“It! The Terror from Beyond Space” (ITTFBS) is one of those marvelous science fiction movies that are so awful that they can be enjoyed entirely for the camp value. It’s really hard to overstate how cheesy the movie is. And unless you’re a connoisseur of B movie bit players you’ve never heard of the cast. Now, you’ll probably recognize several of them from old tv shows of the time period like “Superman” and “The Twilight Zone” but none of them were movie stars. But they do gamely soldier on with the plot and dialog, such as they are. But when the set is a “space ship” that looks like one room in an industrial building and the “monster” is a guy in a rubber suit you can only do so much.
I won’t warn you about spoilers because you can’t spoil this movie. The dopiness of the “science” defies any concern over spoiling the resolution of the dilemma. It has something to do with the monster having very large lungs from living on Mars and therefore emptying the ship of air will kill the monster faster than if he had smaller lungs! But none of that should be held against this movie. If you watch this movie, you embrace the dopiness.
The plot is basically that the first manned mission to Mars is attacked by a monster that kills eight out of the nine astronauts. A rescue mission is sent to bring back the survivor who is believed to have murdered his shipmates. Of course, the monster stows away by walking into an unlocked entrance and then begins picking off the rescue crew. Once the crew figures out that the survivor was telling the truth about the monster, he seems to become their leader and they combine forces to kill the really hokey looking monster. They try guns, hand grenades, “gas bombs,” electricity and even radiation from their engine. But no soap. Finally, when the monster breaks through the last bulkhead protecting the handful of survivors, they empty the cabin air into space and the monster dies quite dramatically.
So, what makes this movie so special that I don’t pan it. Maybe it’s the two women in the rescue crew. They appear to be nurses who have been sent along to treat victims of the first Mars expedition. They spend most of their scenes holding hands with various crew members and looking soulfully into their eyes while asking them whether the monster is going to eat them all or not. And that’s another great thing about this movie. The monster kills its victims by removing all oxygen and water from their bodies. But since he likes to snack all day long, he drags them around while he’s feeding on them. Then there’s the crew’s space suits. They look like they’re made of wool. And finally, there’s the view of space from the ship. In addition to stars, there are what must be meteors flying by. They look like a few Fourth of July sparklers tied together and pulled along on a string.
So, all in all this is a terrible sci-fi movie by any standard. But for the connoisseur of this sub-genre, it’s a treat. ITTFBS is highly recommended schlock.