Post by RedKing on Apr 7, 2006 5:22:09 GMT -8
I watched this one again last night. I picked up a nice 'pro" quality dvd-r from a company called Resurrection Video a couple years ago and the disc is really nice, about as good as an Alpha release. The movie itself was a decent print and they included the trailer and several lobby cards. Now the movie is coming to legit disc on May 30-Dark Sky is releasing a disc very similar to the one I have, but they managed to find a wide screen print(at least I hope it's really a wide screen print and not one of those fake ones with bars slapped on the top and bottom of the full screen image!!). Since I was little, this is one movie that fascinated me from the lurid ad art I would see in the back pages of Famous Monsters' 8mm home movie ads and from various stills in the same magazine and other books. I never got to actually see the movie until I bought it, and while it definitely would have been better to see it as a kid, i still like it allot. The only place the low budget really shows is the alien's UFO interior sets-the walls are undisguised wood and that UFO must be a Tardis because it's allot bigger inside than it looks from the outside! The aliens bald cap seal lines were blatantly obvious in a few scenes too, but that's not too bad. The Frankenstein of the title is NASA "astro-robot" Frank Saunders- a very human like android (forerunner of Data from Star trek obviously) who runs afoul of a small band of aliens (ostensibly Martians, but their identity is never spelled out in the film) who are coming to earth to abduct women for breeding stock. They blow up Frank's rocket, he ejects in the capsule and lands in Puerto Rico, where the aliens follow him and melt half his face off, which also damages his circuits, causing him to go on a homicidal rampage for awhile. In the meantime, the aliens start abducting bikini-clad babes from the beach and pool parties. Frank's inventor-Dr Adam Steele( James Karen) and his female assistant track frank down and repair him, but the girl ,naturally, gets abducted. Dr Steele goes for the military and Frank busts into the UFO to free the captured girls.here's where the Space Monster comes in-Mull, a hideous alien beast is let loose and he and Frank clash-as the trailer screams-Earth Terror vs Space Horror! Frank heroically sacrifices himself by blowing up the UFO. Now this sounds terribly cheesy, and it is, but it's allot of fun. Mull is very cool, and unfortunately, underused. He shows up a couple of times briefly before the fight, but he definitely should have been used more. The costume is quite good, and vaguely reminiscent of It,the Terror from beyond Space in body structure-large hands with 3 enormous claws and a bulky muscular body. But he also has long hair on sections of his body and a truly evil looking skull-like face with huge needle-like teeth and antennae! The soundtrack is also a big plus for the movie-lots of groovy 60s incidental music and 2 good Beatles type songs. The interiors were all filmed in Long Island like SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS the year before with location shooting in San Juan. Highly recommended 60s monster matinee fun!!