Terror from the Year 5000

RE: The DVD edition of 1958's "Terror From the Year 5000" recently issued by Incredibly Strange Film Works (ISFW) of Jamestown, MO: Those of you who've been waiting for a pristine-quality DVD edition of this fun Sci-Fi oldie will have to go on waiting. The very fuzzy picture and sound quality (with contrasts so bad that some night scenes are nearly impossible to make out) make this ISFW DVD a big disappointment, especially considering the $24.99 price tag! (The Horror/Sci-Fi fans among you may also remember ISFW's equally unsatisfactory VHS video edition of 1964's "Horror of Party Beach", mastered from a toned-down TV print with all the gore removed!)

I'd say that any DVD or VHS video bearing the ISFW logo should be approached with caution.

(FYI, I caught this movie on YouTube.)

The average IMDb ranking is currently 2.5 for this movie, which is twice as low as it ought to be. This is not a great movie, it's not even a particularly good movie, but it is not in the same abysmal league as truly bad grades Z 1950s scifi.

Other reviews have noted some of the cool moments in the movie, such as the woman from the future at first speaking Greek, not knowing exactly what language is being spoken in the time frame to wish she has returned from the year 5000. There are a few other such moments, which exhibit more cleverness than the scripts from a good many other super low-budget movies of the era.

That's not to say the script is good. It's too talky, and there are long moments of melodrama which in the hands of a decent script writer could have been replaced by moments of Science Fiction plot and dialogue instead (without adding a dime to the budget). The acting is better than in many similarly low-budget movies, but it's still not good. The one exception is Joyce Holden, who has talent, and mostly succeeds in imbuing her lines with personality.

I myself don't find this movie worthy of repeated viewing, but for genuine fans of 1950s science fiction it is worth a look.

As far as I know, this is the first American feature film about time travel via a time machine. A time machine was featured in the American serial BRICK BRADFORD (1947) and in the English comedy TIME FLIES (1944). Film firsts should be noted and applauded even if the films they appear in are otherwise unremarkable. TERROR FROM THE YEAR 5000 is a somewhat lackluster production with uneven performances and direction. I say that this film is shade a better than most other low budget quickies from 1958 in that its story slightly more imaginative. The time machine was something new to films in 1958, the bit with the hypnotic finger nails is certainly unusual and don't forget the four eyed mutant cat from the future. I thought the idea of having the future women at first mistakenly speaking Greek was a clever idea, since the present people had sent the future people with trinkets that had Greek writing on them. The make up for the future woman is quite poor, no wonder the director mostly kept her face hidden throughout. There is one scene where the scientists leave the island and go to a movie on the mainland. AIP studio heads must of come up with this scene to insert a little promotion. The film they go to see is AIP's I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN. Oh, by the way, I like the 1958 Edsel Corsair that Ward Costello drives.

AIP and 2.5 statue 5200 ad Florida swamps future---medallion asking for help

Currently, "Terror From the Year 5000" has an abominably low score of 2.5. This would indicate that this is a truly horrible film...but it isn't. Now I am not saying it's a good movie, but the picture clearly is suffering from "Mystery Science Theater 3000" syndrome. In other words, when a film is made fun of my the show, huge numbers of the viewers of the show go online and bombard IMDb with scores of 1. If you look at the bottom 100 films on IMDb, you'll also see that nearly all of the American films from the 1950s, 60s and 70s were skewered on that TV show as well. Often, much worse films manage to stay off the list simply because of exposure. So, if you are looking for a film as wretched as "Plan 9 From Outer Space" or "Robot Monster", well, you should keep looking.

The film is about a weird experiment going on in the middle of nowhere in Florida. Why this odd location? Because the project requires so much energy it would tend to interfere with the equipment of folks living nearby. And what IS this huge power draw for....well, to make contact with folks from the future! Eventually, they are able to bring objects from the year 5200! And, a bit later, they get a medallion that is begging for help! So is this future trying to contact us? And, is this a good thing?

Now I am not going to say that this is a great film. The 'monster' is silly but there are much worse examples from the era. Overall, an okay movie but certainly not an awful picture. The acting and direction are competent...not really good, but competent.

The titular menace in AIP's 1958 "Terror from the Year 5000" ('a hideous she-thing!' as the ads screamed) does not come from another planet but from Earth's future (5200 AD to be exact), a novel idea at the time but quite common since. Like her counterpart in "The Astounding She-Monster," both share the radioactive touch of death, this Future Woman revealing that every fifth child is born a mutation, and that their contaminated blood needs a fresh supply from the 20th century. Triple threat writer/producer/director Robert J. Gurney Jr. previously scripted the AIP sci fi comedy "Invasion of the Saucer Men," and does a pretty good job on the low budget, the lab located in an ordinary house on a coastal island in Florida (location shooting in Dade County), where two scientists have been trading objects from our time with those from the future, until the vain, glory seeking younger one brings back something alive, a cat with four eyes that gets dumped in the lake. Joyce Holden, sadly making her screen swan song, is a breath of fresh air modeling a nightgown and two bathing suits, former leading lady in Columbia's 1956 "The Werewolf," but it's the enigmatic Salome Jens in her film debut that audiences recall as the Future Woman, who alas only appears in the final reel. There's enough intrigue to last its hour long running time however, at least for male members of the viewing audience, topping a double billed in certain markets with either "The Screaming Skull" or "The Brain Eaters."