Best movie of this year hands down!

Who payed the critics

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Not bad at all. An interesting plot, good pacing, and decent performances. As others have mentioned, Night of the Blood Beast is reminiscent of The Thing From Another World.Like The Thing, the monster here lurks around the isolated lab, busting its way in, killing, and getting torched by the beleaguered scientists. Isolation helps maintain our suspension of disbelief: it adds to the sense of danger, and makes the experience more plausible, as the cast naturally is just a handful of people, easily contained in a small area. A low-budget movie can't adequately depict a larger-scale menace.Blood Beast also builds on the replicant theme by having the astronaut John host the parasitical aliens in his blood "using his body for a breeding ground". That's an even creepier concept than the pods in The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.The monster is plenty hokey, sort of like Big Bird with leprosy. Still, at least it looks like a monster. Like countless sci-fi movies of this era, there's an interest in 'understanding' the monster. Rather than the usual naive scientist getting hosed as he tries to use sign language to 'communicate' with the alien/monster, here it makes more sense. John has a literal, biological connection with it.There's suspense about the alien's intentions until the climactic cave scene. Even the doctor's murder is explicable, given the alien's value system. John's suicide neatly simplifies things, as that destroys the replicant process. The alien's final 'we'll-be-back' threat is a good touch.Night of the Blood Beast successfully shows many facets of the 50s sci-fi genre. Even the spacecraft looks cool, at least when it was in flight. When it crashes, though, we're stuck with what a cunning reviewer aptly terms a "septic tank." Also, the alien/monster disembarks like a chunk of sentient crab grass. Still, this is watchable entertainment; in fact if it were nothing but Georgianna Carter standing around looking bewildered, I'd still be watching.

Mankind has sent the first astronaut Jon Corcoran in to space and his spacecraft returning through Earth's orbit crashes . A rescue team recover him only to find Corcoran dead . They take him back to the nearby base and realise his body still shows signs of life . They also realise he brought something back from space This has THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT written all over it , so much so that you wonder why Nigel Kneale , the BBC , Hammer Sudios or anyone else holding any copyright claim over TQE didn't take out any copyright litigation against Roger Corman . If nothing else it would have saved the audience sitting through a pretty terrible movie Very little happens . The rescue crew take Corcoran back to base and discuss the situation . Corcoran recovers and the scientific team find he's been taken over by an alien entity and try to find a solution to the problem . The BBC serial of THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT had the same premise and spent many , many scenes of characters talking in a very limited set of locations . That said at least script-writer Nigel Kneale managed to write an intellectually literate script that touches upon the human race about to a step in to the unknown . Here however the bland dialogue from Martin Varno never rises above generic B movie standard Bernard L Kowalski is hamstrung by an obvious lack of budget and can't really be blamed for failing to disguise the fact that space tracking station only has five members who comprise the entire cast save for the monster . That said he can be blamed for the lack of visual imagination with some painfully static camera work where the camera is constantly locked on and rarely moves . It also contains a very strange musical score by Alexander Laszio which will constantly take you out of the movie by reminding you of the Tornados hit Telstar but if you watch a movie this bad you don't mind being taken out of it

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.

"An astronaut (Michael Emmet) dies while returning from a mission and his body is recovered by the military. The base where the dead astronaut is taken to becomes the scene of a bizarre invasion plan from outer space. Alien embryos inside the dead astronaut resurrect the corpse and begin a terrifying assault on the military staff in the hopes of conquering the world," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.A Roger Corman "American International" production. The man who fell to Earth impregnated, Mr. Emmet (as John Corcoran), does all right. Angela Greene is his pretty conflicted fiancée. And, Ed Nelson (as Dave Randall) is featured as prominently. With a bigger budget, better opening, and a re-write for crisper characterizations, this could have been something approaching classic 1950s science fiction.*** Night of the Blood Beast (1958) Bernard L. Kowalski, Roger Corman ~ Michael Emmet, Angela Greene, Ed Nelson