Writer: Harry Spalding
Composer: Elisabeth Lutyens
Starring: Willard Parker, Virginia Field, Dennis Price, Thorley Walters, Vanda Godsell, David Spenser, Anna Palk
More info: IMDb
Tagline: They Came From The Heavens... And Sent The World Into Hell!
Plot: The UK is invaded by alien-controlled robots, which re-animate dead human bodies. Survivors of the invasion are besieged by the walking corpses of slain friends and neighbors.
My rating: 6.5/10
Will I watch it again? No.
The picture opens with people dropping dead while doing things like flying, driving, walking and so one and it settles onto a small English village where one man is trying to make sense of what's going on. There's no dialogue for the first eight and a half minutes. That was neat. The story unfolds little by little as human characters emerge, all wondering what happened with speculation all over the place. Then the spacemen show up to kill the survivors. The survivors find out a little about what's going on and how to possibly stop it. And then it's over...an hour after it started. That caught me off guard as I didn't check the running time when it started. It's got a nice atmosphere and the abandoned village is a great setting which adds to the creepiness. The problem is, it's over before you know it and it ends in a traditional way. There's lots of promise but it falls short of greatness because of the abrupt climax. There should've been more to the mystery and harsher consequences. The score is very good. It's by Elisabeth Lutyens, someone I don't recall seeing before but I see by her credits that I have seen some of her pictures. It's a rarity to come across a female film composer from that time and it seems just as rare today which is all kinds of messed up. This one is worth a look but don't get your hopes up for the last five minutes. It's a missed opportunity but a pleasant one at that.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment