This 1967 film has been unfairly maligned for many, many years by people who are too quick to write it off. The only prints I have ever been able to see of this film are rather dark and uncared for on various DVD sets and streaming video.
Robert Hutton stars as Dr. Curtis Temple a scientist who has theories about life in outer space. One night 9 meteors land in a farmers field in Cornwall, England and Temple and his crew is called in to investigate.
His assistant, Lee Mason (Jennifer Jayne) takes over when Temple's doctor tells him he cannot travel yet due to a recent which caused him to have a metal plate put into his head.
While the scientists are working on the fallen meteors a strange power emits from them and soon everyone is taken over by a strange alien intelligence. Before you know it they are asking for millions of English pounds for building and such. Temple goes to investigate for himself and finds everyone acting strange and some of his former friends attempt to shoot him.
After much investigating he finds Lee has been taken over by aliens, but Temple cannot figure out what they are doing. He makes the assumption that they are slowly invading the Earth, and this is made an even more credible thought when a plague sudden;y strikes the area and most of the people get sick and die from it.
Temple kidnaps Lee from the aliens and takes her to a friend of his named Farge (Zia Mohyeddin) and together they find a way to get rid of the alien inside of Lee. The three of them then attempt to discover that the aliens are really doing. They infiltrate the base and soon the sneak on a rocket ship that suddenly blasts off for the moon, which is where the invaders are hiding out.
Once on the moon they meet a being who calls himself the Master Of The Moon (Michael Gough). In a somewhat bizarre twist ending, it turns out they only want to repair their ships and go home to their own planet and die.
The film was done on an incredibly tight budget, but director Freddie Francis handles things very well and it comes off as a great pulp sci-fi film of it's era.
The film has a few humorous touches and a gorgeous 60's backdrop. The actors do their jobs very well and it's always nice to see Hutton and Jayne in any role. I grew up with both of them always in something on my TV. The rest of the cast includes Bernard Kay, Maurice Good, Luanshya Greer, and Diana King.
Now, as I said at the beginning of this review, I was very surprised at Kino bringing this to Blu-ray. I was even more surprised to find it was a gorgeous 4K transfer. It's nice when neglected gems like this finally get the treatment they deserve. I can't imagine this being a very big seller for Kino, but I am very grateful that they put it out and in such grand fashion.
I got this disc on sale from Kino a while back and finally got the chance to look at it. It's beautiful. I have always liked this movie anyway and I give it a very HIGH RECOMMENDATION. Check it out and see what you think.
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