Directed by Terence Fisher/starring Peter Cushing, but not a Hammer horror pic. Fisher temporarily on the outs with Hammer, working a pair of fright pics with short-lived Planet Film Productions. (For a Hollywood comparison, imagine going from Republic Westerns to Monogram Westerns.) Yet, not bad once it gets up on its feet. The gimmick has a gaggle of bone-sucking monsters, by-product from cancer drug experiments, and on the hunt for skeletal forms of life. In their wake, nothing but shapeless, loosely clothed blobs of human flesh. Enter Dr. Cushing, London-based osteopathic specialist, helicoptered in to the remote island along with research scientist Edward Judd and girlfriend Carole Gray. (Hey, it’s her helicopter!) Slow and dopey till the end of the first act when the horrors begin and, for a change, lots of monster footage. That’s what puts this one over, moving shells (the scientists call them silicates which are mineral deposits, no?) . . . anyway, those shells taking the form of floor-model vacuum-cleaners (you know, the kind with rotating wheels you pulled by their retractable hoses), but with scaly bods. Ewww! Mass panic by the islanders waiting in sheltered safety as the monsters quickly replicate and come ever closer. Oh, it’s too, too horrible to even contemplate.* Yikes!
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: While this is dopey fun, in Japan, Ishirô Honda made something approaching Pop Art with similar elements in THE H-MAN/’58. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-h-man-bijo-to-ekitai-ningen-1958.html
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *The only thing more horrible, Malcolm Lockyer’s chirping disgrace of a music score.
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