Oh boy, it's another presidential election year! Time to rip the scabs off old wounds, pick up the torches and pitch forks, and get worked up over all those great hot button issues like abortion, Planned Parenthood, gay marriage, government support for contraception, illegal immigration -- you name it. There's nothing quite so exhilarating as marching off to a glorious culture war. Unless the war is on an interplanetary scale, and the entire earth, and life (and culture) as we know it is at stake. Then that's just scary.
Which brings me to the subject of this post, Night of the Blood Beast. Although it was made well over 50 years ago, Blood Beast raises a number of timeless and controversial issues that would have contemporary politicians shouting at each other until doomsday:
- Is manned space flight worth the risks?
- Should outer space aliens born in this country automatically be granted citizenship?
- Is it permissible to abort space alien fetuses? What about "aborting" them with Molotov cocktails and a flare gun?
- If the minds of a monster alien and a human being were to somehow be "married" via a mysterious telepathic-organic link, can states officially recognize that marriage?
- In addition to a border fence, do we need a shield around the whole planet to keep out illegal aliens from outer space?
The X-100 is ready for takeoff. |
At this point, things quickly get hot, heavy and horrific for the recovery crew. Blood Beast packs a lot into its very short running time (62 minutes): the base is cut off from all communications by a mysterious magnetic field; Doc Wyman is killed by some shadowy thing as big as a bear; Maj. Corcoran miraculously comes back to life with a mystery wound at the base of his neck and an even more mysterious mental connection with the dead Doc Wyman (see the clip below); and most incredibly, the crew discovers that Corcoran has somehow been "impregnated" with alien embryos!! The valiant astronaut has become an unwilling pawn in an alien civilization's plan to impose their own form of "family values" on humankind, and the small band of government employees is the only thing standing in the way of total assimilation.
This expectant "mother" better have good medical insurance! |
The box art for one of Blood Beast's video releases touts it as "Classic Roger Corman." Although Roger is credited as an executive producer, the Blood Beast is really brother Gene Corman's baby (Gene both produced and contributed the story). According to Bill Warren (Keep Watching the Skies! McFarland, 1986), Gene turned over scripting duties to Martin Varno, son of actor Roland Varno, who came up with a script in record time. The Cormans demanded so many changes that Varno asked for more money. When they turned him down, Varno took his grievances to the Writers Guild of America. Cheap to the bitter end, Gene and Roger held off paying Varno until the deadline was up.
Ed Nelson is the most familiar face in Blood Beast. Ed was a fixture on TV for decades, starring in the 1960s series Peyton Place, and guesting on seemingly every crime, western and sci-fi show produced between 1960 and the mid-1990s. The same year as Blood Beast, Ed was involved in producing another bottom-of-the-budget-barrel sci-fi classic, The Brain Eaters (1958).
The Blood Beast grapples with the carrier of his babies. |
If it weren't for its talky, derivative script and pathetic monster, Night of the Blood Beast might be widely regarded as one of the better low-budget SF thrillers of the period. It's well-acted by a small cast, tightly edited and efficiently directed by Bernard Kowalski. Though just a little cheapie, there are several good things about it, and one element of the story is unique in films up to 1958. One of the men in the cast essentially becomes pregnant. In one of the great, sick shocks of American International Pictures, we even see the embryos pulsing away in his chest. (Ibid.)If you're ready for some vintage "sick shocks," Night of the Blood Beast is available on a couple of eminently affordable DVD editions/collections, and Mystery Science Theater 3000's version can be streamed from Netflix and Amazon Instant Video.
After being "dead" for several hours, astronaut John Corcoran (Mike Emmet) wakes up with a huge hangover, and another man's thoughts swirling around in his head:
When I first saw this film in the late 80's, I was jokingly convinced that it was proof that time travel existed. It always seemed to me that the hairstyle worn by the character of Donna just DID NOT fit with other women's hairstyles of the late 1950's and that the actress was actually from sometime after the late 70's.
ReplyDeleteAnother uncanny look into the future from the black and white world of 1958! Donna does indeed look like a bargain basement-version of Olivia Newton John who's suddenly been teleported into a '50s B movie. The only thing missing is the leg warmers.
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