Killers From Space

(1954) *1/2

Dr. Douglas Martin is having a bad day,

You see, he’s a government scientist involved in atomic-bomb testing/tweaking. Apparently part of his role is to fly a jetfighter around the atomic plume for reasons never explained (does it really matter?). Proving that flying a jet around atomic testing is as stupid as it sounds, Dr. Martin loses control of his jet and, well you can see from the picture above the inevitable conclusion. Oddly enough and against all rational reason and physics, Dr. Martin survives and appears fine, except for a mysterious scar over the left side of his manly chest.

“But I’ve never had surgery!”, he cries. Can you see where this is going? His doctor insists that he remain on sick leave so more tests can be conducted. It’s not clear why more tests are needed. From what I can tell the only test given to Dr. Martin is when his doctor peers into his pupils wearing one of those old-fshioned monocoles that doctors used to use (i.e., headband with giant magnifying glass). Believe it or not it’s taken 40 minutes to get to this point of the film. Fast forward to nighttime. Dr. Martin is trying to enjoy some much needed rest when he awakens to see two golfball eyes looking at him,

In one of those moves people only do in the movies, he rubs his eyes like a monkey picking bugs off a lemur and when he looks again the golfball eyes have vanished (see, rubbing your eyes makes bad things go away). At this point he loses it and the fun begins. He breaks into the military compound, steals top secret files, and attempts to deliver them to a rock near where he crashed at the beginning of the film (see first picture again in case you forgot). Sadly one of his co-workers prevents him from making this delivery and his other co-workers soon capture him a la vigilate style. After being sedated with truth serum he recounts the most extrodinary tale.


After crashing his plane (again, first picture), Dr. Martin was captured by three aliens with golfball eyes. You see, Dr. Martin died and the 3 aliens revived him so he could help execute their evil plan. What is the plan you all ask? Sigh. Okay, stay with me. Dr. Martin learns that the aliens have been turning Earth’s insects and lizards into Godzilla-sized giants, which they intend to unleash to eat all the humans. Dr. Martin, not skipping a beat and completely unfazed by what he’s just learned plays Devil’s advocate and asks how the aliens themselves intend to live in a world full of giant man-eating bugs. It’s a reasonable question. The lead alien informs him that they have already considered this so they created a large heat gun designed to melt all the animals into fertilizer once they finish eating mankind. Seriously, he says this! Dr. Martin escapes, but not before wandering into a very bad fx sequence where he runs into the giant bugs (think of standing in front of a movie screen that is showing a movie about bugs and you have the idea).

So in the end Dr. Martin saves the day, but not before a lot of other stupid things happen. God, what a trial to write this overly-long summary. This was a bad, bad movie.