Tuesday, September 11, 2018

THE SPACE CHILDREN (1958) **


The Space Children comes with a strong pedigree.  It was produced by William Alland and directed by the great Jack Arnold.  The duo had previously collaborated on such Universal classics as It Came from Outer Space, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Tarantula.  It was the duo’s first collaboration for Paramount and despite a nifty set-up, it’s sorely lacking the punch of their best work.

Adam Williams gets a job working at a top-secret rocket-testing facility in a seaside town.  His sons get to know the local kids and go exploring in a nearby cave.  There, they find a glowing, pulsating blob that has the power to control minds.  It soon gets the children to help it stop an upcoming rocket launch their parents are working on.

The first appearance of the monster is well done, and Arnold crafts a handful of effective moments.  However, the bigger the monster gets, the more boring the movie becomes.  The scenes of characters spacing out whenever it manipulates their minds get repetitive rather quickly.  The heavy-handed ending doesn’t do it any favors either and its overly preachy nature helps diminish some of the fun.

The movie’s strength is its solid supporting cast full of familiar faces.  Peggy (The Screaming Skull) Webber is fine as Williams’ concerned wife, Russell (Gilligan’s Island) Johnson has a memorable bit as a violent drunk, and Uncle Fester himself, Jackie Coogan turns up (wearing some ultra-tight shorts) as one of the scientists at the compound.  The space children themselves (among them The Rifleman’s Johnny Crawford) do a nice job as well.  Although their efforts aren’t enough to save the film, they at least make it watchable.

No comments:

Post a Comment