Not of This Earth

A mysterious man dressed in a suit and wearing sunglasses, speaking slowly and using a bizarre language, is searching for blood that he could send to his home planet. A first-class B-story. Roger Corman failed to impress me this time, but the script is decent (not foolish) and the film is rather fun to watch. The scene with Dick Miller gazing into the camera as if he was saying ‘How did I even get here?’ is brilliant. And the poster is simply gorgeous! (06/19/2018)

Poster tagline: SOMEWHERE IN THIS WORLD STALKS A THING THAT IS... NOT FROM THIS EARTH!!! It's no wonder why this film, considered by many to be Corman's best, has such a massive cult status in America. The film has hardly any special effects, no eye-candy scenes and the production design is nothing remarkable, and yet it’s great fun. The story itself – an alien under the guise of a weird rich guy secretly killing earthlings and collecting blood samples from them to send via beam to his home planet – has this sweetly bleak, horror overlay, and Corman's favorite actor Paul Birch as the alien is fantastic. He has a sinister expression, which does not show even minimal emotion, and machined monotone diction, yet he does not overact, although the role would tempt him to do so, and his minimalist acting is impressive. Corman directs economically, but despite the fact that you may not be a fan of conversational films (which this one partly is), you want to know what's coming next, what kind of poor bastard the alien will lure to his basement, where he burns his victims in a big oven, and the film builds to a show-stopping conclusion. Then, with an indulgent smile, you can safely overlook the unintentionally comical attack of the alien monster (a kind of bat with a jellyfish-like fan), where Corman didn't bother to retouch the ropes the monster was hanging by. The last shot, which hints at an open ending, or a never-ending battle with the alien race, is a delightful humorous wink by the director. (09/14/2013)