or less falls apart in its second half. There was a great sense of atmosphere and tension that disappears as soon as the alien threat was brought up. It has some nice ideas but it's one of those sci-fi stories that it is much more interesting before you know what is going on. It feels like an overlong episode of "The Outer Limits" at times.Overall, it's a decent, watchable film but not a great one. Bar some of the visuals, it's not terribly memorable. Still, it was nice to watch one of Fisher's non-Hammer films for the first time. This was his final non-Hammer film, incidentally.

vancleef1980 Despite having a title that makes it sound like a soft core porno film Night of the Big heat is a major disappointment. Fisher not quite the director genius he is now made out to be shows that sci-fi was definitely not his sort of thing. Christopher Lee gives yet another shouty and stiff performance typical of this particular period. Just before The Devil Rides Out and just after Rasputin the Mad Monk he barely gave a decent performance, from the lamentable Fu Manchu films, through euro tripe such as Theatre of Death and Circus of Blood and finally this, it was probably his worst period in his long 60 going on for 70 year career. Many would say the part of Hanson is underwritten and Lee can do very little with it, but look at similar underwritten and poor roles Peter Cushing and Vincent Price were given during their career and they always gave it their best shot, so its no excuse really. Cushing's scenes are limited but he does the best with his small role, even refusing to remove his jacket so he looked different from Lee and Patrick Allen. The real star of this film comes in the shapely form of the sultry Jane Merrow, she simply sparkles with wanton sexuality in this film, pity she never became a bigger star she had what it took for sure.

Theo Robertson This is a fondly remembered sci-fi horror film that appeared regularly on British network TV in the 1980s . It wasn't the first adaptation of John Lymington's novel and was first made as an ITV teleplay in 1960 which has long been forgotten . One can't help believing that ITV produced the adaptation as opposition to the BBC's QUATERMASS serials and on the surface there is something of a QUATERMASS vibe to NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT . There is a major stylistic difference from the works of Nigel Kneale and this film and that is Nigel Kneale is an astonishingly clever and subtle writer where as NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT while being enjoyable as entertainment is incredibly dumb The major problem with the horror genre - and the reason it's held in low regard by critics - is that in order for the plot to progress logic and continuity must be ignored totally . Think for example how many times you watch a vampire movie the heroes wait until after sun set before deciding to enter the vampire's lair to kill the bad guy . Here we see a similar type of stupidity . Suppose you were being menaced by an alien creature that moves at a speed of a snail what would you do ? Run away or stand around waiting to be burned to death or barricade yourself in to a stone shed/cave with no means to escape and wait to be killed ? Guess what the characters in this film do ? Having never read the original source novel I looked up wikipedia to find that in Lymington's book the alien monsters are giant carnivorous spiders which would make for effective and dangerous monsters than the ones seen here which resemble giant fried eggs yolks . It should be remembered that in 1967 there was no way a film company could make convincing giant spiders on screen but even so the aliens do look totally ridiculous when they finally appear at the end of the movie . And again the lack of internal logic and continuity means they remain unseen by everyone except their victims and manage to appear in a room with closed doors and disappear without being spotted after they've killed someone in said room with closed doors . The solution to the alien invasion is also a major cop out That said it's certainly an enjoyable film for an unquestioning unthinking audience . I certainly have a soft spot for this type of dumb SF horror movie which the British film industry sometimes produces . It's not a Hammer production but has Peter Cushing playing an affable gentleman and Chritopher Lee as an abrasive scientist and features familiar British actors seen in film and television from the period

fedor8 Also known as "Island of the Burning Doomed", "Island of the Burning Damned", and "Will My Ex-Mistress Ruin My Marriage Just Hours Before Aliens Kill Me?" In the first half of NOTBG one wonders whether the love triangle is the sub-plot in an alien-invasion flick or whether the aliens are a sub-plot in a romantic drama. Nevertheless, I actually enjoyed the first half, more so than the second half, with its finale that was a bit too run-of-the-mill B-movie stuff for my taste.NOTBG has a by-the-numbers plot, resembling dozens of similar, low-budget sci-fi invasion movies. However, the cast is excellent, and there is that late 60s feel to the movie that elevates it above a lot of similar crap that was made much later, such as Spielberg's flashy but moronic "War of the Worlds".Predictably, it was going to be something totally banal that kills the aliens in the end, hence prevents an invasion (unless the outer-space blobs are masochists), either water, fire, air or something that basic. This time it was water; rain, to be precise. The last scene has the married couple hugging and jubilating, which I guess also means their marriage is saved – along with all of mankind. Even the hero's mentally-unstable ex-mistress is hinted to have ended up happily, rejoicing with one of the islanders. Perhaps there's a future for the two? She may not cook and clean, but she's a helluva woman in a swimming costume, and very passionate regardless of whether there are aliens about to heat up the temperature.