Space Invaders

NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT (1967)
THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE (1967)

Sizzling Jane Merrow as secretary Angela Roberts in NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT. A seasoned stage, TV and film actress, her most famous role, as the mistress of King Henry in THE LION IN WINTER, earned a Golden Globe nomination.  

NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT completes a loose trilogy of science fiction films directed by Terence Fisher from the mid 1960s (following THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING and ISLAND OF TERROR). Based on the novel by John Lymington, this tepid alien invasion yarn from Planet was first adapted for a now lost ITV PLAY OF THE WEEK from 1960, the telescript actually forming the foundation for the movie version. On the Orkney island of Fara, author Jeff Callum (Patrick Allen) and wife Frankie (Sarah Lawson) run The Swan Inn; when Callum's new secretary arrives - Angela Roberts (Jane Merrow) - sexual tension rises in tandem with a heat wave, even though it is the middle of winter. The wanton Roberts has had an affair with Jeff, and with temperatures rising daily, Callum, mysterious scientist Godfrey Hanson (Christopher Lee) - who has converted his room at The Swan into a research centre - and Dr Stone (Peter Cushing) try to halt the spread of omelette-like creatures. 

Four years after debuting in Britain, NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT was theatrically released in the United States as ISLAND OF THE BURNING DAMNED on a double bill with GODZILLA'S REVENGE. The blobbish space visitors challenge the worst of American cinematic aliens, glowing motionless before being washed away by rain (they are certainly up there with the carpet monster from THE CREEPING TERROR). With refreshingly abrupt dialogue, it is more a domestic melodrama than a SF epic, the performances all raise the bar to an undeserved level (Lee at his arrogant best, and Cushing's dignified doctor - despite the searing temperatures - leaves his coat on in best English tradition). Unlike the visual flourishes in his Hammer Gothics, Fisher had little time for science fiction, generating only pockets of suspense in any of his otherworldly terrors.

Similar to his attitude of the horror genre, Milton Subotsky turned science fiction into childsplay for THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE.

Released the same month, THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE ("to enslave Earth!") is another SF B-movie helmed by a genre director (in this case Freddie Francis), for one of Amicus's worst productions. Written by Milton Subotsky from the book The Gods Hate Kansas by Joseph Millard, it uses many of the sets and props from DALEKS - INVASION EARTH 2150 AD. Described by Subotsky as "almost a Cold War parable," the film starts with blue meteorites landing in a field. They are investigated by the government department of Dr Curtis Temple (Robert Hutton), who has a metal plate in his head due to a motor accident. This renders him impervious to alien mind control and an unleashed space plague, as he attempts to infiltrate the visitor's compound. It transpires that the aliens are using humans as slave labour on the moon to repair their spaceship, an operation headed by The Master of the Moon (Michael Gough).

THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE originated from a deal struck between Max Rosenberg and producer Joseph E. Levine; if Amicus could make two pictures for £200,000, Levine would finance and distribute them. Consequently, Montgomery Tully's THE TERRORNAUTS - another nadir in Amicus SF - was awarded £80,000, with the rest allocated here. Woefully mechanical, Subotsky would dismiss the problems by blaming distractions putting together the studio's next portmanteau, TORTURE GARDEN. Francis's film arguably shows the greatest British hallmarks in a science fantasy setting: not only do the aliens apply for a bank loan, it is ultimately all a great misunderstanding, and ends on a firm handshake. More interesting is the casting of Pakistani actor Zia Mohyeddin as Temple’s best friend Farge, who has to melt down his silver cricket trophies to manufacture the laughable anti-mind-control colander.

Devils of Death

DEVILS OF DARKNESS (1965)
THEATRE OF DEATH (1967)

Horror films have always used the colour red to inflame the senses, but even smart ceremonial robes can't ignite DEVILS OF DARKNESS.

THE only claim to fame for Lance Comfort's DEVILS OF DARKNESS is that it was the first British horror film to feature vampirism in a modern setting. Yet this Planet MARK OF THE VAMPIRE imitation is a painfully dull affair, as stone-cold Paul Baxter (William Sylvester) encounters a Brittany-based Satanic cult headed by suave, self-styled "Leader of the Living Dead" Count Sinistre (Hubert Noel). The vacation takes a turn for the worse when Keith and Dave (Geoffrey Kenion and Rod McLennan) succumb to a cavern housing a group of coffins, and Keith's sister Anne (Rona Anderson) is found dead in a lake. Returning to England with a talisman that Sinistre has conveniently dropped, Baxter enlists the aid of scientist friend Dr Kelsey (Eddie Byrne) in exploring black magic. But when Kelsey adds to the body count, it transpires that the only other survivor from the French trip - antique shop owner Madeleine (Diana Decker) - is helping Sinistre to get a foothold in this country, as The Count focuses his attentions on red-head model and shop assistant Karen (Tracy Reed).

The opening French section is littered with 'ALLO 'ALLO style accents, but starts promisingly in an eight-minute pre-titles sequence where Sinistre - in bat form - takes gypsy Tania (Carole Gray) as his bride (there is also a sumptuous Hammeresque shot of Tania's coffin, her head wreathed in roses). Unfortunately, when the picture shifts to Blighty, even Madeleine's impromptu beatnik parties are staged and stodgy; but fangless Sinistre seems at home under his artist guise living in Chelsea (unlike DRACULA A.D. 1972, at least Noel actually mingles with society). Not only is everything pedestrian, there are no star turns (even seasoned performer Sylvester would have to wait three years to achieve his particular screen immortality, as Dr Floyd in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY).

"Fanaticism bordering on insanity;" Christopher Lee controls the THEATRE OF DEATH from Pennea Productions, a film originally released in the United States as BLOOD FIEND.

Playwright Samuel Gallu's THEATRE OF DEATH is another contemporary vampire tale with French connections which aims at Hammer acolytes. Svengali-like Philippe Darvas (Christopher Lee) is the director of the Theatre de Mort in the Paris backstreets, carrying on the Grand Guignol theme of sensationalist entertainment. As police surgeon Charles Marquis (Julian Glover) protects his former patient and Theatre employee Dani Gireaux (Lelia Goldoni) from a spate of murders, Darvas' protegee Nicole Chapelle (a pasty Jenny Till) is revealed as the killer, a haemotagiac whose thirst was initiated when feeding on her brother's blood as her Romanian family fled the Nazis in the Alps. With Lee killed off-screen at the half-way mark, he takes most of the interest with him; what remains is a drawn-out mystery thriller with too many red herrings and a late, out of leftfield sting. This reveal is at least different, and grounds the picture more successfully than the usual supernatural trappings in Comfort's film.

Aliens, Mutants and Terence Fisher

THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING (1964)
ISLAND OF TERROR (1966)

Invading alien robots - impervious to bullets, but not to Land Rovers - shamble around in THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING. Resembling a visage put together from whatever the film maker's could find lying around Shepperton studios, the creation reminds of Cybermen to come. 

ONLY a few weeks after completing his directing assignment on Hammer's THE GORGON, Terence Fisher was at the helm of THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING, a hardly feature-length offering from Lippert Films. An alien gas attack has wiped out the entire population of England - possibly the world - and caused some to be reanimated as white-eyed zombie slaves. Amongst this carnage, American test pilot Jeff Nolan (Willard Parker) is soon joined by Quinn Taggart (Dennis Price), Peggy (Virginia Field), Vi (Vanda Godsell) and husband Eddie (Thorley Walters). All share the same unifying factor, that during the previous evening they were all in purified air conditions, thus avoiding the threat. When two space-suited humanoids are seen walking in the street, Vi runs out to greet them in the mistaken belief they are military assistance; in fact, they are alien robots who kill her by lethal touch. After another pair of survivors arrive - Mel (David Spenser) and his pregnant wife Lorna (Anna Palk) - the group venture to a local Royal Engineers TA drill hall in the hunt for weapons.

THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING is somnolent sci-fi on a shoestring budget - the opening montage even utilises stock footage from VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED - which attempts to host an apocalyptic invasion with two robots and a conservative scattering of dead bodies filmed in the Surrey village of Shere. No-one dies screaming; even the zombies - when shot - regress to the dramatics of a school playground, and the invasion is finally foiled by the destruction of a rickety old radio mast. Fisher was no fan of science fiction, but he does inject some atmosphere into the village-under-siege dynamic, especially the reanimated Vi staircase walk, and the eerie framing of an alien watching Lorna through a netted window. The performances are purely functionary, with the exception of Price and Walters; Walters is entertaining as ever in his trademark role of frightened alcoholic, but Price is the standout as Taggart. There is a wonderful scene where he attempts to rescue wads of useless money from a fire - hinting at a seedy past which is never fleshed out - and the slippery character fittingly leads the robots to his colleagues when in zombie-state.

Menacing bone-sucking tendrils erupt in this German poster for ISLAND OF TERROR.

Two years later Fisher directed the guilty pleasure ISLAND OF TERROR for Planet Films. On Petrie's Island off the coast of Ireland, researchers are working on a cure for cancer, but accidentally create a race of bone-sucking creatures dubbed silicates. After the discovery of a body which has been reduced to jelly, local Dr Landers (Eddie Byrne) seeks help from scientists Dr Brian Stanley (Peter Cushing) and Dr David West (Edward Judd), who travel to the island with West’s socialite girlfriend Toni (Carole Gray). The two scientists discover that bullets, fire and dynamite won’t stop the silicates from advancing on the island’s humans and cattle.

Co-produced by science-horror specialist Richard Gordon, ISLAND OF TERROR can be seen as a inferior re-imagining of his earlier FIEND WITHOUT A FACE. Everything is in place for an effective monster movie: a laboratory destroyed by a new life form, creatures who emit an eerie slurping sound, unexplainable corpses ("like mush with the two eyes a-sittin' in it"), no telephones or form of escape, and Peter Cushing. Although the veteran actor's screen time is shared by Judd's younger, more bullish scientist, it is testament to all of the players who attempt to create tension away from the appearance of the silicates. They may have a fast-moving tentacle, but their plastic-looking bases move so slowly that you wonder how they have effectively snared so many victims (they can even climb trees). Despite all the impending doom, as Kim Newman states in his Video Watchdog review, "as often in British SF, we learn that crises should be left to the experts, even if boffins have started the trouble."