Killers from Space (1954) User Reviews

So Stupid, Yet So Advanced

[Hitchcoc · 4/10 · 17 September 2001]

Pretty bad. The premise is the test pilot, Peter Graves, is saved by a group of creatures from Astron Delta after a certain fatal crash. He acts irrationally after finding his way back to the base. The aliens look like a

hybrid of Marty Feldman and Eddy Cantor. They are on earth, setting up an environment for their doomed species. Graves has been brainwashed and sent on his way to bring secrets back to the aliens. If it weren't so dull, it would be genuinely funny. There is a scene where Graves runs through a series of tunnels for 10 minutes, getting nowhere. No one believes him when he tells the truth under sodium pentathol. For some reason these creatures have felt the need to tell their emissary every secret of their existence. This is a fatal flaw which inevitably gets so many villains in trouble. Pretty silly all the way around.

What a scheme those aliens had

[bkoganbing · 2/10 · 16 April 2006]

Before Seventh Heaven, before Mission Impossible, before even Fury, Peter Graves spent a lot of his time doing science fiction films, some of the best and some of the worst. This one falls in the latter category.

This was a cheaply based low budget thriller with no thrills where Graves has been monitoring atomic bomb tests out in the New Mexico desert by air. Some nasty old aliens are out in the caverns laying plans for a billion of their people to come take over the earth from the folks who live here now. I won't say more, but it involves a scheme of creating monsters who will destroy mankind and then the aliens will destroy the monsters without spilling too much human blood.

The miracle here is that Peter Graves as an actor had a career after some of the films he appeared in back in his salad days. This is one great example of what he survived.

Stock footage from other films, cheap black and white photography, imbecilic plot. Peter Graves looks stoically earnest throughout though. I guess that is a tribute to his talent.

Ed Wood would have looked down on this one.

Poorly made, yet a little entertaining in purely bad way.

[tomimt · 2/10 · 16 February 2006]

Wow... This is a bad movie. I mean literally there's nothing extremely good about it. Even the length of the film, the whole 70 minutes, feels too long to watch, when no-one actually can act, the plot is terrible and the special effects are bad, even for the 50's standards.

Now, there are some elements in the film, that caused me to laugh, but that was just because of the lack of quality, or just the sheer stupidity of things coming out from the mouths of the actors.

Let's tackle the plot: A-bomb, the great and glorious days of the atom. The military is doing some experiments with THE bomb, when something goes wrong and a survey plane explodes. Everyone thinks, that Dr. Douglas Martin (Peter Graves) is dead, but then he suddenly appears. But he's acting somewhat strangely and there is a huge scar on his chest.

Soon it's discovered that he was hypnotized and open heart operated by the aliens with huge, bulging and quite motionless, yet sometimes in different way looking eyes. Oh and did I mention they are about to conquer Earth by the help of mutated insects and lizards and stuff.

This movie could be a true camp classic, but it's just far too boring for that. Static camera mostly just shoots people talking nonsense about everything possible and the action is very badly portrayed. Direction and the script are non-existing.

"Killers from Space" has small amount of value as a purely bad movie level, but it's not a classic such as the legendary movies of Ed Wood just because the film just is bad bad. Most of the time. But you could watch it for the aliens. They're just so funny looking with their huge eyes and the Phantom rip off suits.

Rating as a movie: 2 out of 10, Campy movie rating: 3 out of 10

Did everyone miss the comparison to aliens reported today?

[ChuckStraub · 5/10 · 27 March 2004]

I didn't think it was that bad of a movie. It has more drama, and mystery and not as much horror than I expected. The story does move a little slow but it did keep my attention. The so called special effects can fairly be called poor. A lot of attention by reviewers has been given to the aliens big eyes. The aliens did look pretty strange and almost laughable but did everyone miss the comparison there is to the big eyes of the so called "grays" that are supposedly being seen by people today. How about the abductees that talk about being probed and operated on by aliens today? This movie did have aliens with bulging eyes doing an operation on a human in 1954. I have trouble calling this a good movie, but I cannot really call it a bad movie either. I think it's worth watching. Don't expect too much, and view it objectively. You might like it.

ma, he's makin' eyes at me!

[march9hare · 9 April 2004]

predatory aliens with the worst cases of ex opthalmis in medical history are lurking under the desert in the Southwest, and it's up to Peter Graves to stop them before we all laugh ourselves to death. The effects in this stinker are embarrassingly bad and very, VERY cheap. Lots of stock footage, glaringly obvious blow-ups of various insects, spiders, etc., model airplanes that look like model airplanes, a creaking plot. . .well, we could go on all day, but you probably get the picture by now. While we like Peter Graves, this is almost certainly one of those projects that he would like to forget. The one intriguing item in this otherwise rotten film are the alien physicians (at least we think they're physicians) who successfully perform open heart surgery on Peter by waving incense sticks over him. How did they DO that?

And the winner is...

[bobc-5 · 2/10 · 17 February 2001]

Were some of these low-budget 1950s sci-fi flicks intentionally competing to see who could come up with the most ridiculous looking aliens? When it comes to getting laughs, the bug-eyed beetle-browed killers from space are second only to Corman's conquering turnip. But it's a close second, and they get a good deal more speaking lines and screen time. Modern film makers actually trying to make their monsters amusing have never been able to create aliens as hilarious as this. Other than that, however, there isn't really anything to recommend in this rather mundane effort.

It was bad then...and it is bad now.

[partnerfrance · 1/10 · 13 January 2005]

The only comment I can add to the near-unanimous panning of the film by other IMDb critics is this. Remember how when you were very young, you saw some sci-fi or horror film that scared the daylights out of you, and then when you saw it again many years later you wondered how you could have possibly found it so scary? Well, this isn't one of those films! As a pre-teenager, I used to stay up Saturday nights to watch "Chiller Theater", a weekly showing of the "best" that the 1950's had to offer by way of Grade Z (or less) sci-fi or horror films, occasionally livened up by humorous commentary by the host, Zacherley. Some of those films were minor gems in their way. But even as a prepubescent fan, I could spot a dog of a film when I saw one, and "Killers from Space" was identified once and for all as a howler even then.

A Grave's Tale

[BaronBl00d · 4/10 · 23 May 2005]

Killers From Space is undeniably a cheap science fiction film. The story centers around Peter Graves, having landed inexplicably in what looked like a blast, somehow living through his crash landing. Only trouble for Graves is that he cannot account for the time between his flight in the sky and his return - nor can he explain the surgery done on his chest. Graves is one of a handful of men in charge of these tested explosions, and now the army has concerns with Graves's return and his memory loss. Well, turns out Graves was intercepted by some real cheap-looking aliens. Aliens with bulging eyes that look incredibly artificial. Their suits are just as bad. And they have alien monsters which are nothing more than lizards and frogs showed to be giants(if you really, really, really stretch your imagination). I enjoyed Killers From Space. Sure, even for B science fiction films it is cheap, but the story really isn't that bad and Graves does a workmanlike job acting. The rest of the actors are adequate as well. The biggest detractors - other than the non-existent budget - is the cheap feel the movie has, its mediocre direction, the lack of even remotely believable special effects, and the aliens themselves. The aliens just do not carry off any believability. Notwithstanding these, the film is fun and short.

The Alien Abduction Mythos begins....

[JoeB131 · 1/10 · 8 January 2006]

I recently acquired this film on a DVD pack called Science Fiction 50, which contains fifty really bad SF films of the 1950's and 60's. Someone must have acquired the rights at a Hollywood Garage Sale.

The interesting thing about this movie is how the whole Alien Abduction Mythology was laid out in 1953, before the first reports of Grays.

1) The aliens blot out the memory of the kidnap victim, leaving him with "Missing time".

2) They perform surgical procedures on him.

3) They are terribly concerned with nuclear tests.

4) They show him their home planet, which of course, is dying.

In short, all the things that alien abductees, starting with Betty and Barney Hill, have been reporting since the 1960's. This is all really kind of interesting, but it still isn't a very good film.

Formative Era of UFO mythology.

[flapdoodle64 · 8/10 · 23 April 2010]

This film is wonderfully cheap, awkward, and earnest. The director has a few successful scenes where a creepy mood is achieved, and there is a kind of plausibility throughout if one is able to accept the concept of an entire universe contained on studio back lots with virtually no money. I don't know why, but the scifi and horror films of this cheap, primitive, paranoid era were more fun than those made nowadays.

Besides its innate aesthetic value, this film is notable for an early featured role for the great Peter Graves, who died about a month prior to me writing this review. Mr. Graves' performance here is certainly not Oscar-worthy, but if one imagines the circumstances under which this film was undoubtedly made, he acquits himself well.

Another noteworthy thing: this film features a storyline in which alien space travelers abduct a USAF pilot and perform mysterious and creepy surgery on him, leaving him with a strange scar and the gap in his memory that ufologists call 'missing time.' Missing time and secret alien medical procedures have become a cliché of modern UFO mythology, but this is the earliest film I have seen to feature these concepts.

The aliens are bug-eyed creatures who dress in outfits of uncanny similarity to the costume worn by 1930's newspaper comic strip hero 'The Phantom.' Their base of operations is a typical low-budget movie cave of the type favored by the villains in Republic chapter-plays, and their equipment looks mostly like various disemboweled floor-model radios and old DuMont TV sets. Despite the limitations, the scenes containing these elements are the most effective in the film.

Lovers of old-school, low-budget scifi and horror will likely enjoy this film, although perhaps not to the degree I did. Nonetheless, it is certainly worth a look if are the right type of aficionado.

Nuclear testing rules!

[Bezenby · 6/10 · 29 September 2014]

Ah, the A bomb. When you want to clear a region fast, nothing else does the trick. Our hero knows this. Why, he's up in the air watching a-bombs blast the hell out of stock footage when his plane is brought down and he vanishes. His buddies, army folk, wife and nosey FBI all think he's a goner, but then he turns up at the army base with no memory and a scar on his chest.

Everybody's flummoxed. Our hero then starts doing weird things, like getting all jazzed up about the next A-bomb nest, and trying to steal secrets to put under a rock in the desert (!). He also sees these weird eyes floating about. But why? Only a shot of good old commie confessor will do the trick.

This one has it all, if 'all' means aliens with ping-pong ball eyes and weird eyebrows, giant insects and snakes, and about as much exposition from a bad guy as you can get in a film. Just as well, as the aliens disappear for the rest of the film (but there's still plenty of action).

Although the make up on the bad guys is hilarious, I didn't particularly see this is a 'bad' movie, just a nice time capsule before the horrors of Chernobyl sullied the good name of nuclear technology. It doesn't last long either, so that always helps.

Two separate movies...

[dylanstaxes · 5/10 · 10 May 2021]

I get the horrible rating on here. But...

The cold war, guys in suits smoking cigarettes half of this movie is great. The cast is great and the story is interesting. A 6 or 7.

The aliens underground part of the movie is truly atrocious. Even if you enjoy close up footage of insects it is still trash. So bad. A 1 or 2.

But i find this movie overall enjoyable, hence I gave an almost respectable 5.

Well, did you expect the Astron Delta people to show up at the U.N. with their petty list of complaints?

[horn-5 · 26 February 2004]

And, when William Raynor takes a screenplay credit as Bill Raynor, that is an instant tip-off one is about to visit the Land of the Gobblers. First rattle out of the box Peter Graves, as a nuclear scientist, is inspecting his handiwork flying over a bomb test area and crashes, and the next thing he knows he awakens in a California cavern. His host, John Merrick, bulb-eyed and dressed in pea-green, introduces himself as an Astronian scientist from Astrol Delta, and is on a mission to destroy the human race. He explains that the sun if falling on his home planet and the billion or so Astronians must take over another planet---Earth. Astro Delta and Earth evidently do not share the same sun or else their master plan would just be a short-term solution to a long-term problem.

So old Daneb-Tala shows Miles, or Doug, some gigantic reptiles and insects of the hair-lice variety---these are really, really big mothers---and the main and only item produced on Astro Delta must be these monsters because they have a bunch of them. A really, really big bunch of these really, really big monsters. But they need a bunch as their master plan to take over Earth is to have these monsters traveling around and about and killing off all the earthmen. Daneb-Tala does not mention women, so one can only shudder at the thought of what the Astronians have in mind for them. And Daneb-Tala seems to be unaware of the danger that an American housewife with a can of Flit and a flyswatter---albeit a really, really big flyswatter--- could pose for his master plan.

And Daveb-Tala informs Doug that oh-by-the-way you were killed in the plane crash but us Astrolians, with skill, knowledge and instruments beyond the current knowledge of man---and he doesn't even capitalize man, just to show we ain't much in the bulb-eyes of the Astrolians. But they are going to use Doug as their unwilling-but-helpless slave in supplying the Astrolians with top-secret atomic-energy information. Gee, they can bring a dead guy back to life but can't split an atom?

Doug can't tell what he has seen, heard and been through, for fear of being locked up in a Nervous Place, but the Army slams him with a needle full of truth serum and hears his story. They of course don't believe it---we must of overdosed him---and proceed to prepare Nervous Place papers on him, but government red tape being what government red tape is allows Doug to get away. And Doug has a plan of his own. He has learned that the Astrolians are all holed up in caves scattered all over California, and their diet is an all-electric one and if they don't have electricity they will blow up. They are stealing it naturally because even Astronians couldn't afford to pay California electricity bills. And, as soon as Cable TV came available, they intended to steal it also. So Doug plans to pull the one switch that supplies all of California with electricity.

Not wishing to write a "spoiler", even for a movie that a spoiler would be a surprise for any viewer with an I.Q. of anything over 29, the ending will not be given away here.

But since California has gone to rolling-blackouts, has anyone seen any Astrolians anywhere in the state...Carmel, O.J. Simpson houseguests and the Golden Globe Awards show excepted.

Kind Of Like A Warm-up For "Beginning Of The End"

[ferbs54 · 5/10 · 30 October 2007]

If Peter Graves' character, nuclear physicist Doug Martin, seems disoriented and confused throughout the 1954 sci-fi shlocker "Killers From Space," I suppose he has a good excuse. Killed in a plane crash while taking readings after an A-bomb test, Martin is brought back to life by bug-eyed aliens from the planet Astron Delta and forced by them into performing an impossible mission (whether he decides to accept it or not!): stealing the plans for the next A test. Perhaps adding to Graves' personal disorientation is the fact that, just the year before, he'd costarred in "Stalag 17," a product of one of the finest filmmakers of all time, Billy Wilder, and was now starring in a film directed by Billy's brother, W. Lee Wilder...and it's pretty clear who received the genes for talent in this family! Anyway, "Killers From Space" has been filmed on the supercheap, but somehow the lousy FX are strangely endearing. The film feels padded despite its 71-minute running time, with many stock shots of Air Force jets, nuke tests and "giant" animals, but nevertheless moves along fairly quickly and never commits the cardinal sin of cinema by being boring. The memorable aliens, with their pingpong ball eyes and hooded jumpsuits, do impress, and Martin's method of ultimately handling their menace is clever, in a suspenseful conclusion. Yes, the film is shlocky, but I didn't laff at it once, and really enjoyed seeing Graves and that giant grasshopper; in retrospect, a warm-up for 1957's "Beginning of the End." Fans of '50s sci-fi should probably give "Killers" a bonus star. One warning, though: The DVD that I just watched is from Alpha Video, an outfit notorious for lousy prints of countless treasures, and the print here is pretty badly damaged indeed, but still, fortunately, watchable.

Camp

[Thorsten-Krings · 3/10 · 10 April 2008]

You want to blackmail Peter Graves? Get a copy of this turkey.... The story is about a scientist whose plain crashes. He is supposed to be dead but returns unexpectedly weeks later and behaves rather strange. No points for originality but one for good use of stock footage. I actually thought this was your average boring 50s sci-fi B turkey and was about to switch off when the aliens appeared. This has to be the most pathetic attempt at make up I have ever seen. The aliens have bushy eyebrows and ping pong balls cut in halves as eyes. This is actually where the entertainment value of the film comes from. Not even Ed Wood would have presented us aliens like that. So all in all the film is fairly boring (even for sixty odd minutes) but definitely has camp value.

amazingly bad,...but also unintentionally funny

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 21 June 2006]

"Craptastic". That's an excellent way to summarize this film, that's for sure! This is one of the worst sci-fi movies of the 1950s. About the only worse pictures I can think of right now are the films of Ed Wood (particularly PLAN 9 and BRIDE OF THE MONSTER) and ROBOT MONSTER--and these "classic" films are only marginally worse than KILLERS FROM SPACE.

The film begins with gobs of clips from newsreels and stock footage (much like the start of PLAN 9). Then, after this long and tedious beginning, we find Peter Graves and a "red shirt" (a disposable person) in a jet. A blinding flash occurs and the plane (which can apparently make nearly 90 degree turns) crashes. The pilot is killed but Graves' body is gone! Later, he appears from no where and can't recall where he's been. He seems okay except for a large scar from heart surgery that he did NOT have before the flight. Interestingly enough, this very big and noticeable scar actually appears and disappears throughout the movie due to lousy continuity and direction! However, despite this huge scar, the government people don't think too much about it even when Graves' wife confirms he hadn't had the scar before! A bit later, the scientist (Graves) begins acting irrationally and the G-Men learn that he is under control of evil aliens. However, despite hearing Graves confess about a confusing plot by evil aliens to kill off the human race, they really don't take the whole thing seriously. So, it's up to Graves to come up with a confusing and half-backed plan to wipe out the aliens himself (which is very odd considering he's been hypnotized by them all along). And, in the end, the world is saved--huzzah! Now, as to why the movie was so bad. It really wasn't the general plot--as the idea of evil aliens wanting to wipe out the Earth in order to colonize is a pretty decent idea. No,...it was more the rotten acting, total lack of production values and dopey writing that were serious, serious problems.

First, the acting. Peter Graves was very early in his career and it was obvious he knew little about acting. The rest of the cast were all unknowns and I can really see why they remained that way. Most gave their lines like they were reading them for the first time--and I assume they were.

Second, the production values. The aliens were guys in spandex-style jumpsuits using ping-pong balls for eyes! Really. And again and again, you knew that Graves was under their control because you saw their ping-pongy eyes and weird music to remind you!

Third, the writing. Logic just didn't apply to the movie. Not at all. It seemed like a lot of disparate ideas were just tossed in and never really thought through for a second. Dangling plot elements, magical solutions that come out of no where and dead spaces in the plot abound.

I strongly recommend you don't watch this movie. However, as a party film for you and your friends to laugh at, it is first-rate!

A final word about the print. I saw it on DVD from Mill Creek Entertainment. It was an atrocious quality print--with lots of bits and pieces missing from various scenes due to the DVD being made from a severely degraded print that had never in any way been restored. However, considering how bad this film is, I guess I can understand why they didn't spend a few bucks to improve the DVD.

Not enough of the aliens

[lordzedd-3 · 1/10 · 15 July 2006]

I must admit the eye effects were good and the fact they lived underground. That explains why they have no eyelids. But the fact that we don't get to see them in the bulk of the movie is just wrong and cheap. The flick is called KILLERS FROM SPACE, so when you pay your two bits, you expect to see KILLERS FROM SPACE and at around 71 minutes, the makers should have given them more screen time. The next thing, if they are so advanced to come to this planet, why do they need to steal nuclear secrets. My God, I wouldn't have been surprised if the whole thing was fake and the KILLERS FROM SPACE was the Russians. It would have made more sense. They didn't go that route. Instead they gave us a bunch of super imposed animals and insects. Lame, dumb and I'm glad PETER GRAVES finally became a star and don't have to make this toilet fodder anymore. I give THE KILLERS FROM SPACE...THE NOOSE!

Killers from Space (1954) *1/2

[JoeKarlosi · 3/10 · 24 July 2007]

A shoddy fifties sci-fi yarn that I've never gotten around to seeing, having heard how terrible it is. It's pretty bad all right, cheaply made and featuring scratchy stock footage and so on, but at least the young Peter Graves (known for the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE TV series) gave it considerable effort. Graves plays a doctor who goes down in a plane crash and then winds up walking around in a dazed state stealing vital government documents, with an unexplainable surgical chest wound. It turns out in flashback that he'd been abducted and preserved by underground aliens with huge bugged-out ping pong balls for eyes, who want to destroy Earth. Part of their plan is to turn insects and other animals into giants (the effects are dismal), but not if Graves can foil their scheme. This just misses being completely unwatchable due to Graves' valiant character and those silly aliens. *1/2 out of ****

An enjoyable B movie

[chris_gaskin123 · 8/10 · 9 December 2002]

I recently watched Killers From Space for the first time and I rather enjoyed it, despite reading a lot of bad reviews about it.

A nuclear scientist is killed in a plane crash but is revived and then kidnapped by aliens from the planet Astron Delta with ping-pong-ball eyes wearing jogging suits and mittens, who want to take over the world. They choose him because of his knowledge about nuclear testing. When he tries to escape, he encounters giant Spiders, grasshoppers and lizards which the aliens plan to rule the world with. Not surprisingly, when he tells his story to others, no one believes him so he goes to the local power station to cut the electricity for 10 seconds and this blows up the aliens and giant creatures and kills them.

The best thing about this movie are those aliens' eyes which are ping-pong balls. The only face I am familiar with is Peter Graves (It Conquered the World).

This movie is worth watching, especially if you are a fan of 50's sci fi and bad movies. Great fun.

Rating: 3 and a half stars out of 5.

"Well, haven't you heard? I'm a mental case!"

[Hey_Sweden · 6/10 · 22 March 2020]

Peter Graves, all jut-jawed seriousness and desire to do good for the world, is nuclear scientist Dr. Doug Martin. (One of his earliest lead roles.) After an atom bomb test, he disappears in a plane crash. Later, he resurfaces, but he doesn't seem to be quite the same man as before. During an inquiry during which he is supposedly incapable of being imaginative, he tells his colleagues and friends a wild story: he was temporarily abducted by bug-eyed aliens. They intend to use him as an instrument in their scheme to take over the world. Naturally, nobody believes Dougs' story, but he's determined to foil the aliens before it's too late.

Passably directed by Billy Wilders' less talented brother W. Lee Wilder, "Killers from Spaces" is actually reasonably engrossing - provided the viewer has a soft spot for micro-budget 50s cheese. It tells a pretty entertaining story, with a lot of exposition shoved into the confrontation between Doug and the nefarious extraterrestrials. And these E.T.s are so wonderfully tacky with their egg-carton eyes and bargain basement wardrobe. The special effects are likewise endearing in their own way, with the standout sequence being Dougs' attempted escape from the cavern: he is overwhelmed by a variety of Earth animals that the creatures are manipulating into becoming giants. The music, cinematography, and atmosphere are all pretty enjoyable for this kind of sci-fi fare. The performances are on point: obviously not award-worthy, but effective in their sincerity. Co-starring are James Seay (also in the directors' "Phantom from Space"), Steve Pendleton ("The Great Missouri Raid"), Frank Gerstle ("Monstrosity"), John Frederick ("Blindman"), Barbara Bestar ("Navajo Trail Raiders"), Shepard Menken ("The Phantom Tollbooth"), and future prolific trailer narrator Ron Gans as a sentry.

While hardly a "quality" production, a movie like "Killers from Space" packs more earnest entertainment into its trim running time (71 minutes in this case) than some of the mega-budget movies of the modern era.

Six out of 10.

Plan 9 from RKO

[ptb-8 · 2/10 · 14 December 2010]

EAGGGH .. oh that's another film... well then, KILLERS FROM SPACE elicits the same reaction: and looks like a 70 minute shortened version of THE PHANTOM serial but filmed at the Republic cave sets and studio kitchen corners, but released by RKO. The most shocking and even incomprehensibly startling thing about this LOST PLANET level gibberish is that RKO released it on a double bill with a musical: THE FRENCH LINE...!! For a genuine 'what the...' reaction imagine the crowds flocking to see Jane Russell shake her tuille feather and instead get Peter Graves solemnly saving earth from aliens who look like cinema projectionists in overalls and cummerbunds... and ping pong ball eyes. What a joke! and this in the days when adults went to see THE FRENCH LINE and got this junk first instead. A musical and a kiddie sci fi episode. No wonder the industry died the death of a mangy dog in 1957.

Impossible to take seriously...but oh so good

[kharing · 30 July 2007]

As soon as the first pair of hazy, faded eyes appear to Doug in a vision, it is apparent that the movie doesn't have much production value. This is furthered when Doug is brought to the aliens' underground lair and you see what they actually LOOK like. I gotta applaud Graves on his acting, because I would not have been able to act in the same situation AND withhold my laughter. Perhaps what made me laugh most about the movie was the scene where Doug is running around the 'zoo' that the aliens constructed in their lair. If you look hard enough at all the camera views of him running around between the different animals, it becomes clear that they only had a small section of 'cave' to film with, because he rounds the same corner about 10 times. Definitely good for anyone who enjoys the campyness of 50's horror filmography.

"Those eyes... those horrible eyes!" Almost unwatchable 50's sci-fi rubbish.

[poolandrews · 2/10 · 5 July 2007]

Killers from Space starts as scientist Dr. Doug Martin (Peter Graves) is monitoring the aftermath of an atomic bomb test detonation at Soledad Flats in Nevada from a military jet, Dr. Martin sees a strange flashing light which when approached causes the jet to crash. Doug's wife Ellen Martin (Barbara Bestar) is given the bad news, however rather unexpectedly Doug reappears alive & well apart from a strange scar on his chest. Mr. Briggs (Steve Pendleton) of the FBI is on the case & after noticing Doug act strangely suspects he may be leaking information to the other side, sure enough Doug is caught with sensitive information regarding the tests. Doug is given a truth serum for obvious reasons & is then questioned, what Doug says is a tale of aliens from a distant planet called Astron Delta & their need to wipe out humanity using giant carnivorous lizards & insects so they can conquer Earth for themselves! Nobody believes him but Doug is determined to stop them...

Produced & directed by W. Lee Wilder this is a poverty row 50's sci-fi film which has nothing going for it. The script by Bill Raynor which seems to take itself very seriously starts out like a spy flick with Briggs the FBI geezer chasing Doug around who is passing on secrets to the other side but then about halfway through the ping-pong eye ball aliens are introduced & it suddenly transforms into some unintentionally hilarious camp classic. You know I'm sitting there watching Killers from Space as the main English speaking killer from space dude is talking to Doug & revealing their entire plan & practically telling Doug how they can be defeated as well & I thought to myself would a seemingly intelligent alien tell someone this so he could pass it on & possibly stop them? Then again maybe I'm just thinking about this film too much. The film also has a stab at a moral message about atomic bomb testing & radiation but in the end it's very ineffective & has no conviction to it. At only 70 odd minutes in length it's short but it doesn't feel like it, in fact this is one dull, boring & even at 70 minutes overlong mess of a film.

Director Wilder makes a complete mess of everything, the action scenes are as lifeless as they come & any serious message about atomic testing is lost in the crapness of it all. The aliens themselves are hilarious, the ping pong eye balls, the jumper-suits with thick belts & lets not forget the large bushy eyebrows. These guys are meant to be scary but they are more like to bring about fits of laughter rather than send chills down your spine. There are also a collection of giant lizards & insects here, they are just normal lizards and insects filmed in close-up though & again are quite funny to watch. The rest of the special effects like the plane crashing are also terrible. The film has dated badly & there's another funny 50's bit when we go inside Doug & Ellen's bedroom, despite being married they sleep in different beds separated by a bedside cabinet!

Technically the film is poor with bad editing, awful day-for-night shooting which doesn't match, terrible use of stock footage, not so special effects & rock bottom production values. The acting is suitably rubbish & a fair amount of the cast actually smoke on screen.

Killers from Space is a bit pants really, there's no scares or decent sci-fi in it, the aliens are ridiculous & despite being a public domain film so you can download it for free it's just not worth the time or effort.

Those eyes.

[Mr. Pulse · 2/10 · 21 April 2001]

My friend bought a two pack of movies in the mall. For like five bucks he got "Killers From Space" and "Monster From Green Hell." I still can't decide which movie was worse.

Monster From Green Hell is a racist film, featuring lots of out of place stock footage, worse cinematography than you'd see on 8mm home movies, and a script that makes you pine for the brilliance of Ed Wood. But Killers From Space has aliens with really big eyes. So it's a toss up.

Peter Graves stars in one of his, well, his performances (Any modifying adjective there would be a waste of typing) as a guy who learns of the Killers, whose big eyes bely their from space heritage. He has to stop them before we all die of boredom from watching this.

The effects are laughable, the script corny, and is about as exciting as watching a marathon on television. In retrospect, the Killers From Space/Monster From Green Hell two pack cost us a lot more than five bucks. And not just the time wasted on them, those movies took a piece of my soul. I miss it.