The year is 1973. Earth has just sent the first astronauts to Mars but something has gone wrong. A ship has been dispatched to rescue the lone survivor of a crew of nine.
Col. Edward Carruthers (Marshall Thompson) claims that an alien creature murder all of his crew and he alone has survived. Nobody believes his story and instead think that Carruthers murdered his crew. He’s being brought back to be court-martialed. But something has gotten onto the ship as it returns to Earth. Something big that likes to hide in the air shafts and murder the crew for their blood!
If this is starting to sound familiar it’s because screenwriter Dan O’Bannon used this as his inspiration for his screenplay Alien. The crew tries to fight back. Guns, fire, electricity and even radiation is used against the creature but nothing harms it. The solution will be familiar to anyone who has ever watched the first Alien.
It! The Terror From Beyond Space was released into theatres in 1958 and is what some consider a better than average B-movie sci-fi thriller. In fact it’s pretty good. The creature is kept in the shadows for the most part and the film can be kind of tense. The creature was played by Ray “Crash” Corrigan, a stunt man/actor who starred in a ton of westerns and few action serials as well as quite a few movies in a gorilla costume.
The monster was designed by Paul Blaisdell who created the monsters from such films as The Beast with a Million Eyes, Day the World Ended, It Conquered the World, The She-Creature, Not of This Earth and Invasion of the Saucer Men. Blaisdell was know for working fast and cheap when creating the creature suits. Director Edward L. Cahn had prolific career directing over 100 features and shorts but It! The Terror From Beyond Space was probably his best.
