THE CAPE CANAVERAL MONSTERS (1960) ** ½

 

Alien lifeforms in the shape of glowing dots possess the bodies of a pair of freshly dead car accident victims and set out to sabotage rocket launchings occurring at Cape Canaveral.  Meanwhile, teenage scientists who are working on the rocket tests pick up a strange reading on their transmitters.  They think the source of the transmissions are the cause of the disturbances, but of course the adults on the team don’t believe them.  They soon set out to prove the grown-ups wrong and run smack dab into the aliens’ plot.

Robot Monster gets all the glory, but for my money, this one is director Phil Tucker’s masterpiece (although that’s not saying a whole lot).  The Cape Canaveral Monsters was his final movie, and it has an undercurrent of black humor and gore than would soon permeate throughout the horror genre.  There’s a funny running gag where an alien keeps loses his arm and his mate has to help him reattach it.  (The scene where a guard dog rips his arm off, and a security guard nonchalantly brings it back to the lab is great.)  Of course, the aliens need fresh bodies to repair their wounds and they go out cruising for teenage victims.

Like Robot Monster, The Cape Canaveral Monsters is padded with stock footage.  Whereas Tucker went overboard with the stock footage in Robot Monster, the shots of rocket take-offs aren’t too bad in this one.  (The scene where a rocket unexpectedly explodes is surprisingly effective.)  Like Robot Monster, the aliens set up shop in a cave and use a machine to communicate with their leader.  The machine in this one is hilarious as it looks like a fishbowl sitting on top of a water heater.

I also loved how the teenage characters flock to lovers’ lane when they aren’t busy performing rocket science.  I mean, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to star in a low budget sci-fi movie, but it certainly helps.  I got a good laugh from the scene where the doctor chastises them for flirting in the lab and they say, “C’mon doc!  This isn’t Germany!”  My favorite line of dialogue though came when the alien was about to operate on one of the humans and said, “She’s unconscious now, but earthlings are strange!”

While The Cape Canaveral Monsters has an OK premise and a decent amount of intentional (and otherwise) laughs, it runs out of steam at about the forty-five minute mark; roughly about the time when the alien finally attaches a permanent arm for himself.  Sluggish finale aside, it’s rather amusing as far as no-frills early ‘60s Sci-Fi goes.  It’s certainly more consistent than Tucker’s better-known Robot Monster, that’s for sure.

This movie is also vaguely connected to our Al Adamson August celebration, although not quite enough to make it an official entry.  For years, Adamson was erroneously reported to be in the film, but it’s actually Lyle Felice, who played Escobar in Adamson’s Half Way to Hell, who essays his role.  Jerry Warren fans (if there is such a thing) will also get a kick out of seeing Katherine Victor from The Wild World of Batwoman playing the female accident victim/alien.