THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE (1967)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

This low-budget “alien possession” tale was adapted by Amicus producer Milton Subotsky from an American SF-novel, THE GODS HATE KANSAS. I have not read the original novel, but Subotsky and the all-Brit cast do a creditable job of transferring the action to the British Isles, so that BEYOND seems of a piece with such similar Brit-works.

BEYOND’s main character is scientist Curt Temple (Robert Hutton), who frequently collaborates with his girlfriend and fellow scientist Lee Mason (Jennifer Jayne). Prior to her departure to collaborate with another scientific group, Curt humorously remarks that he doesn’t want other scientists to find out that Lee is the “real brains” of their partnership.

Then bodiless aliens descend to earth via a meteor-shower, and within the film’s first fifteen minutes they take possession of Lee and her fellow eggheads, all of whom immediately speaking in highly affected tones. They set up their own base, co-opting the resources of the British government. Curt becomes aware of Lee’s strange behavior and investigates the base, though he’s unable to convince the authorities of the group’s sinister plans.

Since both Curt and Lee are very flat character-types, her constant rejections of his attentions doesn’t carry much resonance. There’s some potential for romantic conflict when a blonde town-girl tries to chat up Curt during his period of rejection. But though she later succors Curt after his possessed girlfriend shoots him with a stun-ray (complete with a groovy “spiraling circles” effect), the town-girl fades out of the story and is one of the characters slain by an apparent plague. The plague is one of the aliens’ stratagems for keeping the authorities away from their operations, but Curt sees through their charade. In the end Curt penetrates the base and “deprograms” his girlfriend. However, at the eleventh hour the aliens reveal that they haven’t really killed anyone and that everyone who apparently died will be made whole. The film ends with Curt vowing to help the aliens out of their difficulties.

THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE is a pretty ordinary low-octane thriller, but there are at least a few lively moments here and there. That’s more than I could find in Amicus’s same-year SF-flick THE TERRORNAUTS, also adapted from a little-known American SF-novel.

THE SNOW CREATURE (1954)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*


THE SNOW CREATURE, one of the first "Yeti" films, is also the last of three low-budget SF-films on which director W. Lee ("brother of Billy") Wilder collaborated with his son Myles Wilder (though the two also worked on other, non-SF projects). Both PHANTOM FROM SPACE and the similarly titled KILLERS FROM SPACE are far more watchable, though CREATURE gets a few points for not being a total ripoff of its main influences, 1933's KING KONG and CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, which appeared in theaters about six months before Wilder's Yeti.

Whereas the explorers of CREATURE are looking for their fishy quarry, narrator-and-viewpoint-character Parrish undertakes his expedition to the Himalayas looking for rare botanical subjects. His only companions are another American, a photographer named Wells, and several Sherpas, implicitly Tibetan though they are played by Japanese actors. Only three of the Tibetans are named: the leader Subra, his wife Tala, and his brother Leva.

After a few days of monotonous travel through the Himalayan snows, a Yeti appears at Subra's house and steals Tala. Leva overtakes the expedition and relates this story to Subra, who believes it implicitly. He asks the two Americans for help, but neither of them believe in abominable snowmen, and they decline to go Yeti-hunting. In one of the film's few original touches, Subra hijacks the expedition for that purpose, forcing Parrish and Wells to go along if they don't want to be left behind to freeze in the snows.

Though the Americans try a few tricks to take control of the situation, Subra heads them off and the group finally comes across evidence of a Yeti's passage: the prints of his "big feet" in the snow. However, there's no proof that the Yeti they're tracking has Tala in his possession, though the group does find one of Tala's shoes. However, Tala is never seen again in the movie, nor is there more than circumspect acknowledgment that she's been abducted to help breed more Snow Creatures. Wells shows himself to be a minor-league Carl Denham, asking Subra if he might want to profit from any creatures they find, rather than simply killing them. Parrish can only think of making a new discovery that will benefit his career, though even before seeing any snowmen, he's oddly certain that the creature is just some kind of animal (contradicting his narration about their being a "crude civilization" of Yetis).

The expedition follows the tracks to a series of caves, and they find not one but three Snow Creatures-- an adult male, an adult female, and a child-- though the latter two are barely seen. Since Wilder's script has no use for them, the scripter resorts to a peculiar device to get rid of them. When the male Yeti sees the outsiders, he tries to bring down the ceiling on them, but only succeeds in killing his own family and stunning himself. Parrish and Wells steal back their guns from Subra, forcing all of the Sherpas to give up the search for Tala, though it's possible that Subra believes her to have died in the cave-in. However, thanks to a handy syringe filled with a knockout drug, Parrish can keep the Snow Creature unconscious as the Sherpas drag him back to the nearest city. Once there, big-hearted Parrish declines to press charges against the rebellious Tibetans, but there's a new source of conflict. Wells thinks they should exploit the creature for profit, while Parrish simply wants him examined by scientists, for which purpose he sends the snowman back to the States in a "refrigerator unit." Strangely, unlike most noble scientists in 1950s films, Parrish is utterly indifferent to the Creature's possible human status. In a later scene Parrish reaffirms that it's only an animal, though he does so in part to allay Wells' attempt to publicize the new find as a "snow man."

The sketchy debate about the Creature's status ends when the snowman breaks free of its prison in a California city. The Wilder script seems to agree with Parrish: there are absolutely no scenes to suggest that the monster can think or even express puzzlement over his surroundings. The Snow Creature is just a primitive libido on the loose, for, apart from fighting back against police, his only action is to attack women in two very discreetly handled scenes. Finally, Parrish is able to advise the police to look for the beast-man down in the sewer system, at which point the cops eventually overtake and kill the monster with a minimum of fuss.

Though it may be presumptuous to do so, I can't help expressing that the absolute disinterest of both of the Wilders in the creature's mentality signals their lack of investment in the making of SF-films about monsters and aliens. Father and son worked on three other films together, two of which have metaphenomenal content even though they don't qualify as mainstream SF. After that, Myles Wilder had a long career in episodic TV-- including another "caveman," KORG 70,000 B.C.-- and W. Lee only directed a few more films, ending his career with yet one more fantasy-flick, THE OMEGANS.

ADDENDA: I considered the possibility that the Yeti might reflect attitudes of 1950s Caucasians toward so-called "savage races." However, there's not much to back up this sort of sociological reading, particularly since the Yeti people prey most of all upon "persons of color." It seems more likely that the ham-fisted script conceived of the snow creatures as a menace to all humanity, like nasty Cro-Magnons still trying to get one up on those intruding Neanderthals.

MASTER MINDS (1949)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*


I'd tend to agree with the dominant online opinion that this Bowery Boys film probably owes more than a little to the previous year's successful monster-comedy ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN. In that film, Glenn Strange played the Frankenstein Monster, and a mad scientist working for Count Dracula wanted to transplant Lou Costello's simple brain into the monster's skull. Here, a mad scientist named named Druzik (Alan Napier) has control of a hairy brute named Atlas (Strange again), whom Druzik wants to improve upon. But instead of using the tried-and-true brain-transplant mode, Druzik employs lots of Frankensteinian elecrtical arcs to effect a personality-transfer-- and thus Atlas's brutish body comes to be inhabited by the timid consciousness of Sach (Huntz Hall), the resident dingus of the Bowery Boys.

Perhaps so that filmmakers could keep their comedy's plot a little distinct from that of the A&C film, MASTER MINDS starts out with a fantasy-trope that's largely irrelevant to the main story. Sach eats too much candy and somehow gains the power to make accurate prophecies. His leader Slip (Leo Gorcery) and the rest of the middle-aged "boys" immediately set Sach up to be a carnival fortuneteller. Druzik sees the act and for some reason thinks that a prognosticating man-monster might prove useful, so he and his aides kidnap Sach. Once the personality transfer takes place, "Sach.," now in the body of a behemoth, seeks out his old pals and eventually leads them to Druzik's laboratory, resulting in assorted silliness.

In comparison with some of the earlier Bowery Boys adventures into the supernatural, this one benefits from good casting, particularly with Napier as the silver-tongued scientist, whose aides include Skelton Knaggs and Jane Adams, both of whom had worked alongside Strange in 1945's HOUSE OF DRACULA,  But the most interesting aspect of MINDS is how well Huntz Hall throws himself into playing the ferocious Atlas once the monster's mind has been placed in Sach's body. Strange also has a little fun playing the part of the timid Sach despite his gangling form, but Hall doesn't try to mug in his role, although it's pretty much what one would expect of such light comedies.  Huntz Hall was certainly not what anyone call a versatile actor, but it's refreshing to see him step, however briefly, outside his usual routines.

INSANITY (1993)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*

While clearing off some old tapes I came across this Hong Kong ghost-tale.  

INSANITY is basically a "woman-in-peril" story crossed with a familiar Chinese trope in which houses can be haunted not by human ghosts, but by spirits of evil embodied in old artifacts. In this case, Mr. and Mrs. Wong have just acquired been married and have moved into a new house, so that everything looks rosy for them. However, Mister Wong's shrewish mother brings them a demonic-looking statue as a house-warming gift. Soon the young wife is being haunted by strange apparitions, including imagining that her OB-GYN turns into a slavering maniac.

There's a sloppily constructed subplot, in which the statue's evil is somehow linked to a cop (played by the best-known actor in the film, Simon "FULL CONTACT" Yam). The cop goes crazy, kills his wife, and then shows up on Mrs. Wong's doorstep. Apparently the statue doesn't have any power to do anything but aimlessly terrorize the young pregnant woman, so it summons the cop to assault Mrs. Wong.

The only distinguishing thing about this routine ghost-and-madman thriller is the way the script (written by the same fellow playing Mr. Wong) provides a rationale early in the film for a climactic decapitation.

KILL OR BE KILLED (1980), KILL AND KILL AGAIN (1981)

PHENOMENALITY: (1) *uncanny,* (2) *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*


Both of these martial-arts films were filmed in South Africa with casts mostly unknown to American audiences. Both follow the trope of the "tournament-film," in which some character, usually a villain, hosts a tournament that attracts fighters from all over the world, all of which follow in the deep footprints led by ENTER THE DRAGON.

Now, while I did judge DRAGON to be a metaphenomenal film, it wasn't because the villain organized a tournament, but because he used weird weapons like a metal hand and a maze of mirrors. General Rudloff, the villain of KILL OR BE KILLED, has nothing special in his arsenal, but he's weird in another way: he's a "perilous psycho" in that he wants to re-stage a previous such tournament that *supposedly* took place back in the 1940s, *supposedly* involved the Germans pitted against their allies the Japanese, and *supposedly* was sponsored by historical Nazi figure Albert Speer.

Though KILL OR BE KILLED is poor in terms of script and production values, I've got to give the filmmakers credit for putting forth such a brain-damaged idea. Certainly there were no martial-arts tournaments back in WWII, though the film's alternate title, KARATE OLYMPIAD, suggests that the script-writer was really thinking Olympic thoughts. One never knows what Rudloff's been doing following the fall of the Axis Powers, but apparently nothing matters to him more than the Olympiad he lost to the Japanese. After assembling kung-fu fighters from all over-- including main hero Steve Chase (James Ryan)-- Rudloff challenges the same Japanese general whose fighters devoted those of Rudloff (though the general claims that his men were bought off). Most of the story concerns Chase and his girlfriend (supposedly another fighter, though she can't fake-fight to save her life) first escaping Rudloff's tyrannical hold, and then returning in order to destroy the general's mad scheme.

KILL AND KILL AGAIN is still cheesy, but it easily makes it into fantasy-film concordances because this time Steve Chase's villain is a mad cult-leader with a sci-fi gimmick. Nasty Marduk, who has even less background than General Rudloff, kidnaps a prominent scientist who intended to create a super-fuel from potatoes, because Marduk has learned how the same formula can be used to control the minds of his cultists. However, the professor has a daughter, the coyly named "Kandy Kane," who convinces Chase to go after Marduk. Chase, having already dealt with one madman, decides that this time out he could use a little more help than he got from his former girlfriend (who is never mentioned, of course). So he appeals to four previous acquaintances to infiltrate Marduk's  compound and to liberate Kandy Kane's father. Not surprisingly, Kandy herself also goes along for the ride, and the actress playing her, Anneline Kriel, at least does some creditable if short fight-scenes.

Though Marduk is not as wild an evildoer as the Nazi with the Olympics fetish, KILL AND KILL AGAIN is a little funnier than the first film, thanks to a lot of goofy lines given to Chase and his friends, anticipating the rise of the equally goofy A-Team in 1983. Fight-scenes overall are better but nothing to write home about.

AQUAMAN (2018)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological, sociological*


AQUAMAN became one of DC's best-known heroes through a weird confluence of events: after a one-season cartoon devoted to his adventures, he became a regular participant in many seasons of the long-lived ABC animated series SUPER FRIENDS. Aquaman in his own cartoon came off like a tough if G-rated hero, but in SUPER FRIENDS, he was a literal fish out of water. As a result he was often reduced to a joke, a loser who couldn't do anything unless he could find some fish to do his fighting for him.

JUSTICE LEAGUE made some minor progress in dispersing the hero's dominant pop-culture image as a waterlogged wimp, but even here he was dwarfed by more colorful characters. His first feature-film, however, makes him a beefy brawler who can get shot by ray-guns and shrug it off with an "Ow." Throughout the film, both he and other members of his people, the submarine Atlanteans, are capable of ripping through steel and falling from planes with only minor scuff-marks.

Director James Wan, who's also credited on the original story, serves up a fast-paced quest tale with a lot of sprightly comic relief, often at the expense of the tough-guy hero. Thanks to a ton of CGI visual effects, Wan also has the distinction of bringing forth the most impressive incarnation of an undersea city of water-breathers-- though the list of such movies is pretty small to start with.

As the film starts, Aquaman, a.k.a. Arthur Curry, is still something of an enigma to the surface world, and he's a loner with no one in his life but his surface-dwelling father. Arthur's Atlantean mother Atlanna had fled her native city to escape a forced marriage. However, after a few years of marriage to Arthur's dad, she had to return to the sea in order to prevent the city's warriors from attacking her husband and son.

As an adult, this Aquaman occasionally prevents crime at sea, encountering early-on the violent pirate who will become the hero's best-known villain, Black Manta. However, he receives the call to kingship from Atlantean princess Mera. Arthur's half-brother Orm currently rules one of the seven realms spawned from the sinking of the original Atlantis, but he aspires to unite all of the realms-- including that of Mera's father Nereus-- in a massive war against the surface world. Aquaman, after seeing his own father almost killed by one of Orm's forays, signs on for the campaign.

Most of the characters in the story are defined simply, in terms of loyalty to their parents. Aquaman hates Atlantis because he's been told that the city-dwellers executed Atlanna for her transgressions. Mera is loyal to her father but doesn't want to be betrothed to Orm. (Comics-readers know that she's destined to be Arthur's love-interest, but Wan and crew keep the romance from seeming too pre-ordainted.) Black Manta wants to avenge the death of his father, Orm feels shame because of his mother's crimes, and that's about it.

The essential thrust of the quest is that Aquaman can only unseat Orm if he gains a fabulous trident from the first ruler of Atlantis, though he and Mera have to follow various clues to find the thing. Though the storyline lacks any of the major plot-problems seen in most Marvel Universe movies, there are some hiccups here. Once Mera and Arthur find their quest, Mera doesn't seem to realize that it's the legendary Trench, the very place where Atlanna was sacrificed-- and if that brief description doesn't signal to the individual viewer a major revelation for the hero, the viewer's just not paying attention.

Jason Momoa and Amber Heard don't always have the best interpersonal chemistry, but they both due yeoman work in bringing Aquaman and Mera to life. In fact, Mera's in the story so much that I tend to see her as being a partner-figure, rather than a supporting type-- just as she was in some if not all of the comics-serials. The script gives all of the characters memorable little bits, and though there are no major mythic concepts here, at least Wan and his collaborators don't fall on their faces as badly as the overambitious stories of BLACK PANTHER and CIVIL WAR.

FRANKENSTEIN VS. THE WOLFMAN IN 3-D (2008)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*

Here's the tagline from this 18-minute short:

"Tonight, two icons of terror will come face to face-- for the last time!"

Well, the short does OK in rendering a somewhat iconic version of the Frankenstein Monster. True, one can cavil about the idea that the Monster has somehow managed to gain custody of his maker's castle and can go into town just like any other Carpathian citizen. But he looks good, a bit reminiscent of the Robert deNiro version as well as the classic Karloff creation, and he has a good characterization, reminding one of the self-educated being from Mary Shelley's novel. Though a solitary type, the Monsters befriends three orphan kids after one of them points out that they're like him in having no parents. He also ends up saving them from the other monster of the title.

And that's why the short's hype is not so accurate. This is no "iconic Wolfman," it's just a dime-a-dozen werewolf. Yes, there's the expected werewolf lore, and at one point his mortal alter ego is called "Talbot." But whereas the Universal classic crossover fleshed out both the Monster and the Wolf Man, this time the furry fellow gets the short end of the stick.

The home-computer animation is not very good, but it's a nice script and it has its Universal-loving heart in the right place.