Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

trimbolicelia Very good mid-60's British-made sci-fi film. Scientists and the military recover a small beach-ball sized sphere that comes from "OUT THERE". Weird happenings occur at the facility where it's being examined, then the sphere disappears along with whatever came out of it. After a few weeks the cops call in the scientists because young women are disappearing under strange circumstances and it's believed that the sphere traveler is responsible. Turns out that the space creep is from Ganymede, one of Jupiter's giant moons. It seems that "Ganymede Needs Women". A long time back Ganymede had an atomic war and it is only now that the inhabitants are starting to recover. But it seems that they need fresh, pure female genes to clean up their physiology. Someone should tell them they would need clean male genes as well. We never see the Ganymedian, named Medra, until the end. He has a claw hand, one side of his face is classically handsome, the other side all messed up. Poor captive girls, having to wake up to that in the morning. I don't think these E.T.'s have learned their lesson yet. Medra is incredibly snooty, thinking his people are infinitely superior. Well they nearly wiped themselves out with nukes, so how are they better than us? Anyway Medra achieves his mission and escapes with his captive women. One of the better British sci-fi flicks, crisp black-and-white photography, and a non-camp story. The opening title song is good but doesn't seem to fit the genre. The Image Entertainment DVD is excellent quality and is the one to get, though it has very little in the way of extras. Hard to find now. Highly recommended.

zardoz-13 "The Mummy's Shroud" director John Gilling helmed this low-key,black & white, science fiction horror chiller about an alien invasion of Earth epic that displays enough subtlety to win it points. Scenarist Jim O'Connolly of "Horror on Snape Island" adapted Frank Crisp's novel. O'Connolly and Gilling win points for emphasizing subtlety in what constitutes a latter day "X-Files" outing. The only audacious departure from the norm is a huge claw of a hand that metaphorically implies the alien's savage barbarism. The surprise ending is what sets this tale of terror aside. An all British cast headed by John Saxon never let on that a monster lurks in the closet. Indeed, the restraint that all display in his above-average, 84-minute epic is admirable.Scientists Jack Costain, Ann Barlow, and Professor Morley monitor what they initially believe is a meteor traveling at 10-thousand miles-per-hour until it penetrates the Earth's atmosphere, doesn't burn up and lands outside London. The military are waiting for our protagonists at the UFO landing site when they arrive to investigate. They present their clearance passes and find what appears to be a harmless sphere about the size of a kick-ball. Professor Morley (Maurice Denham of "Countess Dracula") and company have the army transport the sphere to their Falsley Park, Government Radio & Electronic Research Establishment laboratory. The Major-in-Charge (Jack Carson of "Doomsday") deploys his soldiers around the laboratory, with the help of Sergeant Hawkins (Jack Watson of "The Wild Geese") delivering their orders with his usual gruff pugnacity. After Professor Morley and Dr. Costain (John Saxon of "The Unforgiven") leave for the evening, Ann (Patricia Haines of "Virgin Witch") sticks around to type up her notes. She notices a light in the room where the sphere is stored. Indeed, the sphere is glowering. She opens the door and is shocked when a huge scaly-clawed hand seizes her wrist. Not surprisingly, the Major refuses to believe that a monster could have frightened Ann. Costain spots a suspicious looking foot-print from the window in the ground outside the store room. Not even an plaster model of the foot-print can jar the Major's belief that his men played a practical joke on Ann. Meanwhile, Morley suggests that the sphere acts as a receiver for the transmission of matter from another planet. Cue Dr. Who. When he tries to observe this phenomenon, Morley meets his fate. The sphere vanishes, and the Major tries to stop the automobile barreling out of the complex with an intruder at the wheel. He fires several shots at the car but is struck and dies."Blood Beast from Outer Space" lurches off into another genre with news that some twenty-one young women have disappeared in three weeks without a trace. Costain approaches the newspapers with his space creature story, much to the chagrin of Scotland Yard. Initially, they suspect Costain is vainly trying to drum up publicity for himself. Superintendent Hartley of Scotland Yard (Alfred Burke of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets") discovers all the women responded to a classified magazine advertisement in a publication called Bikini Girl. They contacted a tall, mysterious, imposing figure named Medra at a Soho bookshop. Ann decides to offer herself as a guinea pig against Costain's protests. At this point, the heroes know that the alien is named Medra. The sordid bookseller Thorburn (Aubrey Morris of "A Clockwork Orange") fronting for the beast is murdered before Ann enters his shop. When Ann confronts the being, it wastes no time and murders her moments before Costain and Hartley burst with a squad of policemen fast on their heels. The alien literally saw the fear in Ann's eyes and realized she had not come to him with any intention of fulfilling the advertisement. The alien kills her without a qualm.Hartley clutches a straw of hope when a woman tells him about her encounter with Medra. She explains that Medra behaved in a nice manner when he interviewed her and she felt no fear in his presence. Scotland Yard stakes out her apartment. The alien pulls up in the car that it used to escape from the research laboratory and Scotland Yard chases it to a remote urban location where the monster--a tall fellow who appears to be half-human and half-beast reveals that it came--as the scientists suspected--from Jupiter's third moon, Ganymede. Basically, it He put in plain words that he arrived on Earth to assemble women for genetic experiments to help Ganymede's population, a mutant race of mutants that survived atomic warfare long ago. As our heroes watch, the tall, mysterious thing leaves Earth in the sphere and heads home to Ganymede."Blood Beast from Outer Space" is pretty gripping stuff. Not even the ridiculous looking claw straight out of a really bad drive-in B-movie makes the film look phony. The business-like performances contribute an air of credibility that bolsters the suspense and tension in this minute thriller. The most interesting and offbeat character is the low-life magazine dealer that Audrey Morris plays with obvious gay proclivities. The plot about aliens abducting women to procreate with them seems a bit outlandish. However, in 1965, this plot was still fairly new for science fiction. Interestingly, the Image DVD release comes with the British Board of Censors certificate. "Night Caller from Outer Space" could not be exhibited to children under age sixteen! Presumably, this rating arose from the scene where Saxon makes a pass at Haines and the cloaked allusions to sex as the reason for kidnapping the women. Nevertheless, the ending with the alien getting away with its abductions makes this an atmospheric and above-average sci-fi film.

bob the moo When a group of scientists track some form of meteorite coming to earth they become involved with the military and police. Finding a small sphere that has landed (?) in the "crash" zone they take it back to their lab and analyse it. After dark, Anne Barlow is typing up a letter when a bright light and intense feeling come over her – seconds later a strange hand grabs her but she gets away. With no way in or out of the room Dr Morley hypothesises that the sphere allows the transportation of matter and that some form of creature has come to earth for some reason. Soon lots of girls are going missing and the police find a link to a modelling agency advertising for bikini models in a magazine. The suspect is identified as the mysterious Medra and Dr Costain believes that he is an alien, preparing to lead an invasion of earth.A low budget and relatively unseen little sci-fi b-movie from 1960's Britain, this film had little to make it stand out when I saw it listed in the TV guide but watching it is an entirely different matter. The idea sounds silly – basically an alien has come to earth to pick up chicks, and if you say it like that it sounds trashy. However the plot is much better than the basic premise and it works surprisingly well. The dialogue may well be par for the genre course but this is only one aspect of the delivery and it is carried by others when required. The atmospheric direction provides a genuine sense of menace and the film is careful about letting us see Medra – keeping him a sinister hand and eyes for almost the whole film. Along with this is a rather adult sense of humour (for the period); we have outrageously gay sex shop owners, very British couples arguing in rambling stories and other nice touches.What was most effective though was just how bleak the whole thing was. I can't say anything because of spoilers but some of the things that happened I wasn't expecting and it really took me by surprise. This is also backed up by one or two moments of violence that, although not gory, were genuinely shocking in how graphic they were (again, for the period) – plus the fact that many came out of nowhere and it made them even more so. The cast are not the best but all do well enough for the type of film they are in and also add to the convincing air of foreboding and tension. Saxon looks a bit out of place but does well and is actually good with his lines – he is more than the usual "action scientist" of these films. Denham is much more of a genre staple but he is still OK. Haines is good and quite alluring – the sexual tension between her and Saxon also surprised me for the period. Burke is good and leads the police side of the story well.Overall this is a low budget British sci-fi horror but it works very well and was surprisingly enjoyable. The US title of "Blood Beast from Outer Space" implies that it is a gory b-movie but it is much more than that and is actually pretty engaging in a low-key but tense way. The end of the film is typical of the dark and downbeat tone of the whole film and it is worth seeing for this quality as well as other factors.

Paul Andrews The Night Caller starts at 'Falsley Park, Government Radio & Electronic Research Establishment' where two scientists named Dr. Morley (Maurice Denham) & an American named Dr. Jack Costin (John Saxon) plus their assistant Ann Barlow (Patricia Haines) have detected an unidentified object in space heading for London at 10,000 mph. They assume that it is a meteorite but soon work out that this object is being guided down & has landed somewhere nearby, cue opening credits over Big Ben & the Houses of Parliment just to further prove that we are in fact in London! In no time whatsoever Doctors Costin & Morley are at the calculated crash site, however the army have beaten them to it. But Costin & Morley aren't going to let a little thing like the army stop them so after waving their ID's all over the place they're both giving out orders like they own the place. They speak to the Major (John Carson) in charge & establish the whereabouts of the object. Upon arrival they find a white sphere that appears to be slightly larger than a football, they load it into a jeep & head back to Falsley Park to examine it. Costin & Morley quickly discover that the sphere is alien to our planet & they theorise that it might be a transmitter for sending & receiving matter. Soon after Morley is killed while conducting an experiment on his own & the sphere is stolen, the only clue Costin has is a description by Ann who claims she was attacked by something with a claw for a hand & that 21 girls in under 3 weeks have disappeared & a man fitting the description Ann & some soldiers gave was seen by each girls house shortly before they went missing. Costin visits Scotland Yard & talks to Super Intendant Hartley (Alfred Burke) who is heading the investigation, together they quickly learn that the common factor between the missing girls is a magazine called 'Bikini Girls' which carried an advert to which they all replied. As more girls go missing Costin is convinced that it is connected to the sphere & the mysterious man with the claw, but how exactly...?Directed by John Gilling I thought The Night Caller was an OK Sci-Fi horror that's a decent enough way to spend 80 odd minutes. The script by Jim O'Connolly based on the novel 'The Night Callers' by Frank Crisp is not quite as predictable as I expected without the cliché of any monsters hiding out in nearby woods occasionally popping up to kill the odd disposable character & is basically split into two half's. The first half of The Night Caller is standard 60's Sci-Fi with the alien object falling form the sky, the army & scientist characters at odds with each other because the scientists see it as a possible way to learn & want to examine it while the army see it as a possible threat & want to destroy it & the monster which is only shown by it's rubbery claw to start with. But for the second half of it's running time The Night Caller switches to police thriller as the investigation into the missing girls come to the fore & the film concentrates on this aspect. Like a lot of other Sci-Fi from this period The Night Caller tries to end on a message as it asks who are the real aggressors & what are we doing to our world... It moves along at a reasonable pace & never becomes boring & I thought the dialogue wasn't quite as stiff & wooden as in most 50's/60's Sci-Fi films. It does seem a little strange that a highly intelligent being from another world capable of space flight & the transmitting of matter has to take an ad out in the back of a magazine called Bikini Girls to attract girls though! The Night Caller is a fairly modest effort & doesn't try to do too much, there is only one monster so don't expect a entire invasion & it's mostly only shown by it's claw hand while when it's face is eventually revealed it looks just like an ordinary man with a few lines on one side of his face. The special effects are kept to an absolute minimum as well, there are just a couple of optical effects throughout the entire film without a flying saucer in sight. There is no blood or gore & only two people die as our alien is revealed to be mostly peaceful at the end & basically means us no harm. The acting wasn't as bad as I had expected either but at the same time it ain't great & Saxon gives a very one dimensional performance. Technically the film is fine with the surprisingly nice sharp free flowing black & white photography being better than I expected, I mean I've seen a lot worse in films such as this. Overall I liked The Night Caller as far as 60' Sci-Fi goes, it didn't knock my socks off or change my life but it's an entertaining way to pass 80 odd minutes. Worth a watch especially if your a fan of this sort of thing.