ZONTAR: THE THING FROM VENUS (1967)
Tagline: It's Coming for You from Space to wipe all living things from the face of the Earth! Can It Be Stopped?
(Sci-Fi, Horror, Zontar Does Drink Coffee) [PG]
Note: This movie did not get an MPAA rating. I think it would have landed a PG. This is actually considered a remake of Roger Corman’s IT CONQUERED THE WORLD.
Keith, you talk as if this *thing* was a personal friend of yours!
In this one scientist, Keith Ritchie discovers a signal from Venus that leads to an alien named Zontar. He believes Zontar’s intentions are pure and that he will get rid of all mankind’s pettiness. The first step is taking over powerful individuals’ minds and bodies and then slowly erasing their emotions. Meanwhile Dr. Curt Taylor a friend of Ritchie’s is skeptical but soon discovers what is really going on. Can Zontar be stopped before the earth is completely taken over?
First off, whenever John Agar (ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE) shows up in a sci-fi flick you pretty much know that you are going to be in for a weird but awesome treat. John’s performance as Dr. Curt Taylor in this thing is fantastic and that alone is worth watching the movie.
The score is just about perfect, but the pacing is pretty rough. They give us a shot of Zontar fairly early into the film, but don’t re-visit him until the end of the film. This is a lot like IT CONQUERED THE WORLD, but that movie had one of the most incredible and goofy-looking aliens of all time. This one just looks really bad. I guess the little flying “lobster” looking things that put pins in the back of your head and take over your mind have some ingenuity, but the flying creatures in IT CONQUERED THE WORLD were so rad looking you really didn’t even need to see the cave alien at the end of the film. That was just a massive bonus.
So just trying to compare apples to apples, the performances in this remake are really good for the most part and we even get a few silly jokes thrown in. Part of the strength of this film I also attribute to Pat Delaney (MARS NEEDS WOMEN) who plays Martha and gives a very solid performance which is made more impressive by the fact that it was her first movie ever. She would continue acting until 2002 and even appeared in an episode of 90210. It’s also possible this is the movie where George Lucas got his idea to use the line “I’ll see you in hell” in STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. Martha delivers the same line in this movie which was made 13 years earlier. Susan Bjurman is decent in this, but out of the leads probably delivers the least convincing effort as Anne Taylor, Dr. Curt Taylor’s wife. Bjurman is best known for MR. DEEDS. Tony Huston plays Keith Ritchie and does a pretty solid job, but I felt the rest of the cast overshadowed him in this thing.
It’s possible that if this was shot in black and white, I might have liked it more. The design work was just really rough when you think about the creativity of the original. However, the storyline is still solid and the acting is a vast improvement here. What this movie is missing is the magic Corman was able to capture in the eclectic and eerie IT CONQUERED THE WORLD. My rating though is just considering what we got with this thing at face value.
This one gets a 4 out of 7.
GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF ULTRA FILM AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.
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