Killers from Space (

1954

)

1950s sci-fi can boast some pretty pitiful aliens. There are the guys with the massive foreheads (fiveheads? sixheads?) from This Island Earth (1955), the chick in the silver unitard with the ridiculous eyebrows from The Astounding She-Monster (1957), and the not-so-little green men from Invaders from Mars (1953). None of these are all that impressive, with most inspiring more amusement at their appearance than awe or fear. Yet, for my money, no alien invader in the annals of sci-fi is as ridiculous looking as the guys in today's film, the titular “Killers from Outer Space.” When I think of a menacing alien threat I don't imagine a particularly ugly guy with ping-pong balls taped over his eyes and an especially thick uni-brow. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief and pretend that the big-headed freaks in Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) are a genuine threat, but even I have my limits! Even funnier is the fact that the film itself takes the threat of these aliens completely seriously. They even try to spook the audience at one point by showing you those stupid ping-pong eyes superimposed over the screen with creepy music playing. I would say these things are the least intimidating monster I've ever seen in a movie, were it not for the fact that I watched Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961) a few years back. At least that movie had the good sense to play its googly-eyed monster for laughs.

Despite the mirth-inducing antagonists, Killer from Outer Space has aspirations of being a serious movie that explores important, hot-button issues and themes. This is a movie that is as much about Atomic espionage as it is about alien invaders. It's a Cold War story about spies, and paranoia that runs so deep you don't even know if you can trust yourself. This of course just makes it funnier. There is nothing so adorable as a good-natured idiot making an earnest attempt to discuss matters of grave importance.

We begin with some stock footage, which hopefully the audience gets use to quickly because about half of this movie is stock footage in some form or another. The footage is mostly well-edited together but it is of highly variable quality and there are a few amusing flubs like when a helicopter or an aircraft suddenly transforms into a completely different model in between shots. I can't be too hard on the film's reliance on stock footage for its military vehicles, as there was no way in Hell that Killers from Space had either the budget to get their hands on this equipment or the time to properly film them if it could. Sure, the film was produced by one of Hollywood's Big Five studios, but RKO in 1954, after years of mismanagement and poor finances, was a Major studio in name only, and boy does it show in the quality of the horror and sci-fi films it cranked out as it was collapsing.

In any event, the stock footage and voice-over narrator helpfully inform us that the military is conducting a series of atomic tests under the leadership of Dr. Douglas Martin and Dr. Curt Kruger. Everything is going normally with Dr. Martin collecting data in a two-seat aircraft while surveying the test site. He spots an anomaly near the blast site, and then shortly thereafter the pilot loses control of the aircraft and it crashes. Miraculously, Dr. Martin is unhurt and manages to walk back to base through the desert. The only injury he seems to have sustained is a surgical scar on his abdomen.

This is the height of the Cold War, and naturally, this bizarre event taking place on a secret military project involving one of its top members, draws attention from the counter-espionage experts at the FBI. One Agent Briggs is dispatched to investigate the situation and figure out just what the hell happened to Dr. Martin. Briggs immediately suspects that Martin is compromised, and might possibly not even be Dr. Martin. Briggs doesn't know that he's in a sci-fi movie, so he's not suggesting that Martin is a literal Body Snatcher, but rather a Russian spy whose been surgically altered to resemble the doctor. His theory doesn't pan out but it's a good reminder of the level of paranoia we're dealing with here.

Martin is not allowed to return to active duty right away, as even though there is no evidence he's physically ill, mentally scarred, or been replaced by a Soviet agent, the whole situation around his disappearance is just too weird to ignore. If this were the other side of the Iron Curtain he'd probably find himself in one of the more comfy gulags or unceremoniously shot in the back of the head, but the Americans just opt to give him a paid vacation while they sort things out. Martin is bizarrely upset about this and spends his entire vacation phoning the base in the middle of the night, and driving his wife up the walls with constant speculation about the atomic tests. When he finds out that the government has continued to run the tests without him he breaks into the vault in Dr. Kruger's office and makes off with classified documents, before being caught hiding them in the desert by Agent Briggs.

Once in captivity, Martin is given a truth serum and reveals that after his crash landing, he was captured by alien invaders from Astron Delta. The aliens, having exhausted the resources of their home world, plan to take Earth from mankind. Not fancying their chances in a straight-up fight with the Terrans though, they prefer to siphon off energy from Atomic tests and use the power to mutate an army of giant bugs and reptiles to overrun Earth. Not sure how dealing with giant vermin that have destroyed mankind will be any easier than fighting mankind, maybe they are already mutating some giant cats to kill all the bugs, and another wave of giant dogs to deal with the cats once they are done. They also mention that the reason their eyes are so big is because their home world is so dark. A more competent film would know better than to draw attention to the eyes.

It is amazing how little sense the aliens' plan makes. Already, the notion that they need to leech atomic energy from the humans they are planning to subjugate is a little hard to swallow. How do you have sufficient energy to leap across the stars but not enough to produce the equivalent of a measly couple of A-bombs? Then there is their bizarre decision to kidnap and subtly control Dr. Martin after their plan is already in motion. It's not like they have had any issue gathering atomic power up to this point, and the disappearance and sudden reappearance of the doctor only draws attention to the existence of the alien invaders. It would have been much better for them just to kill him and hide the body in the desert. Moreover, their control over him is so tenuous that the good doctor almost immediately breaks free and starts looking for a way to destroy the aliens. Frankly, they would have been better if they left Dr. Martin alone and continued to gather energy in secret. Then there is the fact that they are so dependent on the power of the earthlings that if that power supply is disrupted for even a few minutes their whole operation will explode in a ball of atomic fire.

This last bit of idiocy is the most galling because it results in a singularly quick and unsatisfying end to the alien menace. I can forgive a stupid contrivance in a plot if it's part of the inciting incident, but when it is the conclusion to the story that is a much more serious problem. I can think of few conclusions less satisfying than turning off a light switch and waiting ten minutes for the aliens to self-destruct. Everyone that gave The War of the Worlds (1953) shit for its abrupt dues-ex-machina ending should take a look at Killers from Space, now that is what an unsatisfying ending to a 1950s alien invasion movie really looks like!

On the whole, I have a rather dim opinion of the sci-fi and horror movies made by the vastly less successful of the two Wilder brothers, and Killers from Space, despite the amusing alien designs, only confirms that low estimation. It's subpar, even when compared to other shoe-string films from the era. Plenty of films from this strata of cinema manage to provide some interesting food for thought or at the very least manage to have special effects so offensively bad they circle around to being amusing. Here the funniest thing I have to laugh about is a badly photocopied picture of Eisenhower framed and hanging on the wall. I know I would much rather re-watch Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957) or Beginning of the End (1957) than touch Killers from Space again.