Review: Not of This Earth

A man wearing dark sunglasses (Paul Birch) arrives at a doctor’s surgery looking for a blood transfusion. He refuses to get a mandatory blood test and after some back and forth he hypnotises the doctor and commands him to assign a nurse (Beverly Garland) to move into his house and administer blood transfusions periodically. The man is actually no man at all, Birch is an alien whose species is dying out and in need of blood. He plans to use a portal to send blood supply back to his home planet. Jonathan Haze plays a shady character Birch employs as his chauffeur and servant, Dick Miller plays a vacuum salesman.

 

Running a little over an hour in length, this 1957 Roger Corman (“It Conquered the World”, “A Bucket of Blood”, “The Wild Angels”) sci-fi film is all killer, no filler. The cast is tops, with Paul Birch giving a fun, unusual performance as the visiting alien. Beverly Garland and Jonathan Haze are solid too, with the latter playing a particularly interesting character. Look out for a young-ish Dick Miller in a sign of things to come for the master of the one-scene cameo. For a film that is dialogue-driven, it doesn’t actually come across as overly talky, and director Corman achieves quite a bit without spending a whole lot (I’m almost certain we get at least one of the locations from “It Conquered the World” re-purposed here). For most of the film’s length the only special effects we get are the white contact lenses Birch wears. Really good score from Ronald Stein (“It Conquered the World”, “The Undead”, “Spider Baby”), too.

 

I like this one, it does what it needs to and gets out quick. Another low-budget winner from Corman, the screenplay is by Charles B. Griffith (“A Bucket of Blood”, “The Wild Angels”, “Death Race 2000”) and Mark Hanna (“The Undead”, “Attack of the 50ft Woman”, “Slaughter”).

 

Rating: B-

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