It Came from Outer Space

Another fine example of what was great filmmaking in the 1950s. This was simply the golden period of science fiction that wasn't yet high budget, but just wanted to show us a threat. Personally, I couldn't care less about Cold War metaphors because these films work great just as they are. Stories full of fantasy and paranoia, with beautiful, old-fashioned, yet irreplaceable tricks and effects. (06/02/2015)

Poster tagline: SPECTACULAR! REACHING FROM THE SCREEN TO SEIZE YOU IN ITS GRASP! Rather than good sci-fi, I think of it as a perfect relic of an era. With this, Jack Arnold perfectly tapped into the era of McCarthyism, when American society was gripped by the fear of creeping communism, with aliens playing that role here. At first it doesn't really work, it’s haphazardly proportioned (an explosion with a crater like this would wipe out half of California), but after a monologue about the fear of being bugged, the film takes on a proper paranoid air, with concerns about infiltration by alien forces, and the fact that the aliens here are actually good characters who just want time to fix their spaceship, giving it an unusual paradoxical flair. The film was also ahead of its time in being the first to show the possibility of aliens taking on the bodies of ordinary citizens (which was used successfully several times in the years that followed). There are also some nice visual effects sequences (the laser gun), but above all I am grateful to this film for launching Jack Arnold's successful career in the 1950s, after his great success in the cinema, and cementing him as one of the best ever science fiction directors of the Golden Age. (20/10/2023)