IMDb RATING
3.5/10
2.5K
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An astronaut is killed on reentry to Earth, but his body is seeded with rapidly gestating aliens.An astronaut is killed on reentry to Earth, but his body is seeded with rapidly gestating aliens.An astronaut is killed on reentry to Earth, but his body is seeded with rapidly gestating aliens.
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Oddly compelling tale of astronaut (Emmett) who crashes back to earth following a failed mission into space, apparently deceased but showing no signs of rigor mortis or decomposition. His unusual state co-incides with the appearance of a large, alien creature that wants us to believe he's here to co-habitate with the human race, and that we should fear no evil. Scientists John Baer, Ed Nelson and Angela Greene disagree.
There's some sense in this nonsense, the dialogue, cinematography and suspense is generally pretty coherent and effective, but the second half of the movie descends into an abyss of absurdity from which there's no return. Baer, Nelson and McVey all deliver watchable performances and director Kowalski displays some skills, but the plot becomes puerile with the appearance of the creature and its suspicious motivations to rear its young on earth as a means of improving inter-galactic relations. So to does Emmett's laboured insistence that everyone should stop picking on it and just give it a fair go to prove its intentions are honourable. No mention of the poor victim sans head.
It really does deteriorate badly, which is a shame because the first thirty minutes promise a rousing climax, reminiscent of "The Thing", but ends up looking more like "Attack of the Crab Monsters", only minus the humour. Not the best AIP-Corman collaboration conceived.
There's some sense in this nonsense, the dialogue, cinematography and suspense is generally pretty coherent and effective, but the second half of the movie descends into an abyss of absurdity from which there's no return. Baer, Nelson and McVey all deliver watchable performances and director Kowalski displays some skills, but the plot becomes puerile with the appearance of the creature and its suspicious motivations to rear its young on earth as a means of improving inter-galactic relations. So to does Emmett's laboured insistence that everyone should stop picking on it and just give it a fair go to prove its intentions are honourable. No mention of the poor victim sans head.
It really does deteriorate badly, which is a shame because the first thirty minutes promise a rousing climax, reminiscent of "The Thing", but ends up looking more like "Attack of the Crab Monsters", only minus the humour. Not the best AIP-Corman collaboration conceived.
An entertaining piece of low budget schlock. Despite the cheesy production values, it's quite well done. A zombified, hairy chested scientist, denied the opportunity to wear a shirt after his pseudodemise, is impregnated with alien sea monkeys, clearly an homage to the ads inside comic books of the era. Why is it that, when Roger Corman is involved, there's a always a shirtless, hairy chested scientist, e.g. Giant Leeches, Crab Monsters? I don't get it, but thanks a million, Roger. The plot and characters are no worse than in any other sci-fi from the fifties and all the actors are veterans of genre TV and movies. The lighting is sometimes good, the score is theremin heavy with an occasional moment of Felliniesque jauntiness. The monster is post-nuclear Sesame Street, but after all the money spent on the sea monkey x-ray scene, you can't have everything. If you pay attention to the opening title sequence, you'll note that the rocket ship separates from its booster rocket and looks amazingly like the space shuttle. Sometimes they get it right.
A space flight goes horribly awry! The ship crashes to the Earth! The lone astronaut is killed!
Or, is he?
Pulled from the wreckage and taken back to the base, Major John Corcoran (Michael Emmett- ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES) shows strange signs of life.
Plus, he may not have returned... alone!
Things get even weirder when an unseen entity makes its presence known, and the deaths begin. Annnnd, something is found in Corcoran's body that changes everything!
NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST is another hunk of low-low-budget, 1950's sci-fi cheeeze, made a classic through the influence of Roger Corman and his team. The monster costume, while obviously bargain basement, is endearing in a parrot / bear hybrid sort of way. Co-starring Ed Nelson (A BUCKET OF BLOOD), NOTBB is perfect for late-late night viewing...
Or, is he?
Pulled from the wreckage and taken back to the base, Major John Corcoran (Michael Emmett- ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES) shows strange signs of life.
Plus, he may not have returned... alone!
Things get even weirder when an unseen entity makes its presence known, and the deaths begin. Annnnd, something is found in Corcoran's body that changes everything!
NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST is another hunk of low-low-budget, 1950's sci-fi cheeeze, made a classic through the influence of Roger Corman and his team. The monster costume, while obviously bargain basement, is endearing in a parrot / bear hybrid sort of way. Co-starring Ed Nelson (A BUCKET OF BLOOD), NOTBB is perfect for late-late night viewing...
The astronaut Steve Dunlap (John Baer) dies after crashing his rocket on Earth. His body is recovered by the base rescue team and examined by Dr. Alex Wyman (Tyler McVey) and Dr. Julie Benson (Angela Greene), who is Steve's fiancée. Out of the blue, Steve resurrects and Dr. Benson discovers that his body is impregnated with Alien embryos; further, the team finds that an alien (Ross Sturlin) has arrived in Steve's spacecraft.
When Dr. Wyman is murdered by the alien, Major John Corcoran (Michael Emmet) and Dave Randall (Ed Nelson) decide to destroy the creature. But Steve is mentally connected to the alien and believes that the creature has peaceful intentions and tries to protect it. But when Steve learns that the alien is an invader, he takes an ultimate decision to protect the earthlings.
"Night of the Blood Beast" is a funny and underrated low-budget sci-fi produced by Roger Corman. This type of black and white Z-movie, with bad acting and poor special effects, is part of my childhood and maybe that is the reason why I find most of them cult. "Night of the Blood Beast" is a sort of grandfather of 1979 "Alien" or 1999 "The Astronaut's Wife" and entertains. My note is five.
Title (Brazil): Not Available
When Dr. Wyman is murdered by the alien, Major John Corcoran (Michael Emmet) and Dave Randall (Ed Nelson) decide to destroy the creature. But Steve is mentally connected to the alien and believes that the creature has peaceful intentions and tries to protect it. But when Steve learns that the alien is an invader, he takes an ultimate decision to protect the earthlings.
"Night of the Blood Beast" is a funny and underrated low-budget sci-fi produced by Roger Corman. This type of black and white Z-movie, with bad acting and poor special effects, is part of my childhood and maybe that is the reason why I find most of them cult. "Night of the Blood Beast" is a sort of grandfather of 1979 "Alien" or 1999 "The Astronaut's Wife" and entertains. My note is five.
Title (Brazil): Not Available
America's first orbiting spaceship collides with a mysterious object and crashes to Earth, bringing with it an alien mother and her parasitical brood who are using the undead astronaut as an incubation chamber. After a number of inexplicable deaths, the humans decide to destroy the intruder but pause when the alien claims to be on a goodwill mission to save our species from ourselves. The film is a bargain-basement, Bronson Canyon blend of the vastly superior "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) and "Alien" (1979), but typical of a Corman opus (auteur brothers Roger and Gene were producers, Bernard L. Kowalski was director), is watchable in an eye-rolling way. The special effects aren't really special: the monster (recycled from a previous Corman film (typical)) is a hairy, beaked, lump that you never get a really good look at and the alien embryos look like fat seahorses. The acting is on par for a '50s B-monster outing, with the usual characters delivering the usual material (the 'science' in the script varies from reasonable to ludicrous (somehow eating a brain confers the power of human speech through photosynthesis)). 'Night of the Blood Beast' is a silly but short and watchable, although it never lives up to the lurid imagery on some of the posters and DVD covers.
Did you know
- TriviaWith a budget of about $68,000, it was shot over seven days. All of the interior scenes were shot at sound stages inside Kling Studios. Most of the exterior shots were filmed at Bronson Canyon, a set of caves at Griffith Park in Los Angeles that was a popular location for low-budget films. The exterior scenes of the tracking station were shot at a television station on Mt. Lee, not far from the Hollywood Sign. Screenwriter Martin Varno said it was the first television station built in Los Angeles, but was only being used for emergency broadcasts when this film was being shot there; it had also been used during World War II to broadcast to allied fores overseas. Varno secured permission to film there simply by calling Los Angeles city officials and asking, something he said nobody else considered trying because they assumed the city would not allow it. Varno was familiar with the station because his father, Roland Varno, appeared in the first dramatic television show released in Los Angeles and it was transmitted from that station. For this film, Los Angeles charged a fee of $8 per actor to shoot at the station, but the crew could be any size. All shooting took place outside the station. Most of the night scenes shot there were shot during the day, and the crew often had to find shadows to shoot in or block out the sun to give the impression of nighttime. Producer Gene Corman said of the shooting: "That was one of the more mobile units I've ever been involved with. Normally, everybody chases the sun; we were chasing the shadows."
- GoofsA close-up of the bottom half of the creature reveals that its feet are actually shoes.
- Quotes
Dr. Alex Wyman: A wounded animal that large isn't good!
- ConnectionsEdited from War of the Satellites (1958)
- How long is Night of the Blood Beast?Powered by Alexa
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $68,000 (estimated)
- Runtime
- 1h 2m(62 min)
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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