It Came from Outer Space Collection

Science Fiction

Horror

It Came from Outer Space

Universal Pictures

United States of America

English

Richard Carlson

Barbara Rush

Charles Drake

Joe Sawyer

Russell Johnson

Kathleen Hughes

Dave Willock

Alan Dexter

George Eldredge

Edgar Dearing

George Selk

Bradford Jackson

Robert Carson

Whitey Haupt

Virginia Mullen

William Pullen

Richard H. Cutting

Ralph Brooks

Ned Davenport

Dick Pinner

Casey MacGregor

Harry Essex

Jack Arnold

Russell A. Gausman

Irving Gertz

Clifford Stine

Bernard Herzbrun

Ruby R. Levitt

William Alland

Herman Stein

Robert F. Boyle

Henry Mancini

Rosemary Odell

Paul Weatherwax

Milicent Patrick

Joseph Gershenson

Jack Kevan

Bud Westmore

Joan St. Oegger

Joseph E. Kenney

Leslie I. Carey

Glenn E. Anderson

Roswell A. Hoffmann

David S. Horsley

Ray Bradbury

Because you don't understand it, you want to kill it. 

An alien ship crashes into the desert, at first it's thought to only be a meteorite, but small time scientist Richard Carlson gets to view the stricken ship before it is totally buried beneath the collapsing crater it created upon its crash landing. Nobody believes Carlson, but soon the aliens start taking on human form and it's then that everyone else must sit up and take notice before it's deemed too late.

It Came From Outer Space stands as one of the better sci-fi pictures to come out of the Cold War 1950s. Based on the Ray Bradbury story "The Meteor", the story leans heavily on anti-conformist themes and confidently trumpets something different to ourselves actually having the damn right to be different, and that is something I can personally truck with. As with most of the other films from the sci-fi/alien genre, "it" perfectly captures the paranoia of the people, the sense of mistrust befitting the atomic age, the fear of the desert never more evident than it is here.

Directed with some style from genre guru "Jack Arnold" ("This Island Earth"/"The Incredible Shrinking Man"), the film was originally shot in 3D, and though sadly I have never been able to see the picture in that format, I can certainly imagine greatly the impact that certain scenes would have had. The picture is also notable for the use of POV shooting from the alien perspective, all fuzzy focus from a spherical single eye, it works real well and would be something that many other film makers would use from here on in. 

This is not a film that relies on creatures to see it home safely, in fact we barely glimpse the creatures here, but we don't need that to be the case, for they make their mark regardless, all of which leaves It Came From Outer Space as a very knowing and quite often intelligent piece of work. 8/10

4K UHD Trailer

It Came From Outer Space (1953) Official Trailer Movie HD

Best Movies

It Came from Outer Space

Cast & Crew

Videos

Cast

Richard Carlson

Barbara Rush

Charles Drake

Joe Sawyer

Russell Johnson

Kathleen Hughes

Dave Willock

Alan Dexter

George Eldredge

Edgar Dearing

Box office

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