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CREEPY CLASSICS presents... |
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Reviews From This Recent Movie Night - Add Yours! Saturday May 11, 2013 - MOVIE - Science Fiction "FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER" (1964). A robot-astronaut meets up with a hideous space creature. The space monster is the hench-monster for a group of pointed eared aliens looking to swipe a bunch of earth women (preferably in bikinis, it seems). The Frankenstein robot was a military project gone bad and he's on the rampage. Scooters, 60's surf guitar music and fun. Suggested by Timothy Bowen, Niles, Ohio.
Wow! What a movie....super low budget, goofy, non-sensical, yet somehow fun. One of those movoes that falls into bad, but not truly bad because it's far from boring. The closest it gets to boring is some extended NASA stock footage..but, even that is padded with hip guitar suf music. An experimental robot astronaut (named "Frank") gets shot up in a rocket, the rocket fails, it blows up...Frank survives and is all mangled and burned, loses a lot of his mental capability and roams aimlessly. He gets a bit violent and them meets up with a Space Monster. What? Yep....it seems that the rocket was blown up by an alien spacecraft. The craft has landed on earth to kidnap women as their planet is in short supply. The spacecraft which looks like a bunch of spray-painted cardboard and an aluminum ladder seems much bigger inside than outside. The main aliens are a nasty princess and her assistant Dr. Nadir, a Vulcan looking nightmare of bad make-up and played by an actor who lays it on thick (hysterically). This guy also shows up thirty years later on TV's SEINFLD show. (Thanks to Frank Nicoletti for pointing that out!).
The film at least delivers on crazy entertainment with two monsters, a lot of 1960s guitar music and the hero and heroine zipping around on a scooter. -Ron Adams, Ligonier, PA
Above: "Frank" after getting messed-up in a rocket crash. The below newspaper ad sent in by Doug:
It was with some trepidation that I sat down to re-watch FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACEMONSTER, not because it's a bad movie (it's actually pretty endearing...for a bad movie) but because I knew that that blasted song TO HAVE AND TO HOLD would get stuck in my head (again!) and stay there for the next week (again!). We now learn that their civilization has been wiped out by nuclear war, and there are no women left, except for the Princess, who apparently doesn't count. They proceed to kidnap Earth women for "breeding stock." At the same time astro-robot Frank has gone berserk: naming your robot "Frank" is never a good idea. The inevitable Battle Royale between robot and space monster begins and ends much too abruptly, as does the movie.
Above: Doc Nadir and "The Princess." Top-billed Marilyn Hanold (Princess Marcuzan) once menaced The Three Stooges as a Venusian vampire in SPACE SHIP SAPPY (1957). As the stalwart Earth scientist, James Karen (billed as Jim Karen) jump-started a career with enough sci-fi credits to merit honorable mention in the Monster Bash Hall of Fame. But, the standout character is the leering alien Dr. Nadir, played by Lou Cutell, a familiar face on television. He is in a special class of weirdness all by himself. Once seen, he is not forgotten. Mark Ditoro And, now....prepare yourself! It's video comments on FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER by David Nelson of DesPlaines, Illinois. Here you, go, just click the link below (and hang on):
Add your comments or thoughts on FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER (1964). E-mail us at creepyclassics@creepyclassics.com.
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We begin with some LOST IN SPACE-style aliens arriving from an unnamed planet. For the sake of convenience, let's call it Mars. They are bald, pasty-faced, and have pointed ears, except for their Princess, who isn't pasty-faced and wears a headdress throughout. They also bring along their pet monster "Mull." Mistaking a space launch piloted by "astro-robot" Frank for a missile attack, they respond, resulting in "Frank" crashing to Earth, half his face blown away, the exposed portionsort-of suggesting the Jack Pierce Frankenstein. The alien ship, too, is forced to ground. It seems to be part Tardis, bigger inside than out. On earth it contrives to disguise itself as a geodesic dome.
