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Hello Cinephiles,
Today we’re talking about the 1953 movie It Came from Outer Space.
Story
The story was interesting and delivered in a pretty good combination of dialogue and action. It was ridiculously dated, but I liked that it basically came down to the aliens crash landing in a bad neighbourhood and trying to GTFO as soon as possible.
I like the underlying narrative that we as a species are not ready to accept what we can’t understand and that what looks strange isn’t always evil.
Score: 1
Characters
Angry sheriff, writer with an open mind, scream queen, and various others. This was a standard cast for a sci-fi story from the 1940’s and 50’s.
Score: 0
Dialogue
This felt written by two people. The dialogue between the sheriff and the writer was pure Universal horror movie. The dialogue between the writer and the girl was pure Bradbury.
Half of it felt philosophical and high minded and the other half standard horror movie.
Score: 0.5
Visuals and Music
This was a very well shot film. Other than a few odd angles it really did a great job building atmosphere and being pretty.
The music was pretty much a re-hash of other Universal monster movies at the time. I wouldn’t be surprised if everything was from something else.
Score: 0.5
Fun
This was a cerebral science fiction concept that the filmmakers desperately wanted to turn into a creature feature. That being said, I really enjoyed it.
Score: 1
Overall
At 70 years old, it’s a quaint film from a simpler time exploring ideas of what the cosmos might have in store. I love the narration at the beginning.
If this were made today it would either be an indie film or some weird action horror and frankly neither would do it justice.
Final Score: 3 Stars