I have to say I really enjoyed the second half of the film as it was a nice way to unwind after a day of work. The movie in the end did not disappoint as I thought it may. Too often do films have great starts and then limp towards the end. The story evolved in a natural and actually pretty logical manner. The story once again has some really neat plot threads that could easily be overlooked such as the returning of Frank Saunders from being a simple monster, giving him more of a character than most movie monsters seem to get. Frank Saunders could easily have just remained a mindless killing machine.
I have to say also that the make-up for a supposed low budget film looks great, as it really reminds the audience of the violence that Frank Saunders has gone through and is a nice match of flesh and machinery. The costume and make-up for Mull the titular Space Monster also looks great, conjuring up images of a yeti, mutant, and a Cthulhu mythos creature. In short, it manages to be a creative in design, and yet still functional in its execution and use. The helps to allow for some excellent combat between the two participants. While some maybe argue that the final battle is short and the end extremely abrupt, I only ask the reader to think back to Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and the pacing of the end. It also avoids one of the great sins of b-movie of letting an exciting situation bog down and become boring.
One other plot thread that I found interesting was the rejection and killing (as ordered by Nadir) of certain captive women for being unacceptable for breeding purposes. Nadir displays a kind of sick enjoyment in the process, signaling his decision for death with the motions of breaking something small in half. It’s quite creepy as it gives the alien invasion a direct parallel to eugenic applications as practiced by the Nazi’s and other governments. The movie takes a scene which in theory would normally just be an excuse to show off attractive women into one with callbacks to Nazi Germany or at the very least the abuses of the eugenic movements around the world.
Still the film moves at a decent clip as I mentioned earlier to an erratic and frantic battle at the end of the film with all parties involved. Some may criticize the use of stock footage, but I personally don’t mind it partially due to its common use in other films. By and large it never cuts (as some films do) between scenes of a large stock footage army to a half a dozen actors. In the end I greatly enjoyed this sci-fi monster romp and would highly recommend it. I’ll add a DVD reviewer a little later when I can take some screencaps of the film.
Hope you enjoyed this review!
