Roger Corman made a lot of movies throughout his long career. Most of them were cheap crap but he managed to make several great films despite his fast shoot time and low budgets. Early in his career he made this 1957 sci-fi horror with his frequent writing collaborator Charles B. Griffith.
A man drops of a woman at her house. As she walks up her steps she sees a man wearing strange sunglasses and carrying a weird briefcase. The man takes off his sunglasses and suddenly kills the woman. He opens up the suitcase and begins draining her blood.
So begins Not of This Earth. The man with the strange sunglasses drives to a hospital where he demands a blood transfusion. The man calls himself Mr. Johnson (Paul Birch). Dr. Rochelle (William Roerick) initially refuses Mr. Johnson’s request until Mr. Johnson uses a hypnotic telepathy to control Dr. Rochelle. Mr. Johnson then asks for nurse Nadine Storey (Beverly Garland) to stay at his house to administer blood transfusions for him.
Nadine goes to the house and meets Mr. Johnson’s servant Jeremy (Jonathan Haze) who once had a run in with Nadine’s police boyfriend Harry Sherbourne (Morgan Jones). Jeremy hits on Nadine and fails but the two quickly become aware of the strangeness of Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson it seems is actually an alien with white blank eyes that kill and is here on Earth to collect blood in an attempt to save the people on his home world Davanna. His orders include collecting blood, trying to find a cure and then enslaving the Earth and using the earthlings blood to sustain their lives.
Not of This Earth is a short and clearly made on a very low budget but Corman makes the most of it and creates an intense and entertaining movie. Corman produced a remake in 1988 with Traci Lords in the nurse role. It doesn’t compare with the original. Also the movie poster is awesome!
