Night of the Blood Beast: In this 50's sci-fi Roger Corman quickie a returning astronaut (Michael Emmet) crash lands in the hills outside of Cape Canaveral and is discovered by a rescuer (Ed Nelson) and his photographer (Georgianna Carter).
The astronaut appears dead and they bring him back to base camp/shack. After a more thorough examination, it turns out he isn't dead after all, but pregnant with what appears to be six sea monkeys. Then the father shows up (An Owlbear) who is an alien that may or may not have peaceful intentions.
Is the Alien really peaceful? Will the astronaut's fiancee (Angela Greene) still go through with their wedding now that he is no longer "pure"? Who decapitated and ate the brains of the doctor (Tyler McVey)?
The Good: For a quickie Sci-Fi film this has some pretty good mind-bending adult themes. For starters we have a man becoming pregnant by an alien creature and he defends this creature as a teenage girl would defend a delinquent to her parents. The alien talks in quiet tones and proper English about family and immigration as he makes the case for him and the astronaut to raise the babies on their own. We have the hot-headed men who want to kill them just for being different ( The rescuer above and John Baer). The fiancee is conflicted, happy to have her man back but feeling he has changed and is no longer the alpha male she was going to marry.
I would be remiss to not mention Georgianna Carter. She is beautiful yes, actually quite stunning, but that is not unusual in fifties sci-fi. She has a more out of time quality. Have you ever seen those shows that purport to show a woman using a cell phone in a silent film from the twenties or a photo of a modern traveler during the construction of the Panama Canal? With her hairstyle and mannerisms and even dress, she seems to be from at least two decades in the future. You just don't expect a character in s fifties Sci-fi quickie to have Rachel Hair.
I know it gets a lot of flack but I like the alien's Owlbear costume. I had to smile every time it showed up.
The Bad: Night of the Blood Beast is a low budget quickie. It's barely an hour long, the spaceship is a septic tank and there are six people in the entire film.
In Conclusion: A somewhat well written (not shot mind you) sci-fi story that muddies the water of whether aliens are good or evil and bluntly muddies the water on a lot of gender roles as well. Clearly grading on a curve for a Roger Corman quickie, the film has a fun monster, a beautiful woman from the 90's and doesn't overstay it's welcome.
Bonus MST3k Review: This was the first movie the boys did after their somewhat disastrous movie lark. Two years of frustration and stress had built up and now they had a chance to riff again. Good lord, it shows, thankfully in a most glorious way.
The movie provides plenty of material (A man pregnant with shrimp for one thing) and the riffs just get stronger throughout. The host segments also get stronger with Crow bitterly denouncing the twin terrors of pregnant woman and babies and how they get all the breaks in a collection of Red Pill rants that have to be seen to be believed.
There is even one of their best shorts "Once Upon a Honeymoon" to start things off. A colorful musical about a Charles Nelson Reilly style angel sprinkling pixie dust on a wife who is very unhappy that her phones do not match her furniture and her composer husband who is chainsmoking his way to Broadway history.
The astronaut appears dead and they bring him back to base camp/shack. After a more thorough examination, it turns out he isn't dead after all, but pregnant with what appears to be six sea monkeys. Then the father shows up (An Owlbear) who is an alien that may or may not have peaceful intentions.
Is the Alien really peaceful? Will the astronaut's fiancee (Angela Greene) still go through with their wedding now that he is no longer "pure"? Who decapitated and ate the brains of the doctor (Tyler McVey)?
The Good: For a quickie Sci-Fi film this has some pretty good mind-bending adult themes. For starters we have a man becoming pregnant by an alien creature and he defends this creature as a teenage girl would defend a delinquent to her parents. The alien talks in quiet tones and proper English about family and immigration as he makes the case for him and the astronaut to raise the babies on their own. We have the hot-headed men who want to kill them just for being different ( The rescuer above and John Baer). The fiancee is conflicted, happy to have her man back but feeling he has changed and is no longer the alpha male she was going to marry.
I would be remiss to not mention Georgianna Carter. She is beautiful yes, actually quite stunning, but that is not unusual in fifties sci-fi. She has a more out of time quality. Have you ever seen those shows that purport to show a woman using a cell phone in a silent film from the twenties or a photo of a modern traveler during the construction of the Panama Canal? With her hairstyle and mannerisms and even dress, she seems to be from at least two decades in the future. You just don't expect a character in s fifties Sci-fi quickie to have Rachel Hair.
I know it gets a lot of flack but I like the alien's Owlbear costume. I had to smile every time it showed up.
The Bad: Night of the Blood Beast is a low budget quickie. It's barely an hour long, the spaceship is a septic tank and there are six people in the entire film.
In Conclusion: A somewhat well written (not shot mind you) sci-fi story that muddies the water of whether aliens are good or evil and bluntly muddies the water on a lot of gender roles as well. Clearly grading on a curve for a Roger Corman quickie, the film has a fun monster, a beautiful woman from the 90's and doesn't overstay it's welcome.
Bonus MST3k Review: This was the first movie the boys did after their somewhat disastrous movie lark. Two years of frustration and stress had built up and now they had a chance to riff again. Good lord, it shows, thankfully in a most glorious way.
The movie provides plenty of material (A man pregnant with shrimp for one thing) and the riffs just get stronger throughout. The host segments also get stronger with Crow bitterly denouncing the twin terrors of pregnant woman and babies and how they get all the breaks in a collection of Red Pill rants that have to be seen to be believed.
There is even one of their best shorts "Once Upon a Honeymoon" to start things off. A colorful musical about a Charles Nelson Reilly style angel sprinkling pixie dust on a wife who is very unhappy that her phones do not match her furniture and her composer husband who is chainsmoking his way to Broadway history.
