O Terror do Ano 5000

As a child I fell in love with 'monster' movies immediately upon seeing my first (Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman) on television. Fortunately for me I grew up in the fifties, an era prolific with cheapie horror and sci-fi films. A neighborhood theatre ran them almost exclusively at the time and I attended every Saturday (and sometimes a couple more days per week in glorious summer). Just couldn't get enough of this stuff.

I could take all the giant ants, scorpions and spiders, all the ghosts and haunted houses, the numerous editions of frankenstein monsters and invaders from space pretty well. For some reason, though, nothing frightened me more or stayed with me longer than the rare feminine monsters. Perhaps it was because women were always the loving caregivers (Mom, Grandma, my teachers, my sisters). When sick, or waking from a nightmare we always call for Mom. So, I think the idea of a woman being a vicious, scary thing was such a perversion of all I otherwise knew, the effect on me was especially chilling. I had no problem with the mutilated faces of men as in 'Horrors Of The Black Museum', 'The Black Sleep', 'The Unearthly' and so forth. But the visages of the female victims in 'The Hypnotic Eye' and of the niece in 'Frankenstein's Daughter' always made me squeeze shut my eyes.

'The Astounding She Monster' is a prime example of these fears - a malevolent, radioactive female relentlessly stalking me, her touch meaning sure pain and death. From the age of seven until seventeen, that particular luminescent character showed up in my nightmares. But the single most frightening thing I ever saw was the female terror that came shrieking out of the time machine in this movie, arms pumping in a marching style, coming right at me. Peeling off another woman's face to wear as a mask was incredibly disturbing. Yep - this was the single-most terror of my childhood movie-viewing. I couldn't even bring myself to keep my eyes open for more than half a second when the movie closes with a close-up of this hideously deformed feminist with a wicked widow's peak. Even at the age of sixteen, surrounded by buddies watching it on the late show, my body kept freezing with fear, though I didn't mention it to them.

Going by most of the reviews here, today's audiences, accustomed to the most graphic horror, just find this monster boring. But I'm still scared of this terror from the year 5000. Oh yeah, and the four-eyed cat gave me the creeps pretty good too.

The 1950s weren't exactly known for quality genre fare, but there are certainly some welcome, stellar exceptions. It doesn't take long to gather that this is not one of those exceptions. As 'Terror from the year 5,000' begins it's not very promising, as the first several minutes give us an unimportant female assistant played with utmost stereotypical airheaded dippiness, paired with the introduction of the tale's central conceit - something from the distant future existing in the present - which especially for the manner of its presentation requires an unprecedented level of suspension of disbelief. From the outset the dialogue and scene writing are less than great, and given the abbreviated runtime of just over one hour, it sure seems as if the picture approaches its plot with too much indifference. We're nearly halfway through before the story starts to advance beyond "is this from the future" and "vaguely suspicious behavior." While the narrative does pick up some more thereafter, the proceedings continue to be flush with tawdriness that's unbecoming of the suspense and excitement it ideally wishes to foster. Richard DuPage's music generally maintains a light mood even when nothing else does; an obligatory romantic element feels extra contrived; supporting character Claire is little more than eye candy for male viewers. The bulk of these 65-some minutes are built on fairly ordinary drama and conflict between present-day humans, leaving the science fiction for no more than a collective one-third of the length, and mostly in the back end.

In fairness, this flick can at least surely claim to be a step or two up from some of its contemporaries. There's no stock footage employed here, and the special effects are a smidgen better than what we've seen in other works of the period. The special makeup, and the outfit provided for Salome Jens, are modest, but an improvement on the cheapness of some kindred fare ('Attack of the giant leeches,' anyone?). Broadly speaking the cast actually give commendable, earnest performances, without (as much of) the ham-handedness that plagues other such titles. And while the plot has its troubles as written, there are good ideas here, and I think it all concludes with a fairly strong finish in the last several minutes. 'Terror from the year 5,000' never reaches a level exceeding "average" or "middling" at its very, very best, yet I'm of the mind that there's just enough value here - and equally important, just enough care taken - that the extremely low reputation it has carried over the past several decades seems excessive to me. Of all its faults, I believe the biggest issue here is that in the spirit of contemporary sensibilities (and presumably budgetary constraints), filmmaker Robert J. Gurney Jr. Takes so long to develop the story, and to gently weave in the sci-fi facets, that by the time the would-be thrills and intended weight are emphasized, we as viewers have already been somewhat dismissive of the remainder. One way or another, the movie just treads too lightly for its own good.

I don't think this feature is wholly rotten. It's sufficiently weak, however, that considering how many other things we could be watching instead from the 50s or otherwise, there's no real reason to seek this out unless one has a specific impetus. I'm glad for those who get more out of 'Terror from the year 5,000' than I do, and I also can't begrudge those who regard it more harshly. All I can say is that while there are far worse ways to spend one's time, if you're going to watch at all, it's best reserved as something light for a lazy night.

In TERROR IN THE YEAR 5000, scientists somehow bring an artifact from the far-flung future into the present. NYC museum curator, Dr. Hedges (Ward Costello) heads for Florida to investigate this anomaly.

Untold horror ensues.

Another of the very talky sci-fi movies of its era, the action level is extremely low. Any real interest comes from the jealous tension between the head scientist's daughter (Joyce Holden), her dad's assistant, Dr. Hedges, and Angelo the caretaker, who happens to have the world's most interesting eyebrows. This soap opera is interrupted only sporadically, up until the "big finale".

Salome Jens plays the visitor from the future who runs around causing havoc. Her shimmery outfit and fingernails, along with her "transformation" scene are semi-interesting. The rest is a bit of a slog to wade through.

POINT OF INTEREST: There's a scene where the characters go to the movies, and the posters of I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN are on display outside the theater. Any collectors will drool over these vintage images!...

1950's science fiction films are so earnest and so crummy that it's impossible not to like them. "Terror From The Year 5000" is a prime example of the genre.

On a lonely island in Florida's Everglades, a professor is experimenting with time travel. The project is successful to the extent that Prof Erling and his assistant Victor are able to trade artefacts with people from the year 5,200AD. One of these items finds its way to the desk of Dr. Bob Hodges, a museum curator and all-round good guy, who is amazed to learn that the figurine dates from the future.

Bob Hodges heads for the Everglades, where Prof Erling and his beautiful daughter Claire make him welcome. Victor, meanwhile, has started putting in some unauthorised overtime in the lab, with alarming results...

Robert Gurney wrote, produced and directed this gauche piece of malarkey with its wooden acting, daffy plot and laughable sets. The scientific gadgetry in the lab is particularly amusing.

The howlers come thick and fast. Bob explains to his secretary Miss Blake (boy, if there were only an oscar for stodgy delivery ...) that carbon-14 dating places the statuette in the future. Just how carbon-14 can do that is baffling to ordinary mortals like me! When Bob fires his shotgun, we hear the shot but there is no muzzle flash from the dummy weapon. When a female in a nurse's uniform opens the door, somebody says, "You must be the nurse". The clock on the lab wall shows silly times which don't match the sunlight outside. The prof's gadget disrupts all machinery in the district when it's switched on. We see a TV set in a local bar pack up, but nobody seems to mind.

There are many unintentional laughs ("I'll do my exploring in the laboratory, if you don't mind", "And then the missile centre fired him" etc etc). Every plot point is laboured to death. The non-sequiturs abound. Nobody flinches when it is realised that they are all contaminated with radioactivity, and no-one warns Claire when she walks in. Later, it turns out that the lab has protective suits available. When Victor breaks a pane of glass in the time chamber, he picks up a replacement pane of exactly the right size which happens to be lying beside him. When Bob gets out of bed and follows Victor, he unaccountably has his shoes on. Why would Victor go to the trouble of getting in bed in the same room as Bob, only to sneak out and tamper with the gadget? And why at this stage would Bob want to follow him?

It goes on. The 'monster' speaks perfect Greek and English, even though it comes from five millennia in the future. The men know there's a dangerous creature out there, but they stand back and let Claire answer the door. The monster kills Angelo easily, but Claire is able to unmask it without any trouble. When they find the nurse's body, Hedges and Erling stroll back to the house as if they were picking mushrooms. Nobody calls the police when Angelo is found dead. Bob and the Professor abandon the house, with its two women and sick man, to go searching the island together. Nobody thinks of calling for help. The nurse, in her immaculate uniform, has to walk up to the house through swamp and jungle without a guide. When the alarm is sounded, nobody wonders where Victor is until after it's all over.

The editing is atrocious. We see the Professor waiting for his cue before speaking, and the lumpy back-and-forth dialogue cuts are dreadful. The close-ups of Bob and Claire swimming in the pond are oh-so-obviously filmed in a studio tank. At one point, Victor says "Professor, we're wasting our time." One can't help thinking he's right.

Terror From the Year 5000 is of American International's poorer efforts from the 1950's. It is one of those movies that is so bad it's good.

A scientist experimenting with time travel on a remote island in the Everglades manages to bring back a mutated woman from 5200 AD! She starts killing people and after replacing her face with that of a nurse she killed, she heads back to the future.

The cast includes Ward Costello, Joyce Holden, Frederic Downs and Salome Jens as the woman from the future. I've never heard of any of these.

Despite the very low budget, I rather enjoyed watching Terror From the Year 5000 and taped it when it came on BBC1 during the early hours some years ago. Luckily, I still have it on video.

Rating: 2 stars out of 5.