Directed by John Krish
A series of scientists working on a new techology to facilitate man's conquest of space are killed in mysterious circumstances. Suspicion falls on the wife of another scientist on the project, who may not be what she seems.
Αόρατος Εχθρός, 宇宙から来た女, Una extraña del cosmos, 异星谍杀, Mujeres de lo desconocido, Projekt TP 91: Giv ingen pardon, Assedio alla terra
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Here is a taut little chamber piece, full of paranoia and mystery. Since it is about Alien Invasion (and it's British), I had to give it a test drive....and I'm so glad that I did.
This was one of those "lost" films for years, one that never was issued on VHS. Happily, it was given a decent 2017 Blu-ray release by a UK outfit and all its evocative and moody B&W photography looks great.
Though there are no more special effects than in a typical episode of The Twilight Zone, it compensates by accentuating the relationship between John Neville's character and his wife, played by Gabriella Licudi, who is....to put it in Nick Fury's words, "not from around here".
Neville…
The Day the Earth Said That's Far Enough, Science
Close Encounters of the Feb Kind
The cross between DOA and Scanners that we never knew we had!
Unearthly Stranger came around at a time when British cinema was still dipping its underfunded toe into the sci-fi waters, even though the 1950s boom had largely died down, certainly on the other side of the Atlantic. As such, it's hardly surprising it more or less disappeared.
But it's good to see it floating around on Talking Pictures TV and getting some semblance of attention because it's really quite good. It's more of a suspense tale than anything as a lack of cash meant that they couldn't exactly go mad with the special effects. In fact, I'm not sure there's a single…
Gripping, tense and atmospheric throughout, Unearthly Stranger is a smashing wee slice of low budget paranoid British Sci-Fi, with a fabulously creepy ending.
I do worry that the writer might have been projecting their fears of women a bit much, but who knows.
Things begin to go wrong for scientist John Neville when his beautiful but otherworldly wife becomes of interest to his superiors in the government, meaning both he and his wife are in great danger.
Definitely of it's time and possibly too talky for a modern audience, Unearthly Stranger is quietly compelling viewing. The film is intriguing and thought provoking and nicely atmospheric thanks to it's stark black and white photography. The cast headed by Neville also includes Jean Marsh and Warren Mitchell and the lovely Gabriella Licudi as Neville's wife.
An almost forgotten slice of British cinema, Unearthly Stranger is recommended for those into sci-fi or with an appreciation of British films.
I was expecting more from this. It's not a bad idea but it's poorly executed. It has it's moments but far too often it's pretty boring. Very little actually happens over the course of the film. It's trying to get a slow build up of tension but it's never good enough to achieve any. A sadly forgettable film with a memorable poster.
Christ, poor 1963 straight men not only had to worry about coded gay men but ALL women.
Nicely shot and acted sci-fi alien invasion film marred only by a few continuity problems - forgetting whether it’s day or night - but at least they didn’t fuck it up with some cheap looking monster.
The British taxpayer probably would not have been hugely supportive of a government project focused on developing a formula which would allow space travel via the mind, given what a ridiculous idea it is. As the basis for a low budget sci-fi horror, though, it has possibilities. Rex Carlton’s script posits aliens broke the code twenty years previously and are now among us to make sure we don’t. The aliens appear to constitute themselves exclusively as women, which provides a fruitful set-up for the lead scientist (John Neville) and the new wife he has brought back from Switzerland (Gabriella Licudi), whom he has started to notice has some strange habits. It also allows for an exploration of femininity within the…
Talk about a movie that has slipped under the radar. This should be talked about in the same breath as the Quatermass trilogy when discussing British sci-fi horror. The script by Rex Carlton betrays the quality one would expect from a writer also attached (according to Letterboxd) to an Al Adamson production. It has the scale of an Outer Limits episode and leaves much of the horror unseen, relying on its script to sow seeds of terror in a story about what sounds a lot like astral projection. It’s treated with complete seriousness and doesn’t detract from the story, which shares more than a few commonalities with Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Performances are strong from all the cast with…
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
This positively overflows with striking ideas but never stops feeling a bit threadbare. As one of the hallmarks of the Quatermass films (which probably deserve the most credit for identifying an appetite for British sci-fi) was that they never avoided situations requiring extensive visual effects, it's a shame that the budget of this seems to have restricted such effects to the tracks of Gabriella Licudi's tears. It's not just a matter of cost-cutting though as there's something a bit listless about the storytelling too - I don't think it's Neville's fault as an actor that his sweat-drenched "Double Indemnity"-like audio testimony seems like the labour of an entirely different character to the bluffly obtuse supposed man of science who needs…
An entertaining mix of cold war science thriller and Invasion of the Body Snatchers sci-fi paranoia, this little gem from the early 60's does a lot with very little.......
Opening with a very sweaty John Neville running through the deserted streets of night-time London to get back to his Space Research office, once he arrives he begins to tell us his story in flashback - how on his return from his honeymoon with his new wife who he'd only just met, he was promoted to head up a research project into intergalactic astral projection after the previous project leader died under mysterious circumstances.......and how heightened security around the project had cast its gaze onto his new wife........who has been demonstrating…
Now this is a real underseen gem. A low-budget British science fiction film, Unearthly Stranger opens with a Scanners-esque premise. A group of scientists around the world are looking for a way to control brain and human energy into teleporting people. If one thinks of going somewhere, whether on the planet or in the solar system, they will be able to do it by just controlling their energy. Perhaps farfetched, but Dr. Munroe (Warren Mitchell) thinks he has had a breakthrough on a key formula for the project. That is, until he rushes back to his office to meet with his fellow scientists, hears a piercing whine, and then his brain explodes. Now, it will be on…
