Nonureva Really Surprised!

Protraph Lack of good storyline.

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

dougdoepke A human-like alien leaves his dying planet to secure earthling blood that his planet needs.Too bad Corman didn't dump that flying lampshade that apparently sucks the doc's blood. Because that's really the only cheezy element of this otherwise effective monster flick. It's arguably Corman's best. Birch is pretty scary with his deadpan face and perfectly parsed diction. Just don't ask him to take off his glasses. Then too, I wonder what he puts down as eye color. Plus I would give dear Beverly Garland a drive-in Oscar for her sparkly portrayal of nurse Storey. It's a performance far and above the call of a paycheck.Yes indeed, what I from my first viewing decades ago is Dick Miller's vacuum salesman. He's so pesky and obnoxious, horns honked all over the drive-in when he got his. And what about the teen-age cutie who opens the film, even if she doesn't stick around. Too bad. Anyway, Corman sure knew his audience since we boys were hooked right then. Nonetheless, for the less hormonally minded, there's a message in the alien madness-- better watch out earthlings, nuclear war can cause a calamity that only a steady stream of blood can help. Okay, so the movie's not exactly Oscar bait. Nonetheless, it's got a better-than-usual Corman script, plus good location staging that keep the usual hokey sets to a minimum. Yes indeed, it's still fun to track the Darvana alien, and maybe honk your horn when Miller gets his.

Uriah43 An alien from another world, who goes by the name of "Paul Johnson" (Paul Birch) has come to Earth because his race needs blood. But prior to invading Earth and subjugating the human race, the aliens need more data from him on whether human blood can sustain them and for how long. His mission then is to stay alive long enough to collect this information and in order to do that he needs blood as well. After acquiring some from a nearby clinic, he hires a nurse named "Nadine Storey" (Beverly Garland) to ister blood to him on a daily basis and to keep him healthy for as much time as possible. In the meantime, he continues to kill people and send their blood through a portal to his home world of "Devana". At any rate, rather than divulging what happens next I will stop right here. However, I think it's only fair to say that this film is definitely a bit dated. Further, the film quality wasn't good and neither was the dialogue for the most part. Likewise, other than Beverly Garland, none of the actors really stood out in my opinion. Even so, I still enjoyed this movie and I think most people who are able to take films of this nature and from this time period into will be able to do so as well.

lemon_magic I judge Corman movies by a different set of standards than I would a bigger budget effort such as "This Island Earth" or "The Day The Earth Stood Still" or even "Earth Vs The Flying Saucers". That's because this obviously sketchy 10-day wonder still has lots of rough edges and some of the seams are still leaking sawdust...but manages to entertain and amuse almost as well as those class "A" efforts.As usual, the screenplay has a derivative but somewhat intriguing premise: a space vampire with a basilisk stare scouts for a fresh blood supply for his home planet and kills, oh, a bunch of people to keep himself going and to send samples back to his home planet. Not the stuff of Oscar winners, but enough to drive a perfectly watchable science fiction movie.The cast is pretty good (in a "B" movie way), and they work really hard to make the ludicrous and stiff dialog work. Beverly Garland is always fun to watch (even in her early movies, she still has a lot of verve and moxie) and Paul Birch is perfectly cast for the part of the alien. He was born to wear wrap around sunglasses and act stiff and grumpy and vaguely menacing. (I've read that he hated working with Corman in this movie and actually quit before it was finished, making it necessary to use a stand-in double for some of the chase scenes.) On the other hand...the "police department" is two people (except for a spear carrier who shows up on screen and is killed inside of 2 minutes), the "hospital" is obviously a sound stage with 2 doors, the "monster" is a tentacled umbrella/catcher's mitt thing, the plot makes no real sense (one scene with Dick Miller is obviously there strictly for laughs) and the action scenes looks as if they were shot in 10 minutes with a hand-held 8 millimeter.Joe Queenan once made a movie (to prove it could be done by anyone), and he said at one point when it was near completion, it was a "movie" in the same sense that a hand typed manuscript with a crayon drawing of an Axe-murderer on the front was a "suspense novel". Well, that's what always comes to mind when I'm watching a Corman movie - the elements are there, but the polish and finish of a "real" movie are never put over the nuts and bolts to make it look like something you'd ire.Still, they kept things moving and there was even a bit of thought and sympathy at the end.

Michael_Elliott Not of This Earth (1957) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Decent sci-fi from AIP has an alien (Paul Birch) coming to Earth because his planets blood supply is low. He ends up with a stay-in nurse (Beverly Garland) and servant (Jonathan Haze) and it's not too long before they start to get curious about people who enter the house yet never leave. This is yet another low-budget Corman picture where the director is smart enough to know he's working with a low budget. Corman was always smart enough to work well within the budget and he does that once again here as we really don't get any fancy effects or mind blowing space ships or other items that we'd normally see in a picture like this. Instead he tries to build a story, characters and wrap them around one another and make for an interesting film, which, for the most part, is what he's done here. The idea of a planet dying and sending an alien to Earth isn't the most original idea but it makes for some mild entertainment here including some really good scenes involving Birch and his constant quest for blood. This quest for blood also leads to some very entertaining sequences including one where he invites some drunken bums over and the highlight of the movie when the one and only Dick Miller shows up as a vacuum salesman. Miller gets to play what I guess you'd call an Elvis-type with the slick outfit and "cool" dialogue but the actors is a real hoot. Birch is pretty good in the lead as it's easy to believe him as an alien and Morgan Jones also adds nice as Garland's boyfriend. As for Garland, she's certainly gained a good reputation over the years and her performance here is decent, if nothing overly special. Haze also manages to be fun with his role. The low budget does lead to some silly stuff including the voice over work of the "other" alien. With that said, at just 71-minutes there's nothing ground breaking here but it is entertaining enough if you enjoy the genre and the type of films they were releasing around this time.