1960s American Horror Part Twenty-Six

THE SLIME PEOPLE

(1963)
Dir - Robert Hutton
Overall: MEH

Character actor Robert Hutton takes his only, (embarrassing), stab at directing with the unintentionally craptacular The Slime People; a film that allegedly ran out of money quickly and whose cast and crew were not paid for much of the shooting.  The results of such shoddy production values are unmistakable on the screen, though to be fair, the title monsters sound and look about as ridiculous and fun as any from the drive-in double bill era.  Much criticism has revolved around the poor use of fog which obscures the visuals too much instead of creating an ominous atmosphere.  The snore-inducing pacing and monotonous plot finds Hutton and a small group of survivors fending off against a race of grotesque underground humanoids with pointy sticks and everyone goes from one location to another, engaging in lots of talking along the way.  The performances are of the goofy and melodramatic variety and everyone behaves like a buffoon most of the time, but not enough to elevate such dull proceedings.

THE TIME TRAVELERS

(1964)
Dir - Ib Melchior
Overall: MEH

Danish-born screenwriter turned-director Ib Melchior takes his second and final crack at a full-length from behind the lens with American International Pictures' The Time Travelers; a science fiction film that is worth a hoot or two for its dated set and costume design, plus some low-end special effects.  Lighthearted in tone with a goofy and cartoon-worthy musical score by Richard LaSalle that fits along with the v-neck uniforms, fleshy and rubber-masked androids, toy model work, and Roger Corman-worthy underground cave station, (most of which are brightly-colored and far from ominous in aesthetic), it is all kitschy, cheap, and void of anyone besides white people since the future has apparently done away with minorities.  Worry not though, women still have time for dance parties, to work on their tans, and to banter about which cute guys they want to procreate with once they repopulate another planet.  It gets by OK for what it has to worth with and at least affords for some quirky details, but like nearly all films of its kind, it is also detrimentally talky and flatly directed.   At least the mutants look like Michael Berryman in The Hills Have Eyes and do some damage during the finale, which ups the race-against-time plot that gives the whole thing a much-needed adrenaline shot to go out on.

 

THE OMEGANS

(1968)

Dir - W. Lee Wilder

Overall: WOOF

The penultimate film to be directed by no-budget schlock-peddler W. Lee Wilder, The Omegans shows that the man has learned absolutely nothing about engaging storytelling in his two decades from behind the lens.  Shot on location in the Philippines, (as many bottom barrel exploitation movies from the era were), this is one of a career's worth of missed opportunities in Wilder's filmography that fails to do anything with the exotic setting or even a pre-Hammer Ingrid Pitt brought on board to awkwardly deliver her uninteresting dialog, (which for the last act consists entirely of asking for water, where Chuck is, and wanting to see a painting).  Speaking of uninteresting, the title may suggest some sort of otherworldly presence or race lurking about, yet the actual case is far more lame since this is nothing but a woman having an affair with her rich husband who finds out and then poisons her and her lover.  It is staggering how uneventful the "drama" is, to the point of being undetected due to Wilder's wretched direction.  Even with some glowing things and cheap putty makeup thrown on Pitt and Keith Larson in the final two minutes, the pacing is so dreadful and lacking in agency that there is nothing to recommend here except exhibiting it for film students as an example of what they should never make under any circumstances.

1950s British Horror Part Five

TIMESLIP

(1955)

Dir - Ken Hughes

Overall: MEH

 

A poorly realized espionage thriller with wasted science fiction elements, Timeslip, (The Atomic Man), ends up being a dull drive-in double feature amongst many.  It was an unofficial American/British co-production, (hence the two leads Gene Nelson and Faith Domergue being from U.S. soil), though it was shot in England by director Ken Hughes who was almost exclusively versed in crime movies at this point.  Thus the angle is thrown in of spies trying to blow up an atomic research institute via a cockamamie scheme of performing plastic surgery on a guy so that he looks like a nuclear physicist.  Said physicist also happens to be the victim of radiation and now lays in a hospital bed experiencing time at seven and a half seconds in the future.  This provides the movie with its one and only nifty revelation as Charles Eric Maine's chatty and largely actionless script goes in circles and doubly confuses and bores the audience long before the stakes finally seem dire in the closing minutes.  Nelson's infrequent attempts at comic relief do not do the movie's serious tone any favors either, but even if the whole thing could have easily ended up more stupid than it is, it is still dull.

THE MAN WITHOUT A BODY
(1957)
Dir - W. Lee Wilder/Charles Saunders
Overall: WOOF

A nonsensical dud that was also one of many animated head B-movies from the era, The Man Without a Body, (Curse of Nostradamus), boasts an absurd plot that would have been hilarious if not for how drab the entire presentation is.  Though a British production, it brought over a top-billed American Robert Hutton and also W. Lee Wilder behind the lens, the latter of whom shares directorial credit with Charles Saunders who was allegedly only on set for union purposes.  This makes sense for anyone familiar with Wilder's work which was uniformly poor and this is no exception.  Uninspired from top to bottom, Wilder fails to capitalize on both a larger budget than he was usually allowed to work with in his native US and the ludicrous concept of Nostradamus' severed head being revitalized only for a cartoonishly unlikable millionaire with a brain tumor to try and inflict his will upon it so that he can stay filthy rich from beyond the grave, (or something?).  These poor actors play such material straight while Wilder stages everything in the most pedestrian manner possible, creating an experience that is both lame and alarmingly stupid.  The film's reputation is infamous and well-deserved in this respect, so approach with caution.

THE STRANGE WORLD OF PLANET X

(1958)

Dir - Gilbert Gunn

Overall: WOOF

A low-budget adaptation of Rene Ray's 1957 novel of the same name, The Strange World of Planet X, (Cosmic Monsters), is problematically paced and barely moves an inch towards anything interesting, instead just coming off as a poor man's Quatermass serial.  Fusing a little The Day the Earth Stood Still in with giant bugs, a reckless scientist, and some seriously comatose-inducing dialog exchanges for ninety percent of its running time, the film is a hopelessly slack realization of its ingredients.  This would be the only science fiction movie in in the not-that-extensive filmographies of director Gilbert Gunn and screenwriter Paul Ryder, neither of whom show a particular knack for the material.  It takes ages before any mayhem starts to present itself as we are merely told about the concerning results of magnetic metal experiments that eventually effect the ionosphere in only a small portion of the area, resulting in some humans going crazy as well as insects and lizards growing to destructive sizes.  In addition to all of this only showing up on screen within the closing minutes, it is quickly resolved, which only further enhances the lackluster and low-stakes issue in the first place.  From the performances to the drab direction and entire presentation, it is forgettable in all details.

1950s American Horror Part Twenty-Seven - (W. Lee Wilder Edition)

PHANTOM FROM SPACE

(1953)

Overall: MEH

 

Schlock director W. Lee Wilder's first of several D-grade genre cheapies for he and son Myles' production company Planet Filmplays, Phantom from Space is typically shoddy.  Nothing but interchangeable white people with no personalities stand in rooms talking, only to cut to another scene where a different combination of them are standing in a different room talking some more.  This is only rarely interrupted by stock footage and some invisible alien antics that do not arrive until the halfway point.  On that note, the extraterrestrial visitor here wears a helmet with a tiny window in it to see out of and even though he hectically runs around, numerous people still claim with full conviction that they were able to tell that there was no head inside of said helmet.  This is a nitpick, but it is just one of many plot points that seemed to be devised without a second thought given to them since who cares about logical specifics when it is clearly way more important to get back to more scenes of boring Caucasians talking in rooms?  These are the jokes folks.  To be fair, the invisibility special effects hold up as good as anything from the period and the busy theremin score is annoyingly fun, but otherwise, this is a minimal effort dud.

 

KILLERS FROM SPACE

(1954)

Overall: MEH

 

Literal bug-eyed aliens eventually show up a half hour into W. Lee Wilder's Killers from Space, (The Man Who Saved the Earth); the director's second low-budgeted sci-fi yarn for his Planet Filmplays company.  Distributed by RKO, it has one of the earliest top-billed performances from Peter Graves as well as the usual goofy ingredients of library-cued music that never shuts the hell up, extraterrestrials in ridiculous costumes who need a new planet to inhabit because theirs is doomed, doctors using truth serum as if it is a real thing, plenty of stock footage, plus sets and gadgets that Roger Corman would even be embarrassed by.  A long flashback sequence thrown in the middle finally jolts the viewer out of the torturous boredom of white people talking a lot, which is thankfully enough to sustain interest until Graves single-handedly confronts the otherworldly invaders with a plan that he concocts while scribbling down some equations in a hospital bed.  There are some variations in William Raynor and Myles Wilder's script to just another unimaginative scenario where doctors and military men discuss what types of weapons to use, with Graves being the lone person who is hip to the alien's plan and being treated like a mentally ill person with shell shock.  Every other character is entirely forgettable though, yet thankfully not given much screen time.  At least the wacky Ed Wood-worthy human aliens are stupid and fun. 

 

THE SNOW CREATURE

(1954)

Overall: WOOF

 

Though historically notable as one of if not the first Yeti movie, The Snow Creature is also one of if not the most dull.  Instead of merely opening with narration over stock footage, (as was the case with director W. Lee Wilder's previous two science fiction films Phantom from Space and Killers from Space), Paul Langton interjects some commentary throughout the whole thing, recalling how he and a scientific expedition uncovered an abominable snowman that was then brought back to the US for further study.  Such a tale is nearly void of action or anything remotely interesting though.  Most viewers will not be able to make it through the first act where Americans and Japanese, (who are mountain climbing in India but whatever), trade a couple of mildly heightened conversations with each other, all while Wilder keeps his title monster off screen besides some silhouettes and shots of it behind ice.  Things do not get any better once we get stateside, with more talking in rooms about finding the now missing creature, all while Wilder continues to keep it off screen.  The usually competent and future Roger Corman collaborator Floyd Crosby's cinematography is sadly awful and makes an already boring movie that much more unwatchable, then throw in a hilariously anti-climactic ending and yeah, this is crap.

 

FRIGHT

(1956)

Overall: MEH

 

A cheap variation of the same year's The Search for Bridey Murphy from Paramount, Fright, (Spell of the Hypnotist), is the only psychological thriller from the father/son writer/director team of Myles and W. Lee Wilder.  After an intense opening scene where a murderer is cornered by both police and bystanders on a bridge, followed by Eric Fleming talking said murder off of said bridge via hypnosis, the main resurrection story gets underway involving Nancy Malone who seems to have a German baroness living inside of her.  As usual, Wilder's direction is lifeless and even if the script was loaded with compelling revelations and the actors had overwhelming charisma, (neither of which is the case), it would still crumble under the stagnant presentation.  Also, Fleming is dreadfully dull in the lead as if his face is perpetually stuck in a "Let's just get this over with so I can get a paycheck" grimace.  It treats the concept of hypnotic manipulation as loosey-goosey as any sensationalized B-movie does and the final act throws a particularly cockamamie scheme into the mix that would be hilarious if anyone watching could stay awake long enough to notice it.