Another gray, horrible bit of schlockiness from the family Corman. The first space capsule into outer space crash lands back on Earth(with some of the worst special effects ever), and the pilot appears to be dead. But appearances can be deceiving. He's actually more alive than the rest of the cast, including a patronizing misogynist old doctor(who'd also really, REALLY boring), a greasy guy who looks like he's cornered the market on hair oil, another guy so dull he doesn't even make much of an impression, a female scientist who never seems to be hurt or angry over the old guy's patronizing, and a female photographer with a Farah Fawcett haircut(pre-Farah, of course) and about as much liveliness as a dead duck.What are any of these people's names? I think it was Steve. Apparently, everyone in the cast, including the women, were called Steve. Anyway, the dead pilot Steve turns out to not only be alive, but to be incubating baby aliens(or seahorses, or shrimp, or whatever) inside his torso. The Momma beast that implanted these little critters looks like a giant bald parrot with claws. Once again, I am impressed by the laugh-ability factor of the monsters created by the House of Corman. The space carrot from Venus in It Conquered the World is still officially the worst, most laughable monster I've ever seen grace the screen, but the Cormans always manage to deliver when it comes to bad, cheesy looking monsters.They also managed to deliver on their other trademarks as well; i.e. a boring, confusing plot, long gray shots(thank God Corman did most of his films in black and white, since his color stuff still manages to look somehow gray)two or three locations max, stupid and lame props and special effects, and lots and lots of dull dialog. There's only two deaths in the film(if you don't counted the roasted parrot..err..alien blood beast being offed at the end of the film). Cheers rang out through the land, I'm sure, when the alien rips the old doctor's head off and(apparently) eats it. Now it can talk in English and has the doctor's memories. It can also move the pregnant astronaut around as though he were Pinnochio. The monster's apparent intent is to rebuild its race using human beings as food and giant wombs. There's a confusing bit at the end(well, more confusing than usual, anyway) in which the creature tries to explain why it is doing this, but it makes no sense whatsoever. Something about how humanity is about to follow in its race's footsteps and destroy themselves by something they'll soon create. It never really said what that was. It could have been anything from toaster ovens to digital watches, who knows. Its baby minder stabs himself rather than let the alien shrimp crawl out of his body, and the oily guy(and the other guy) burn the parrot-alien to death with a Molotov cocktail. Ahh,the smell of roasting chicken..err.. alien. End of story, in which the rest of the characters wander off and leave their dead comrade laying on the ground to rot. Oh, Hell, why not save yourself the expense of a funeral? I'm sure that was what Corman was thinking, when he was trying to cut corners and make his scenes as cheaply as possible.
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