It Came from Outer Space (1953)

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Richard Carlson (Creature from the Black Lagoon) stars as an amateur astronomer who sees a spaceship crash in the Arizona desert. He tries to tell the community about it, but no one believes him — especially after the crater walls fall in, burying the ship from sight. His girlfriend (Barbara Rush) becomes a believer after one of the aliens makes a frightening appearance on a desert drive. Carlson and Rush soon discover the aliens are kidnapping citizens and replacing them with oddly-behaving doppelgangers. By the time they convince the sheriff (Charles Drake), the aliens issue a warning: give them enough time to repair their ship and leave, or the hostages die.

With a story by Ray Bradbury, It Came from Outer Space is one of the more thoughtful and poetic atomic-age science fiction movies. It underlines humanity’s pervasive fear of the unknown and our unfortunate knee-jerk reaction to creatures that look different from us. Granted, these are some pretty hideous creatures — large, gelatinous masses with single, protruding eyeballs. The creatures originally weren’t going to be seen, but Universal Studios demanded director Jack Arnold (The Incredible Shrinking Man) add them in — and it was a good call. As simple in design and odd in construction as they are, they offer some of the film’s creepiest moments.

The mystery behind the space ship and the aliens is drawn out longer than it needs to be, but the film manages to interject just enough moments of eeriness and provocative passages of dialogue to keep you engaged. If you’re looking for a monster/horror movie that embraces genre conventions, It Came from Outer Space plays more like of a sensitive episode of The Twilight Zone. It was one of the earliest studio-produced 3D films and the technology truly adds impact to the storytelling, especially when Carlson travels through smoke and mist to visit the crash site and when one of the aliens is emerging from a dark mine tunnel. The Theremin-driven musical score would become an atomic-age standard. Look for Gilligan’s Island‘s professor, Russell Johnson, as one of the first to be captured by the aliens.