It! The Terror from Beyond Space - (1958)

I don’t review movies that are too popular, have been talked about by every “professional” critic and magazine, or are just overall reviewed out. The Highlander and Short Circuit movies are about as famous as movies as I’m willing to go.

I certainly won’t review the Alien movies, since they’ve been abused in the “over-reviewed” department. I could say how the original Alien is a horror masterpiece that perfectly walks the line between the slow paced science fiction and giant monster B-movie science fiction’s of days past, but everyone has already said that. I could also say that Aliens is an action masterpiece with one of the most likable cast of characters ever, amplified by the masterful special effects. But again, that’s been pretty well documented.

And if I were to blast through the rest of the series, Alien 3 is a really bad movie that quickly becomes dull, and Alien: Resurrection is a laughably bad movie that’s slightly saved by the over the top acting and bizarrely stupid story. The forgettable Alien vs. Predator is an incredibly boring movie for the first half and an incredibly stupid movie for the second half, and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem is one of the worst movies ever made. And the sort-of-Alien movie Prometheus was a highly disappointing wreck with too many plot holes to count.

But the movie that came before all of these was ‘It! The Terror from Beyond Space’, whose poster boldly proclaims “$50,000 GUARANTEED! BY A WORLD RENOWNED INSURANCE COMPANY TO THE FIRST PERSON WHO CAN PROVE ‘IT’ IS NOT ON MARS NOW!” I’m pretty sure the contest is no longer valid, or ever was give the fact that they don’t name said insurance company. But you got to love the movie already when its poster has such a bold challenge.

 

 

‘It’ is about space crew on Mars in the year 1973 who loses all but one member, Colonel Caruthers. Believing he murdered them all, NASA sends out a team to get Caruthers so they can bring him back to get arrested. Before taking off from Mars, a hostile alien monster gets onboard, the same who killed Caruthers crew. Now they have to survive all the way back to Earth in a very small amount space with a very large monster.

 

The monster is usually in the shadows, but you get the idea of what he looks like. He kind of has the face of boar if it was planted onto a dried prune or almond for a head, on a football players’ body complete with shoulder pads placed under his skin. And of course no visible genitals or visible arse, like all movie monsters. A for design, A+ for implementation, because knowing whipping out the monster too often would ruin suspense they have this big thing creep around in the ship’s cellar equivalent like the Deadite from ‘The Evil Dead’. ‘It’ slowly makes it up each level of the ship, until our heroes have no where else to run to, and the finale is thrust upon them. It’s just superbly paced and well made.

 

It also has a lot of weird funny parts, like why this crew brought bazookas, guns, and ton of grenades when they didn’t expect a monster. Or the fact they see no problem with setting off said grenades in ship…in space. And that’s just the way you want these monster movies. The characters and acting are wonderfully dull, as it should be, and the sets are limited to pretty much a few rooms, creating a great feeling of claustrophobia.

The plot is so similar to Alien, one could almost call Alien a loose remake of ‘It’. Both are about ship crews trapped with a monster far away from home, a very similar plot to the ‘Thing’ movies. And what they have in common past the plot is very simple titles (Alien/It/The Thing) to go with the simple but effective premise. ‘It’ is a perfectly dumb and influential science fiction B-movie, check it out.