Nonureva Really Surprised!

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

DPMay This film was a British attempt to get into the 1950s craze of "giant monster" sci-fi thriller movies, and ends up being a bizarre hybrid of "The Day The Earth Stood Still", "Tarantula" and "Plan 9 From Outer Space". Unfortunately, this film takes far too long to get to the point and an opening 45 minutes of tedious talk and precious little action is likely to make viewers give up on it. A film can easily get away with being short on action if there are other elements in place to maintain the viewer's interest, but this one is horribly lacking, with the most lacklustre dialogue and direction, ham-fisted plotting and truly dreadful, one-dimensional characterisations. The romance between Forrest Tucker's 'hero' (who actually doesn't do very much throughout the film) and Gaby André's token female scientist who is brought in to assist him (with some overtly sexist reactions, even by the standards of the time) is forced through with no natural or credible development. Some characters are completely superfluous and others could do with more screen time to flesh them out. For instance some of the female characters appear to be included just so that they can put under threat, but the sense of menace against them is considerably diluted in every case when the viewer has had no time to warm to the character in the first place.A sense of menace is ill-served by the direction also. Dramatic events just happen without any build-up of suspense, such as when the woman is attacked at the bus-stop: we don't see her being watched, we don't see mysterious feet creeping towards her, we don't see her growing sense of unease as she begins to feel that something is wrong... And then when she is set upon, she's saved almost instantaneously (by a man arriving in a car who has somehow weighed the whole situation up before he's even close enough to see what is happening). The shots in scenes where characters are interacting are, almost without exception, composed with very little imagination, and too often actors are static, standing there with their bodies facing the camera straight on with both arms hanging straight down by their sides as though they have been placed there like mannequins.The plot lacks proper thrust and although there's a lot of debate about the merits of the scientific experiments going on at the research centre, in the first half of the film there's no foreshadowing of the startling effects they will have on wildlife, with the only things to worry about seeming to be that they make strips of metal become flexible, briefcases fly across rooms and television sets in the local pub explode. Resultingly the viewer is left wondering where the film is possibly heading, but not in the sense that one is compelled to see what happens next.Of course what ultimately happens is that the experiments cause the area to be exposed to cosmic rays, which naturally enough cause all of the insects to grow to giant proportions... Not just doubled in size or anything, but conveniently large enough to be bigger than humans. At least at that point the film becomes more interesting, albeit rather nonsensical. At times the effects of the magnetic field generated by the laboratory are described as covering 80 miles, and yet the threat from the cosmic rays appear to be neatly confined to just a small area of woodland and this is where the giant insects appear, causing no damage to the vegetation yet vigorously pursuing any woman they see. André foolishly gets herself tangled up in the web of a giant spider, but luckily Tucker, being a macho man, can simply tear it off her to set her free. And then a lot of soldiers turn up and start shooting at the insects. This film, wisely perhaps given some unconvincing equivalents such as those in "The Monster From Green Hell", opts to use footage of real insects in extreme close up to achieve the illusion of its giant mutants, images which must have been unsettlingly effective when seen on the big screen. They move quickly and naturally, avoiding all the pitfalls of lumbering props, but regrettably the integration of these cutaway shots is seldom satisfactory as the different lighting levels and frequent view of soldiers shooting at something off-screen highlight that these are just film inserts rather than give any sense that the insects are really present in the same scene. To be fair, though, there is an unexpectedly graphic shot of a dead soldier having his face chewed away by one of the bugs.Martin Benson plays "Smith", the requisite alien visitor concerned about man's tampering with forces he does not fully understand, and delivers a pleasing performance of calm assurance given the constraints. Too much about Smith's involvement with events seems fortuitous, and it is his character who delivers most of the solutions which perhaps doesn't say much for mankind's chances. His eventual departure in his flying saucer is the final act of cheapness in this film, as we neither see him entering his craft nor see it taking off, instead only getting a glimpse of a rather hilarious cutaway shot of the other characters raising their heads as though they are watching the ascent of a spacecraft.I did like the twist about the real identity of the titular Planet X, but there's precious little to like overall in this piece. Its final third is a bit of silly but escapist hokum, but the opening two-thirds are utterly dull, and there's no harsher judgement to place on a film than it being dull!

ctomvelu1 Of all the giant insects flicks of the 1950s, this is probably the worst. But as a low-budget sci-fi flick with a modest mystery, it's not so bad. First, the good news: Forrest Tucker and others are conducting magnetic experiments, which leads to a problem: the experiments allow cosmic rays to bombard the land, resulting in giant insects, reptiles and spiders. And they're all very hungry. A strange individual (Michael Benson) shows up to help. He's from another planet, naturally. Now for the bad news: the giant insects and reptiles and whatnot are simply regular creepy crawlies poorly enlarged through the camera lens. The one exception is a spider that tries to eat the obligatory helpless heroine (Gaby Andre). There's a bit of gore, but not enough to keep the kiddies away. Tucker is solid, as always, and Benson is oddly believable as the friendly alien. It has been suggested his performance was based on Michael Rennie's alien visitor in "The Day The Earth Stood Still."

classicsoncall I caught this early today on Turner Classics as "The Cosmic Monsters" and hung around for the next feature, "Queen of Outer Space". On a relative basis, the Zsa Zsa flick is better, but seriously, that's not saying a whole lot. However this one has all the great and goofy pseudo-science I love to hear in sci-fi and horror flicks of the era, like Dr. Laird's (Alec Mango) method of altering the molecular structure of metals and alloys by experimenting with magnetic fields. The spin-off here is that his experiments create a hole in the ionosphere, thereby allowing dangerous cosmic rays to penetrate Earth's atmosphere and mutate living things. Guess what - they look just like giant size close-ups of crickets, frogs, and assorted insects! They even threw a lizard into one scene that actually looked fairly normal size, not at all like the creature in 1959's "The Giant Gila Monster".As predictable as the whole thing was, the film suffered somewhat from abrupt scene changes that distracted from the flow of the story. Like the creepy old guy in the woods who popped up every now and then. I guess the picture was setting us up for his eventual exposure to the cosmic rays, but then why didn't they affect any other humans? Just wondering.The picture offers a character similar to that of Michael Rennie's Klaatu from 1951's "The Day the Earth Stood Still", that of Smith (Martin Benson) who carries a warning from outer space to the inhabitants of Earth who are unknowingly posing a threat to the universe by virtue of Laird's experiments. The comparison ends pretty much right there however, with Smith allowed to signal his outer space fleet to wipe out the professor's scientific gizmo along with his cabin. I guess these aliens weren't bothered by things like a Prime Directive. It really didn't bother me either.

screenman Well, it's all a bit strange. Here's an old British low-budget (wheren't they all?) science-fiction thriller, and all the commentators are American.That won't do.I saw this little treasure as a kid at the local flea-pit. It had an A-rating, meaning that a child could see it if accompanied by an adult. I think it perhaps should have been an X-rating. It certainly scared the pants off me.In Britain, it was actually screened as simply 'The Strange World'. The 'Planet X' bit was omitted until it appeared on television some years later.Stray radiation has been up to no good (ain't it always the case). We are warned by some know-it-all that it will have the effect of 'making things smaller. Or very much bigger'. Oh-dear. The worst effects appear to be concentrated around a little corner of England called 'Brierley Wood'. Some things seem to have got bigger big-time. We're talking insects here. There are no giant bunnies or anything else monster-cute. Unpleasant deaths begin happening to solitary people, especially after dark. 'It isn't very good in the deep, dark wood, in the middle of the night, when there isn't any light' - Enid Blyton. This is no time for nocturnal mushroom pickers. We humans are helped by a friendly alien who has turned up to warn us about our meddling - alas, too late. Well, almost.Eventually a company of soldiers are dispatched to sweep the wood and a battle takes place between over-grown bugs and the army, a bit like the earlier movie 'Them'. Humans come out on top, but there are some grisly killings.Evidently made with a budget about equal to today's family shopping-bill, special-effects are almost non-existent. Ordinary insects are filmed in huge Attenborough-like close-up. But the plot is well paced, there is some decent acting, and an adequate script. Skillful lighting and location create suitably spooky ambiance.We made a few nice little black-and-white scarers back in the good old days. Fans should check-out the original and best 'Village Of The Damned', based on John Wyndam's 'Midwich Cuckoos'.