KILLERS FROM SPACE (1954) - the original alien abduction ?

DIRECTED by W. Lee Wilder.

SCREENPLAY by William Raynor & Myles Wilder.

STARRING  - Peter Graves as Dr. Douglas Martin,  Barbara Bestar as Ellen Martin,  Frank Gerstle as Dr. Kurt Kruger,  James Seay as Col. Banks,  Steve Pendleton as F.B.I. Agent Briggs,  Shepherd Menken as Major Clift M.D.,  John Frederick (as John Merrick) as Deneb/The Tala,  Mark Scott - Narrator.

PLOT - When atomic scientist Dr Douglas Martin's plane crashes in the desert, his friends and colleagues naturally assume him to be dead. However, he miraculously survives and walks back to his base. He has no memory of what happened and is uninjured except for a strange scar on his chest.

Martin begins to act suspiciously and is ordered to take time off. He ignores this and instead breaks into the base and steals some data pertaining to the atomic tests that are being carried out. His will is not his own and he appears to be under some malign influence. Whilst making his escape, he is pursued by an F.B.I. agent and crashes his car. He is taken to hospital.

Under medical care, he is administered a truth serum and his repressed memories come to the surface, he relates the tale of what happened to him after the crash and his listeners are astounded...

For it transpires that Martin was abducted by a race of aliens that are hiding out in the desert - hailing from the planet Astron Delta, these boggle eyed extra terrestrials have mutated desert creatures and insects to giant size, with these giants they intend to invade and enslave the people of Earth.

Is it too late to save mankind ?

DIALOUGE  - Dr. Martin - "Who are you ?"  Deneb - "A scientist like yourself"  Dr. Martin - "Where do you come from ?"  Deneb - "From a planet yet unknown to you."  Dr. Martin - "You know my name...you speak English."  Deneb - "We speak every language."

PERFORMANCES  - The acting all round in this film is of a fairly ropey standard if I'm being fair. Peter Graves makes for an uninspiring lead. He gives a stilted, wooden performance and I'm unsure whether its intentional or not. Given that he's playing a character that has been abducted and brainwashed by aliens this may be the reason that he acts the way he does...or it may not. Everyone else is just as stilted and wooden, so it's difficult to tell.

There really are no performances of note in this, and no characters who stand out as being particularly interesting. Even the aliens just stand around and mouth bland dialogue with no apparent interest in what is going on around them.

However, It is not the actors or the characters they portray that make this film interesting, as we will shortly see...

SFX - We are talking special effects courtesy of Poundland here. You want to portray bug eyed aliens ? That's OK...stick some ping pong balls over your actors eyes and hey presto - you've got an alien conqueror from the planet Astron Delta. You want giant irradiated lizards and spiders ? Just use some stock footage of normal sized lizards and spiders and super impose your actor into the frame. To be fair, this latter effect is pretty much the same technique that was used in 'The Incredible Shrinking Man' but in that film it looked a hell of a lot slicker and more professional, here it just looks shoddy.

SEX & VIOLENCE - None whatsoever. Shame, it might have livened things up a bit...

RATING  - Badly scripted, blandly acted, bargin basement special effects and really REALLY slowly paced. This film's runtime is only 71 minutes...it seems like a LOT longer. To be fair, things do pick up in the second half when you see the flashback to Martin and the aliens, but that first half of the film with bad actors standing around spouting military jargon in static shot frames is just torturous to sit through. So with all of these many obvious flaws in mind, what exactly is it about this film that makes it so interesting ?

It's not what the film does, its about what it depicts and the potential cultural impact of that depiction. 'Killers From Space' is perhaps the first film to ever depict the phenomena of alien abduction, and it carries all the classic tropes that have been documented in 'real life' alien abduction cases (except for the giant lizards, lets just call them artistic licence).

One of the common elements of most alien abduction cases is that the abductee is taken by the alien beings and subjected to a series of medical examinations - this is what happens in this film, thankfully though we are spared the sight of Peter Graves being given an anal probe. Some abductees have reported finding strange scars and lessions on thier bodies after the experience - this too happens to Martin with the strange operation scar he has on his chest.

Another common aspect of abduction cases is that the victims very often report missing time and have no memory of thier experience. These memories are only ever regained when the abductees are hypnoticically regressed, or sometimes via dreams. This too happens to Peter Grave's character.

The final element is the aliens themselves. The creatures are often described as having large eyes and as wearing one piece bodysuits. Whilst the Astron Deltans of this movie may not be your typical Greys, it could be argued that there's a slight resembelence (if you squint). They definitely have the large eyes and the bodysuit, could this not be then an attempt to portray 'real life' aliens from abductees reports but just done really badly and ham fistedley on a low budget ?

"So what ?", you may say "so, some low budget film maker has read a few U.F.O abduction stories in the paper and decided to make a cheap cash-in rip off". Well...yes and no. By 1954 'U.F.O fever' was in full swing in the cinema. You literally couldn't move for flying saucers and alien invaders on the silver screen. However, the alien abduction phenomena was yet to be widely known amongst the general public.

There had been a few cases of people being 'contactees', the most noteworthy being George Adamski who claimed to have been aboard a U.F.O and met and chatted to its occupants. These where tall Nordic looking humanoids from Venus who, allegedly, warned him of the dangers of nuclear war. This experience seemed to be very far removed from the cold eyed Greys and thier frightening medical examinations. Adamski's Venusians seem postively polite and genial in comparison. The whole point of this being that the stereotypical alien abduction scenario had yet to enter the public consciousness at the point that 'Killers From Space' was doing the rounds at cinemas and drive-ins.

So, did this film somehow influence the stories of those who claim to have been abducted ? Did it worm its way into people's minds via some form of cultural osmosis, the imagery from the film helping those who had undergone an experience to make sense of thier otherworldly encounters ? Certainly the film was quite popular back in the day but did that many people really see it and pay attention to it ?

Or was the film put out there by some US government think tank to somehow prepare people for what was to come. To get the public used to the idea of what happens when you get whisked off by little grey men ? Or was it put out there to discredit genuine abduction stories, to make the victims seem like they'd been watching too many bad science fiction films and been influenced by them ?

Or is it all just a massive coincidence ? Probably we'll never know...probably it's a load of old crap, but it does give you pause for thought...

Anyway, terrible film with a potentially interesting background, I'm giving it 2 and a half anal probes out of 5. A weird curiosity.