It Conquered the World

The mid 1950s witnessed a real sci-fi boom in American cinema, and young Roger Corman saw an opportunity to profit from it. Fresh off the huge success of “Day the World Ended” (1955), he decided to turn out another sci-fi B movie by shamelessly recycling concepts and scenes typical of current productions, but adding in a “little something extra” to elevate it just a bit above the shlock too often seen in the genre. And so, despite having to deal with the same trite menace posed by emotionless aliens equipped with mind-control technology, we’re left pleasantly surprised by the subtle irony that permeates the entire story and which seems to poke fun at the paranoias of the time (for example, a power outage is immediately blamed on a mysterious Communist plot).

The bare-bones structure that Corman utilizes to maximize the bang for his limited budgetary buck tends to obscure a deeper, purely analytical vein running through his films, one which deftly delves into sociocultural criticism on one hand (anti-militarism, the struggle between pragmatism and idealism, the dichotomy between control and freedom, etc.), while on the other hand, investigating contemporary man’s external needs (the role of emotions, the importance of friendship, etc.).

Although the film offers some interesting insights from a conceptual point of view, it’s a minor debacle in every other aspect – the actors are really bad (Lee Van Cleef is a block of marble – his chronic inexpressiveness will only be put to good use with the advent of the Spaghetti Western), Lou Rusoff’s screenplay drips with naiveté, the cinematography and special effects are embarrassingly shoddy and crude. For the record, the Venusian alien, designed by Paul Blaisdell based on a description provided by Corman himself, is basically a fat super-plant with lobster claws.

The inevitable remake came 11 years later: “Zontar: The Thing from Venus” (1967) directed by Larry Buchanan.