the leading man is my tpye

Waste of time

Absolutely amazing

The first must-see film of the year.

Lots of people have made the connection with the movie "Alien." It involves an accusation directed toward an astronaut who was the sole survivor of a journey into space. His fellow astronauts give him the cold shoulder and he is about to be strapped with a court martial. There are some good action sequences as an alien manages to get into a space ship and begin to murder the crew, much like the thing in alien. There is also an effort to drive the evil monster into a trap. While the special effects are rather limited and there are some serious sexual stereotypes that are affiliated with the 1950's, it still packs a bit of a wallop. If you are not too serious about high tech effects, you will get a kick out of it.

Fans of low budget sets, wild predictions of what the future world might look like, and cheesy monsters in rubber suits will definitely get a kick out of "It! The Terror from Beyond Space". I mean seriously, there's even an exclamation point in the title, it's GOT to be good!I could go any number of ways here but I think it's best to point out all the goofy stuff that shows up in the writing and direction here, everything's a blast. Like the character of Colonel Edward Carruthers (Marshall Thompson), commander of the first failed mission to Mars because his entire crew wound up dead and he's accused of murdering them all! Really?!?! Why not then just give him free reign of the ship and not bother restraining him on the flight back to Earth to stand trial. Good plan.Now I'm not sure what the pre-flight check list for supplies on board might have looked like, but who do you suppose checked off a box of grenades and a bazooka? What?!?! I'll have to check in with NASA to see what they have to say about it, but that certainly sounds like a recipe for disaster, doesn't it? What might have been even more comical at one point was when one of the crew members stated that using gas against the monster on board would only be used as a last resort, and then they go right ahead and use it! Well it shouldn't surprise anyone who grew up in the Fifties to see scientists smoking on board a space ship, heck, doctors smoked in operating rooms back then, so no big deal. No more bizarre though then watching those two crew members walk down the outside hull of the ship flying through space while the stars remained stationary. You know, after a while, all this stuff could give science a bad name.But the best for this long time fan of geeky sci-fi, horror and B Westerns was learning the identity of the man in the monster suit. Ray Corrigan appeared in dozens of oaters but gained dubious notoriety in the Forties for appearing in a gorilla suit in titles like "The Ape", "Nabonga", "White Pongo" and "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla". The monster outfit for this film was actually made for a physically smaller actor, so when a casting change gave the job to Corrigan, he wound up with his chin where the lips were, and couldn't see out of the eye holes. Ever the trooper and with a budget that didn't allow for a costume do-over, Corrigan pulled out all the stops to make 'It!' work. Who knows, maybe that's where the exclamation point came from.

Considering when this was made it isn't that bad but the man in the rubber alien suit is not to convincing. Plus the plot and dialogue are lacking even for then. There are several things that stick out as noway's. If the monster is from Mars with its thin atmosphere and it there for developed huge lungs then when it cam on board the earth ship the much thicker and heavier air should have actually been a detriment not a plus. Another thing is the fact that the thing sucks the blood and moisture out of humans. Is there not a compatibility problem between the species?? Give me a break that is not believable even back this far. Then there is the falling in love by Ann. She starts out in love with Van Heusen the second mission commander and then she switches to Carruthers (the sole survivor of the first expedition) later. Talk about a fickle b****. This is a pretty simplistic movie and the plot is so so.

This is one of those great films that takes place almost entirely on a spaceship that is decidedly not futuristic (see every other spaceship movie made before "2001"). This typically includes piles of radio equipment with lots of dials and switches in big top heavy stacks not bolted to the hull. Cargo areas feature piles of boxes and gasoline drums scattered about a surprisingly spacious room, including the box of grenades that the crew feel comfortable leaving unsecured during take-off, and of course a free standing locker that has many cartons of smokes. The air-locks couldn't contain the flatus of a mosquito and the intercompartmental hatches have a conveniently thin center for aliens to punch through. The furniture is classic, with big clunky stand alone tables and wooden four legged chairs. The future....it's 1973 after all! You gotta love this one for a few reasons. Yes the whole "Alien" connection (complete with circular air vents) and the classic guy-in-a-suit monster with a terrible over-bite and pigeon toed gait. But I also liked the fact that these guys have no problem attaching 10 hand grenades to the grate of an air vent, freely shooting the conspicuously large amount of firearms they brought to Mars with them (were they expected communists?), and my favorite....firing off a bazooka in the cockpit! I was also pleasantly surprised to find that they had ensign Ro on board, as Shirley Patterson (aka Shawn Smith) who plays Ann Anderson looks like a twin of Michelle Forbes. She even has the Ro Laren eyebrows. Spooky, eh? Marshall Thompson offers a rather overly sensitive portrayal of our hero Carruthers, making him seem a bit feminized compared to the usual way these roles are approached. Kim Spalding's attempt to show us Van Husen's decent into madness is right up there with the genre's best bad acting. It's no wonder his IMDb credits end shortly after he completed this role. The rest of the crew provide good monster fodder, though I did like the guy with the blow torch. All in all worth the 69 minutes. Fun too if, like me, you like this kind of fare. Any fan of the Alien franchise must see this to appreciate how far we have come. Chairs in space...you gotta love it!