Horrorfest 2014: The Man from Planet X

THE MAN FROM PLANET X is an early example of a genre that would later come to define its decade, the 1950s – a paranoid flying saucer flick. Is the universe a hostile place teeming with creatures waiting to destroy us? Or might we find friendly visitors waiting to help us? At the end of THE MAN FROM PLANET X, we're still not sure.

This flick is suspenseful, atmospheric and thought provoking, and all on a tiny budget. Thanks to the direction of Edgar G. Ulmer, who directed similarly great flicks early in his career (like THE BLACK CAT), the budget never shows.

Almost the entire film takes place in the fog-shrouded moors of an isolated Scottish isle, where a scientist (Raymond Bond) has set up an observatory in an old battlement. Here he has discovered that a rogue planet, the titular Planet X, is about to swing by planet Earth, passing super close and possibly wrecking havoc upon its arrival.

An American newsman (John Lawrence) visits the scientist, an old acquaintance, ready to report on the phenomenon. Also living in the battlement are the scientist's daughter (Enid Elliot) and his assistant, an ex-student with a dark past (William Schallert).

No sooner has the newsman arrived than strange things begin to show up in the moors – first, a piece of equipment that appears to have come from space, then a capsule big enough to hold a space man, and finally the space man himself.

To the film's (and main characters') credit, the arrival of the space man does not result in immediate hostility. First, the scientists try to communicate with the man, after helping him repair his own space suit. It's only when the greedy scientist's assistant gets his hands on the space man that all hell breaks loose.

The space man is played by Pat Goldin, entirely covered by a costume made up of a space suit with a helmet through which a big, expressionless alien face can be seen. This face could be viewed as a sign of the budget, since the mouth and eyes do not move, and it appears to be just what it is – a mask. But, it also serves to make the creature that much more alien, and provides the best jump scare in the film when it unexpectedly appears in the window of the space ship. Another creepy alien detail: he seems to only communicate with a strange humming noise. It's not clear where it is emanating from, but it's much more alien than a simple made up but Earthly sounding language.

THE MAN FROM PLANET X is a master class on what can be accomplished with limited resources. It looks as good as a major studio production of the era, and the script is smarter than most – little details, like the fact that an alien from another world might need a space suit, rather than just walking around free, go a long way toward helping this movie stand out from the pack. Of course, other details are not so great, like the fact that a rogue planet swinging close to Earth merely seems to cause a little bit of a wind storm, but that's easily forgiven.