Killers from Space

Peter Graves, all jut-jawed seriousness and desire to do good for the world, is nuclear scientist Dr. Doug Martin. (One of his earliest lead roles.) After an atom bomb test, he disappears in a plane crash. Later, he resurfaces, but he doesn't seem to be quite the same man as before. During an inquiry during which he is supposedly incapable of being imaginative, he tells his colleagues and friends a wild story: he was temporarily abducted by bug-eyed aliens. They intend to use him as an instrument in their scheme to take over the world. Naturally, nobody believes Dougs' story, but he's determined to foil the aliens before it's too late.

Passably directed by Billy Wilders' less talented brother W. Lee Wilder, "Killers from Spaces" is actually reasonably engrossing - provided the viewer has a soft spot for micro-budget 50s cheese. It tells a pretty entertaining story, with a lot of exposition shoved into the confrontation between Doug and the nefarious extraterrestrials. And these E.T.s are so wonderfully tacky with their egg-carton eyes and bargain basement wardrobe. The special effects are likewise endearing in their own way, with the standout sequence being Dougs' attempted escape from the cavern: he is overwhelmed by a variety of Earth animals that the creatures are manipulating into becoming giants. The music, cinematography, and atmosphere are all pretty enjoyable for this kind of sci-fi fare. The performances are on point: obviously not award-worthy, but effective in their sincerity. Co-starring are James Seay (also in the directors' "Phantom from Space"), Steve Pendleton ("The Great Missouri Raid"), Frank Gerstle ("Monstrosity"), John Frederick ("Blindman"), Barbara Bestar ("Navajo Trail Raiders"), Shepard Menken ("The Phantom Tollbooth"), and future prolific trailer narrator Ron Gans as a sentry.

While hardly a "quality" production, a movie like "Killers from Space" packs more earnest entertainment into its trim running time (71 minutes in this case) than some of the mega-budget movies of the modern era.

Six out of 10.

I didn't think it was that bad of a movie. It has more drama, and mystery and not as much horror than I expected. The story does move a little slow but it did keep my attention. The so called special effects can fairly be called poor. A lot of attention by reviewers has been given to the aliens big eyes. The aliens did look pretty strange and almost laughable but did everyone miss the comparison there is to the big eyes of the so called "grays" that are supposedly being seen by people today. How about the abductees that talk about being probed and operated on by aliens today? This movie did have aliens with bulging eyes doing an operation on a human in 1954. I have trouble calling this a good movie, but I cannot really call it a bad movie either. I think it's worth watching. Don't expect too much, and view it objectively. You might like it.

I get the horrible rating on here. But...

The cold war, guys in suits smoking cigarettes half of this movie is great. The cast is great and the story is interesting. A 6 or 7.

The aliens underground part of the movie is truly atrocious. Even if you enjoy close up footage of insects it is still trash. So bad. A 1 or 2.

But i find this movie overall enjoyable, hence I gave an almost respectable 5.

Before Seventh Heaven, before Mission Impossible, before even Fury, Peter Graves spent a lot of his time doing science fiction films, some of the best and some of the worst. This one falls in the latter category.

This was a cheaply based low budget thriller with no thrills where Graves has been monitoring atomic bomb tests out in the New Mexico desert by air. Some nasty old aliens are out in the caverns laying plans for a billion of their people to come take over the earth from the folks who live here now. I won't say more, but it involves a scheme of creating monsters who will destroy mankind and then the aliens will destroy the monsters without spilling too much human blood.

The miracle here is that Peter Graves as an actor had a career after some of the films he appeared in back in his salad days. This is one great example of what he survived.

Stock footage from other films, cheap black and white photography, imbecilic plot. Peter Graves looks stoically earnest throughout though. I guess that is a tribute to his talent.

Ed Wood would have looked down on this one.

predatory aliens with the worst cases of ex opthalmis in medical history are lurking under the desert in the Southwest, and it's up to Peter Graves to stop them before we all laugh ourselves to death. The effects in this stinker are embarrassingly bad and very, VERY cheap. Lots of stock footage, glaringly obvious blow-ups of various insects, spiders, etc., model airplanes that look like model airplanes, a creaking plot. . .well, we could go on all day, but you probably get the picture by now. While we like Peter Graves, this is almost certainly one of those projects that he would like to forget. The one intriguing item in this otherwise rotten film are the alien physicians (at least we think they're physicians) who successfully perform open heart surgery on Peter by waving incense sticks over him. How did they DO that?