Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

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.

MARIO GAUCI Low-key but intriguing and generally effective variation on the alien invasion theme (though the script is far inferior to the Quatermass archetype); as a matter of fact, the police procedural tends to be more engaging than the high-falutin' scientific theorizing! Unfortunately, too, some of the dialogue is unintelligible due to the heavy British accents (but, then, the version I watched was accompanied by subtitles in Italian!).The cast features several familiar British faces (Maurice Denham, John Carson, Jack Watson, etc.); still, as with many low-budget horror films of its era, the lead role was given to an American actor: in this case, John Saxon - who's pretty adequate under the circumstances, with a blonde Patricia Haines (whom I recently saw in the awful VIRGIN WITCH [1972]) as his female co-star. Aubrey Morris, however, is memorable as the scurrilous editor of a 'girlie' magazine - which is used as bait for the alien's female victims (who, as is often the case, has descended to Earth because his own planet has reached saturation point). This element gives way to some typically dry British humor (especially the awkward interrogation of one of the missing girl's simple but cantankerous parents)...but Ballard Berkeley's belated introduction as the Commander steering the operations engaged in the alien's capture can't be taken seriously - in view of his regular appearance as the befuddled Major in the classic TV comedy series FAWLTY TOWERS (1975-79), devised by and starring Monty Python's John Cleese!! With the imposing figure of the alien generally shown lurking in the shadows or hidden behind heavy clothing and a mask (shades of the giallo subgenre?), its menace is evoked through the creature's adoption of a mellifluous yet sinister 'human' voice; that said, the make-up effects shown intermittently are surprisingly subtle. Even so, the best thing about the film is certainly Stephen Dade's chiaroscuro photography - utilizing some odd angles, particularly during the alien manhunt, obviously inspired by THE THIRD MAN (1949)! The rather uneventful cautionary finale, then, is reminiscent of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951).

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.

Chris Gaskin The Night Caller is one of several low budget British sci-fi movies that were made around the mid-1960's and is one of the best. Others include Invasion and Unearthly Stranger. I found this one quite good.A strange sphere from outer space lands on some moorland and the Army recover it and take it to the local research station. During the night, it starts to glow and making a strange bleeping noise at the same time. Just after, a woman who works there sees a figure dressed in black and nobody believes her at first. They do when a strange footprint is found and a car makes off from the research station at high speed. Despite a lot of shooting, they fail to capture the driver, who is the alien. In London, women start to disappear, all after applying for a job advertised in the Bikina Girl magazine. The woman who works at the research station applies but she is killed. The police eventually close in on Medra (the alien) and we get to know he is from one of Jupiter's moons, Ganyemede and wants these women to take back with him, which he does. The sphere then takes off in a ball of fire. The alien the winner in this one.The Night Caller is very atmospheric at times and is shot well in black and white. One interesting point is how the alien knew how to drive when escaping from the research station.The cast includes American actor John Saxon (Planet of Blood, A Nightmare On Elm Street) and several well known British stars: Maurice Denham (Curse of the Demon, The Nanny), Warren Mitchell (The Crawling Eye, Till Death Us Do Part), Patricia Haines, Ballard Berkeley (Fawlty Towers), Alfred Burke (Children of the Damned) and Aubrey Morris.The Night Caller is worth checking out, especially for fans of 1950's/60's science fiction. Excellent.Rating: 3 stars out of 5.