Forgotten British Sci-Fi: Devil Girl from Mars

[00:00:00] The battle for the mind of North America will be fought in the video arena. The television screen is the retina of the mind's eye. Therefore, the television screen is part of the physical structure of the brain.

[00:00:29] Alright, welcome back to another episode of The Outer Reels. I'm Jason. With me as always is Sam. Yeah, here we are man again. Here we are again. This week I subjected Sam to Devil Girl from Mars, British film from 1954. I'll save you the trouble Sam, this is not a good movie. It's not. I mean, no, it's fine. I enjoyed it, but I also sort of knowing the time and the era,

[00:00:55] this is from 1954 and you know as we know they were cranking out these sci-fis in the late 50s. This was early, but you know this was a pretty common type of movie at the time. Never heard of it, never seen it, never discovered it. Love the poster. Yeah, exactly. That's all I saw and thought, oh cool. Yeah, I think this is our oldest movie we've done now. Yeah, it might be.

[00:01:20] Yeah, our earliest film. What do you call this movie? Like, how do you sell this movie to somebody? What was it? Mars Needs Men. Sure. That's just, and to give it credit, it's what, about 15 years before Mars Needs Women. Yeah. You know, but yeah, that's really the gist of it. Yeah.

[00:01:44] Tall chicken leather comes down out of a spaceship and proceeds to tell people at a pub that Mars Needs Men. Pretty much. I mean, it's a very basic thing. I mean, the movie, what I liked, what I felt familiar about it is when it started up, you know, within the first few minutes, you kind of get an idea that like, oh, this is going to be a movie that's set all in one location. Yeah. And sure enough, it is.

[00:02:12] Which is, you know, that is the preferred format of every Twilight Zone episode ever. You know, it's this one location and you put a bunch of people in a situation where they have to resolve. Well, episodes are cheap to make.

[00:02:26] Yeah, exactly. So this is directed by David McDonald. And while I didn't know anything about him and certainly really haven't seen anything else he's done, what I did find out, which, you know, especially after watching the film, he was a theater director. Right. And so he came from stage stuff. So this whole movie does feel like it's shot on a stage.

[00:02:48] Well, and it's, yeah, it's, it's kind of, it's blocked a lot like a stage play. It looks like a stage play. It's, and, and a lot of stuff back then did still, especially on television. So I think that's probably why. But I mean, you know, the earliest movies are essentially just film stage plays. Yeah. And like, like, that's what makes it gain such a big deal. Suddenly you saw ceilings. Right.

[00:03:16] And things, you know, it's, uh, but this, this is what, 20 years later. So. Well, that's it too. And when you say it's blocked like a theater, it's, it's exactly that because it's a lot of wide and mid shots and there's people just going about. I mean, it's refreshing in a world of 2025 where movies are so heavily overcut, you know, mostly because people can't hold a performance.

[00:03:41] It's anymore. So you're back and forth, back and forth. And, you know, it's not uncommon to have a 30, 45 second scene without a cut and three or four people actually interjecting and talking. And instead of these two shots, you know, so it does feel a bit more of that classic filmmaking, I guess should probably just get into. Yeah. The, the idea, I think I would try and if I was trying to summarize this for somebody, or maybe if I was trying to say, if I was trying to pitch this to Ed Wood or something, I probably, I probably just say, yeah, look, it's a,

[00:04:11] a bunch of people who are all come to a collective area in a hotel motel up in Scotland. And while they're there, a UFO lands and out of it comes this alien who is the supposedly devil girl from Mars. Although she's not really devil and she's looking to repropagate her species and needs to bring men back to Mars with her. Pretty much. And they are way more technically advanced as she will tell you over and over and over again.

[00:04:40] And I did actually like the technology that they go over in this movie and for its time, there's actually, we'll get to it, but there's some pretty good stuff they discuss about. Like she talks about how the ship works and stuff like that. And I think it's one of the earliest renditions of a little more of a deep dive into how UFOs work and stuff like that. Instead of them just being, you know, it came from the sky.

[00:05:01] A bit. It's a lot of techno babble BS though. So there's some jargon in there that's just in there for the sake of being jargon, I guess. It's a. Yeah. I mean, they talk about materials and everything else, but there is not a single mention Jason in this movie of Tex-Mexium. Okay. That is true. Which has long form become our favorite element on the show. Got it. No further radar right about now.

[00:05:30] All you guys watching know Gunhead. So we have a lot of Gunhead fans who listen to the show, by the way. Everybody loves Gunhead. Well, Gunhead's great. I still think we need to do a t-shirt that has the periodic table and it has Tex-Mexium as an element on there. Put some Marvel elements on there too. Adamantium and vibranium. Maybe we did discover, or maybe you showed me a periodical table that has some of that in there.

[00:05:55] Well, I have a t-shirt that got Adamantium as if it's one unit from the periodic table. Okay. So, yeah. You may have saw that at some point. I think we need to update it. It's something worth doing. Okay. So, as far as the cost in this, this is a little out of my wheelhouse as far as people and actors and stuff. A lot of these people were in a lot of earlier stuff. They didn't go on later in movies.

[00:06:23] I think the only person was obviously Doris, Adrienne Kari. She was in Clockwork Orange, but I couldn't find anybody else who was in something that I'd seen or was like a familiar face. Again, I think this is just a case of a lot of people coming off theater and making the jump into movies versus the other way. I'm just looking up the professor right now because I'm sure I've seen him in something else. Oh, yeah. Albert. Yeah. Oh, no, no. Joseph Tomlety. Yeah.

[00:06:53] Exactly. And he passed away in 95, but he looked super familiar to me. Not that as I scroll through his stuff I'm seeing anything, but maybe I saw him in something at some point. But somehow he is still higher than us on IMDb, star meter. Man who's been dead for 30 years. We'll never top the woman, top knot, Goro, top knot from... No, no, it wasn't Goro, top knot.

[00:07:21] It was the woman from the Japanese woman from the submarine in Latitude Zero. Latitude Zero? Yeah. Who has one credit and one credit only, and it's in that movie, and she still ranks higher than us on the star meter. We're nobody, so we're behind the scenes. Actors will always be more popular. That is true. So, yeah, this movie starts off with a miniature of a plane flying in a storm and some kind of lightning goes off.

[00:07:50] Just goes poof. And I couldn't figure out what actually happens here, if the plane just disappears or it's supposed to crash. I don't really... They don't really go back to it or anything. No, they just... They tell you... They give you the title card after that, and off we go. And we get a radio newscast up at this hotel, so it takes place, I believe. Well, a lot happens right away, considering not much happens for the rest of the movie. No. And it's like... The setup's quick.

[00:08:19] Yeah, I've got a note here with, like, plane shot down, meteors, lost scientists, and escaped convicts. And we're four minutes into the movie. Yeah. It does set it up. And that's exactly it. There's a... It's set at, like, some lodge in Scotland, I guess. And all these people transcend upon this lodge for their own reasons. And within the first 20 minutes, it's... You know, the first four minutes, you get to meet these people.

[00:08:48] But then it's a bit more of a slower burn once they all arrive at the hotel. Very much so. And so it's setting up what's going on. But there's a radio playing saying a huge meteor crashed, and now there's a professor who's being sent up there. And you get all these reasons. There's a guy who's an escapee from a prison or something, and he's on the run hiding. And they're all sort of coming towards, and they all end up at this hotel in, you know.

[00:09:14] And what it started to make me think of is other movies that are set in one location, like a bar or something like this. And I was trying to come up with other ones that are comparable, obviously, much later in years. But the first one that I thought of was Tales from the Crypt Demon Knight, which I absolutely love. Because that's exactly what this intro is.

[00:09:36] It's a bunch of people from all over, and then they all show up, and now they get stuck there, and they have to deal with whatever, you know, evil or, you know, whatever keeps them sort of locked down there. It's a familiar story. It's used a lot. Yeah. Demon Knight from 95 with William Sadler. I love William Sadler. He's like one of my favorite people who never got a full-on, full-on leading role. He's so good. Did you ever see Trespass from 1992?

[00:10:06] Hmm. I don't know if I did. It's William Sadler and Bill Paxton, and they're firefighters. And it's like in Tennessee, and they go into a building, a burning building, and they find a treasure map from this old priest. And there's a bunch of treasure, like old, like Vatican treasure hidden in this old building. So they go out there to explore with this treasure map, and it's out in the ghetto in this industrial area. And while they're there, a gang shows up, and like a murder happens, and they witness the murder.

[00:10:36] And then the gang realize they're there, and the gang's led by Ice-T. And so there's this whole movie set in a building where they're using their like firefighter skills to like climb up the elevator shafts and stuff like that to try and escape the gang. It's a really good, just early 90s, like simple action movie. I really enjoy it. Yeah, I don't know how I missed this. It's got Ice Cube as well. Yeah, it's great. It's really fun.

[00:11:01] I was trying to think of other movies that are kind of like that, because, again, that's a one location one. Ones that are like other bar locations. There's a movie from like only recently, a couple years ago, called VFW. Have you ever seen that? It's pretty good. No, I don't even think I've heard of that. So it's William Sadler also in it. Shocking. Yeah. Stephen Lang. You should marry him. Stephen Lang and Fred Williamson, like everybody, like all the genre guys are in this and they're just hanging out of VFW.

[00:11:31] And this kid comes in with like a bag of drugs and she's on the run from some gang. And it just turns into this like massive stuck in a bar shootout fight, baby. It's pretty cool, but it's more one or one. The other one I was thinking of was Feast, the John Guller movie. Did you ever see that? Henry Rollins. It's like it's actually pretty good. It's like from the early 2000s. It's actually from Project Greenlight. Remember that show? Oh, I do. Yeah. That was, yeah. That was Ben Affleck and.

[00:12:01] Yes. What's his name? Had that whole idea for a while. Who was the other guy? Yeah. Well, his buddy from Goodwill. I know. God damn it. I can totally see him. My mom's in love with him. I can't remember his name all of a sudden. Matt Damon. Matt Damon. Matt Damon. Yeah. So Project Greenlight was really, really cool, actually. But what was good about it is that Feast came out of this and they had three of the movies. The other two weren't as great. But the first one.

[00:12:30] And again, I'm certain all of our listeners know Feast, but I'll indulge you, Jason, because I'm sure you haven't seen it. Except me. I don't remember this at all. So it starts up great. And it's just, it's an awesome opening scene. And it's a bunch of people at this bar in the middle of the desert. And this guy comes running in the front door and he shuts the door behind him and he's got a shotgun and he's like covered in blood. And he's like, something's coming. And they're like, what? And then this creature just like grabs him through the window and pulls him out.

[00:12:58] And then it like pans over and like somebody else picks up the shotgun and then it like freeze frames. And it's like the new hero. Like, you know, and so the movie starts and now they're stuck in this thing and they just have to fight this beast of it. Super fun. Low budget. Henry Rollins is super funny in it. But it's cool to, it kind of reminded me of this, uh, while this movie is nowhere near spectacular, it is the same kind of thing. It's you get a collective of people and now they're stuck there and they have a problem

[00:13:27] and they have to deal with it. Yeah, I guess so. And, and our devil girl from Mars does like to whip open the doors and just kind of appear in the doorway pretty frequently too. And just sort of stand there in her leather miniskirt. So, yeah. So I want to ask you something about this movie though. Um, this took place all in one night, right? Like that, because I couldn't tell if it was night or day at one point because it's the lighting is, the exterior lighting is a little questionable at times.

[00:13:57] It's a good question actually. Well, like when the scientists arrive at the pub slash in. It's clearly evening, which is the very beginning of the movie, right? It's clearly the night. Yeah. But they've got, it's so crazy lit with these crazy long shadows and stuff that I guess the sun had set yet, but I swear the scene before was nighttime. So I guess, I guess like, cause you know, the inside, all the interiors were definitely

[00:14:23] on a stage and a lot of the exteriors were around the spaceship and stuff like that. That was all stage two. But I guess the outside of the pub and in was a location. Yeah, that looks like a map painting actually of the pub. And then it's just probably the only one map painting they had and they painted it as night. Maybe the whole thing was, was studio then. Yeah. And that's probably to answer your question too, is when they go outside by the UFO, it clearly looks like high noon cause they don't want shadows being cast or anything. Yeah.

[00:14:51] And so we're back and forth, but I do think this movie takes place over two evenings. I would imagine. Cause the very beginning they show up and then it's, you meet everybody. And then it seems like the next day is when the UFO comes down. I swear they send that kid to bed and then he's like, he's in his pajamas at the end, right? Like, so is he just in bed for two days or? Right. Yeah. Cause I was wondering. Cause he sneaks out of his window at one point and I, you know, it looks like daytime, but I swear it was still night.

[00:15:21] Like the, the guy, the convict even makes a comment. What are you doing sneaking out at this time of night? And he could have also just been like when I go to my grandma's and I'd have to go to bed at like three 30 in the afternoon. I'm like, it's still sunlight. Oh dude. Growing up in Canada, summers were the worst. Oh, there you go. Like I want, I don't want to go to bed. It's still light out. And it's like, yeah, it's going to be light out until 10 o'clock kid. Go to bed. It's like the meteorologist or the professor and his sidekick show up and they're like,

[00:15:50] okay, we're going to stay here for the night. We've still got a long drive to go. And at the same time, this guy shows up Albert, who is of a different name and it's a, it's a pretty thin subplot, but I guess he's a convict or something. He's on the run. He knows the woman who works at the pub and wrongly convicted or so he claims. Right. And she's like, no, no, this is my name now. Just go along with it. And so it's kind of like people in the pub are like, Hey, I know you from somewhere or whatever. And he's like, Nope, no, you don't.

[00:16:17] And he sort of palms it off, but this is all sort of happening. And we're, you know, everybody's discussing and drinking at the bar. And then at the 17 minute mark in the movie, we get the UFO showing up. So like you said, you got four minutes where all of this happens. Yeah. It's just a dump. And then nothing for another, another 15 minutes. Right.

[00:16:40] And then the UFO shows up outside and in classic 1950s UFO sci-fi movie, it's, it's pretty underwhelming, but comes down. And then it's got this neat sort of spinning thing on the outside of it. Yeah. It's like, it's only moving feature. Yeah. Yeah. When the, when the ship comes down, they're like, what is that? And there's this bright light. And then of course, this is the moment where one of the people who works at the hotel is

[00:17:09] like, let's call somebody. And then the phone is out. And this is like the, the moment where you're like, okay, this is truly the movie where they're all cut off from any sort of help external. So they're going to have to deal with this because like the phones are down, what's happening. So then they catch this plan where someone's got to drive into the next town and the town's too far away. It just, it's all sort of throwaway dialogue, but it kind of locks down. So the audience isn't like, well, why don't you just leave? Why don't you just drive somewhere?

[00:17:38] Like, why do you have to deal with this UFO? Which is. Yeah. Typically always pretty thin. It's the modern version of like when people go camping in a movie and they're like, there's no cell service, you know? Yeah. The weird guy with the limp. And, uh, and she was one of the other. The girl there who's like Albert's girlfriend makes a comment out. She doesn't like him much that he's, he makes her, I know he, I can't remember how she described him, but it's like, he's, he's weird or he's something.

[00:18:07] Um, and he's out there and then Naya just kind of, you know, comes down onto the spaceship and shoots him for no reason whatsoever. Just. This is the first science fiction moment is Naya. Who's our devil girl from Mars walks out of the ramp from her UFO and points this little laser gun, classic fifties, like zap gun at him. And he's sort of tripped over and then she just dusts him and there's nothing left, but like

[00:18:36] his spectacles and some smoke. His eyeglasses are left. Yeah. I was like, what kind of technology decides that glasses stay, but boots and shoelaces and eyelets and belts. Yeah. All his clothes and everything are gone. He's gone. But the eyeglasses are still there. Reminded me actually, I think the best version of that case was in the Langoliers when they all wake up on the plane and they start realizing like, Hey, the only people who are still left on the plane are the people who were asleep.

[00:19:04] And there's, you know, a dozen of them or whatever, but they start looking on the seats and there's like wristwatches and belt buckles and all these things. And there's a pacemaker on one of the seats. And then they, they say that it, it took all non-organic matter or it, I think they say that all organic matter was left in this portal when they went through it. But I'm like, well, then like the line's not very drawn there, at least in Langoliers because you're like, there's dentures, there's fillings, there's glasses, there's pacemakers,

[00:19:34] but there's not clothes and there's not shoes. It's a hard line to draw is what I'm getting at. Like you can't. Yeah. No, totally. It does. It reminds me of the quiet earth, which I think is the movie I've talked to you about before. If we ever do New Zealand, that'll be one of my picks. And the, the idea is like these people who are the same idea, like all the people are suddenly gone and the people are left all like died at the same moment that this happened

[00:20:01] and somehow they managed to survive because of it. Um, so sorry, spoiler alert. I think that comes in about halfway through the movie, but anyway. Anyway. We'll get there. I want to do New Zealand. I've got to, I'm going to have to dig a bit harder to find some other picks that aren't Peter Jackson movies. Well, yeah. Well, cause Peter Jackson is a little too well known. I have, I have this obscure thing. Um, the fellowship of the ring.

[00:20:26] Um, no, no, the quiet earth is like the only thing I can think of so far for New Zealand, but I'm sure I'll come up with more. Um, there's a great TV series out of New Zealand called the mighty Johnsons. If you ever had a chance to watch it. No. Oh, the idea is like the Norse gods are all reborn. And these guys, guys who are like living in the outskirts of Wellington. Oh, it's pretty good. And it's, it's, it's good. It's a good series at times and stuff. I did two or three seasons of it. I really enjoyed it. Yeah. It sounds like, uh, similar to, uh, what was it?

[00:20:56] What we do in the shadows or whatever. That was Kiwi as well, right? That is the original movie. Um, the movie. Yeah. Yeah. And then they did a spinoff TV series there called Wellington paranormal. And it's really good too. If you liked what we do in the shadows, you'll love Wellington paranormal. The, the two cops and what we do in the shadows, they spin off into their own show. Oh, okay. And it's just like, they have five minutes in the movie and then they've got like four seasons of the show.

[00:21:21] So that's kind of like the, uh, two cops from spawn who were, what were they? Sam and Twitch. Twitch. Yeah. They got a whole series. I mean, you would know more about that than I, but they got a whole thing. They spun them off for a while too. Yeah. Um, I, I haven't read a lot of that stuff. It's the whole, uh, as much as I enjoyed spawn when it was coming out, McFarlane overwrites.

[00:21:44] So the early spawns are really hard to read because they're so dense and dialogue heavy and 90% of it's meaningless. So you'll have page after page after page of, of talking heads on a TV show. Boy, that TV show was great though. The animated series. Oh yeah. The one from HBO. Yeah. I've been on laser disc. It still looks great. Yeah. I got a DVD somewhere.

[00:22:10] Uh, so back to the devil girl for Mars. Yeah. Um, clearly we are having more fun talking about other stuff that this movie, cause it's, it's just a little thin in, in substance, but. Very thin. And we should add it's only 77 minutes long. Which is nice. I get it. I got excited about that when I saw that TRT. I was like, okay. I did too, but it still took forever to get through it. I know that completely caught me. I forgot. I was like, oh, this is going to be a quick run through.

[00:22:39] And I was like, wow, for 77 minutes, this is, this is like psychic slow, you know? Yeah. It's really, yeah. But the psychic was more interesting than this was in a lot, a lot of the time. Only because I thought it couldn't be that bad. And I was like waiting for a hook and then sure enough I was. Um. Yeah. But I mean, this one, there's lots of talking. Um, in, in the pub. Yeah. To just fill time. Like they don't really say anything.

[00:23:06] The scientist is, is probably the dumbest character in the movie. Yes. Um, it's just, uh, and then you've got a reporter who's not much brighter. Um, but they just, they do a lot of talking and then Naya just keeps appearing and. You know, and leaving them and appearing and disappearing. And so, so after she landed and she's vaporized this guy, she walks into the actual lobby of the hotel, the bar area, which the whole movie is based around this little restaurant dinette area of the hotel.

[00:23:36] And, you know, she explains she's Naya and she's from Mars. And she says, you men are not what I expected. And then she goes up to actually, yeah, it's the professor. And it's like, you're a very poor male specimen. She says, and this is apparently their first, they have a bit of information here. You learn something. And we learned that this is her species or her race is very first, uh, visitation to earth.

[00:24:04] And she was supposed to land in London. But I think this is why that storm is at the beginning, because she says that something happened to her and her ship got damaged and she had to land there. So I think that's why. Yeah. And it got damaged. And she says that while she was supposed to be in London, now she's here and it's going to take four hours to repair the ship. And they ask her if she's alone.

[00:24:29] And she says, well, no, I have Johnny who is a mechanical man with a robot human characteristics, but he has an improved quote, electrical brain. And I also love how this is the, you know, in the, in a world of digital, everything now in digital versus analog, this is where there was true analog and then electrical, you know, so now he just has an electrical brain, which is kind of funny. She does do an info dump.

[00:24:56] Mars had a war between the sexes at a certain point and men lost, but it pretty much got decimated in the process. And, uh, and that's her mission, right? She's there to get good male specimens to return to Mars and repopulate Mars. Yeah. Mars needs men. Yeah. Like you said, I mean, that is really the pitch entirely.

[00:25:22] So there is a cool moment here where I was sort of getting like interested in like how this all works. And she does explain that the four hour repair on the spaceship that needs to happen is that the metal on the ship can reproduce itself as she says. And the professor is like, what do you mean it reproduces itself? And then she starts talking to him and then he starts talking to the other humans.

[00:25:50] And he's like, they've turned or inorganic into organic, which basically she says the thing's going to heal and it's going to grow. And I like this because this is early high concept UFO stuff that definitely we started sort of talking about only in more recent times, like as far as the real world goes, you know, like the Ed Hunt UFO documentary that I absolutely love. They talk about stuff like this, about like organic machines and everything else.

[00:26:19] Do you know what other spaceship can self heal itself? This is going to be a comic book reference, isn't it? Nope. What is this? USS Voyager from Star Trek Voyager. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. It's something they talk about in the first in the first season early on and then basically just kind of ignore it the rest of the series. But yeah, I didn't know. Well, there you go. So this movie is what, 15 years ahead of that. No, way more. Voyager was what, late, early 90s. Oh, okay.

[00:26:48] So yeah, like 30 years. It's only in today's world now we're talking about these UFOs with no heat signatures and organic properties and everything else. And it's like, that's what they've got to be. They're just Tic Tacs. Tic Tacs are clearly organic, Jason. And they grow up. And, but what was cool is I was trying to think of like, I was like, I, I remember the

[00:27:13] first movie and you know, I, I'm sure there's others, but for me, somehow this movie always comes up, but Giver 2, the sequel to Mutronics, there's a scene where they're under the volcano and the girl is like touching one of the zoonoid spaceships. And she's like, oh, it's feels like skin. It's warm. It feels organic. And it, that was the first experience I'd have in a movie where somebody discussed a ship that's grown and not built.

[00:27:41] While in this movie, Naya doesn't say the ship was grown, but she does talk about its organic capabilities. She just says metal, but it can move and grow and heal, which is still cool to see in a 1954 sci-fi. Yeah. Yeah. Um, what you just described reminded me of, I was just looking up cause I couldn't quite remember it. Lex from, uh, the mid nineties. Was that this one movie with the ship that was shaped like a dick? I think so. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:09] It's a, it was, um, TV series and it was, it was while I watched it for a bit, it, it was out there. It was really wild. Um, absolutely remember that show. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I think it was like an organic ship as well. And everything inside was very, I don't know, Giger inspired, I guess, but like the whole thing orange yellow color than, than the biomechanical stuff.

[00:28:35] Empirely phallic based spaceships in every way and lots of sexual connotations and stuff. But I remember that show. I should re revisit that actually. I believe it is on Plex. Oh, there we go. Like as a, as a freebie of theirs. Speaking of, we watched this movie on Tubi, miss the old Tubi logo. It, uh, it wasn't a very good copy of this movie either. It, it felt center cropped and blown up a little, like it didn't feel like a real restore. Well, I mean, it's, it's 54, so it's probably a four by three anyway.

[00:29:04] So it may not be actually center cropped. Um, well, it still could have been blown up a bit, but no, this was one. Yeah. Oh yeah. This is one three. Right. No, it was one eight. Oh, wow. Okay. So exactly. Um, but whatever version of this that we have that exists now is clearly the only version that we'll probably forever have. Nobody's going back and restoring this. Yeah. So what we probably saw was pulled from TV then. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Like a check tape or a D1 or something.

[00:29:34] So this is 40 something minutes into the movie now. And she just decides to show us Johnny, her robot sidekick for no real reason. They just walk back out to her ship. Well, she's like, I'll show you our basically house, how good we are, how advanced our technology is. And out comes the slowest moving robot in cinema history. It's a dramatic long buildup too. Cause the, the door on the UFO is really slow. The ramp is really slow.

[00:30:03] Like they're trying to gain economy out of these VFX shots on this. I still like the robot. I do. I, uh, it's pretty great. It's, it's pretty lame. The robot and the poster is a lot better. Um, and it looks nothing like the robot in the movie. No, it's just a giant like refrigerator box with like a, pyrex head on it and a couple of like filament bulbs in there. Um, it's still fun to look at. It's definitely a man in a suit.

[00:30:30] It walks exactly like a man does, but really slowly probably because he can't see where he's going. Um, and super slow down that ramp. Um, we should point out too, at this point that while the ship's being repaired, we forgot to mention Naya has put like an invisible barrier around her ship and the whole area. So none of these people can leave even if they want to. Um, it's kind of like the zero M, uh, instance where the hit like load into the smaller part of the neighborhood. You can't get out of here. Like you lock them into an area. Totally. Yeah.

[00:31:00] I was more thinking it was like under the dome, um, Stephen King thing, which is like this pure glass, like dome happens, although they called an electronic barrier. Mm-hmm. And, uh, yeah, it's like a piece of plexiglass when you do finally see it. Right. So. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. Well, this is, uh, this robot Naya is holding like a, looks like a gardening fork and she's just holding this thing.

[00:31:29] And Johnny, the robot comes down and everybody's in shock and awe. They're standing outside the ship. They're like, wow, look at the technology. And then he just turns around and like deletes a tree. And they're like, oh my God. And then, and then he deletes like, yeah. And then he shoots an old car, which is a model. Right. And then like a barn. And it's the same shot. Which happens to be where Albert and the kid were hiding. And they're like, we gotta get out of here. And they go run and go hide under another tree.

[00:31:57] It's, it's this display of supposed, a power of this robot, but you know, it clearly doesn't sort of have any kind of threat or abilities other than this sort of thing. No, I do like when it shoots something, it just kind of makes the whole thing glow as an outline. Yeah. And then there's a great explosion sound effect. And then there's just a puff of smoke left. And they just cut to another, to the clean plate again. And now it's long gone. With a bit of smoke. It's the classic fifties VFX shot. So they wind up all back in the hotel bar now.

[00:32:27] And then again, they're like, Hey, the phone doesn't work. It just, they're reiterating the whole time. Just in case you were in the theater in 1954, 60 minutes into this movie and being like, why don't they just get in the car and drive away? You know, there's some kind of electronic disruption that's going on. During this Naya comes back in and she talks more to the professor and she's like, I will show you the ship because he's showing some form of interest in this spaceship. So she takes him on board and they talk a little bit more about the organic metal.

[00:32:56] And there's not much more you learn about it, but they just sort of double down about, Hey, this is the ship, how it works and it grows. And she did say something interesting here, which is a little bit more into how this stuff works, which I always enjoy. And she said that the ship is atomic based, but she said like your bomb has positive pressure and has a positive technology. And she said, our atomic technology is negative and it can concentrate the energy into alarm propulsion.

[00:33:26] I think she's basically just saying like, it's the way you guys. Yeah. She's describing fusion without saying fusion. Exactly. Yeah. And that's about the only other thing you get about how the ship works. And it's an underwhelming ship interior, but it is an additional set that we finally see. And then, so I think Naya at this point, she's decided that Michael is the only specimen in the hotel who's worth taking back with her. He's the only real man here.

[00:33:55] And this becomes apparent. And now she's decided that. Well, she's, she's taken the boy already. Right. So. Right. That's right. Yeah. This is a stupid kid that's crawling around. That's annoying. And yeah. So Albert and the boy after, you know, escaping Pete, the barn being blown up by the robot are hiding under a tree. Naya finds them and tells the kid to come with her and he's eager to go.

[00:34:21] Um, and you know, when she walks off, she's like, I will show you things you can only dream of. And I'm thinking, man, if this was done nowadays, that line would have a very different meaning. So anyway, so the kid willingly goes off with her and Albert's just like, they, they took the boy. Right. And then that's the moment. Yeah. So then Michael is the hero at this point where he's like, look, I'm a better human specimen.

[00:34:49] I'm a, I'm a strong, tough adult male. Take me, you know, give the kid back and I'll go with you and I'll surrender and I won't make any problem. And so it makes him out to be a bit of a hero. I mean, it's, it's pretty thin. It's this whole sublet here where Albert, like who's hiding out also starts like talking like he's an alien or something. And he's like, they're, they're transmitting through him. Cause he's like, you were going to all be slaves of me. I didn't understand this moment. Yeah.

[00:35:18] So she hypnotized him when she took the boy and made him go back. So he kind of zonally walks all the way back, goes, goes back up the tree that him and the kid climbed down. Cause they're up, they're upstairs. Um, when they snuck out and then goes back into the storage room, which is where he's been hiding out. Um, and then, um, Doris, I think, or is it Ellen?

[00:35:46] I'm getting the, the women mixed up. I'm so lost with the women names in this. Yeah. One of the two of them is the one that, uh, has a thing for him and she goes in and that's when he starts talking about all this nonsense. And that's like, Michael basically shows up and then Albert like basically jumps at Michael and, and, and, and throws a, gives him a bear hug pretty much, but, but it's, it's part of a fight, but it's like the weirdest start to a fight I've ever seen.

[00:36:12] Um, it's not as bad as the anti-gravity fight on moon zero two in the bar. I suppose so. There are some questionably shot punches in this thing though, that, you know, there are obvious misses and stuff. They're not lined up quite right, but, um, yeah, they have this big fight and in the end, Michael knocks him unconscious and then ties him up. And because he's been, you know, eventually the, the mind effect or whatever that Naya did

[00:36:39] on him, it passes and he becomes normal again, but that's, that's where that came from. Well, let's be clear. It's so underwhelming and boring. So it's just like, I feel like they're just trying to make up time here again. And they, they're trying to build tension among all the people because in a movie like this, that's what you want to do where you can't go anywhere. You can't do anything. You want to develop some cabin fever and you want people to be, you know, out seeing each other and everything else. It was just, we don't care.

[00:37:08] Like the most interesting thing, all of us is like, we're like, yes, like we want Naya to put somebody on the ship because we want to go to Mars. We want to see all the other Mars dominatrixes or whatever is going on up there and where all the people, there's nothing interesting happening at this hotel. All the interesting stuff is Mars. So at this point, yeah, we certainly don't. And there's this other thing, which I think is meant to be this other sense of threat

[00:37:36] is now they've decided that Michael's going with her and everything's going to happen. And she, Naya says, well, you know what? You're all going to die when the ship lifts off. And I was like, oh, like this is a new thing. And she's just sort of talks about the, the destruction or the destructive force that's going to come from her ship taking off being a threat. She decides she's going to kill them all. Oh, I missed that. Yeah. She decides she's going to blow up the, the pub, whatever.

[00:38:05] Not, not nearly as cool as blowing up that little shack in message from space. That's such a good, I should put that up on the Instagram. That's such a good show. That's such a good followup. That's just like this extra F you. That's actually great. I'm going to do that. Um, by the way, if you haven't, if you're not following us on Instagram, check out the outer reels. We post lots of these fun clips, especially then you don't have to watch any of this. You'll be able to see Johnny, the robot walk down the ramp and you don't have to waste 77 minutes. Otherwise.

[00:38:35] And by we, I should say Sam does it all as I am inherently lazy. Um, so I'm not unlike this film because she threatens to kill everybody and then they go out to the spaceship and I don't really understand here. Michael tries to take control of Johnny, the robot by snatching the remote from her. And then she just takes the remote back. Like there's, it's really, it's really, really weak. I was, I had a bit of a groan when that happened. I was like, Oh my God.

[00:39:04] Cause she hypnotizes them and makes them give it back. And, and the remote we should say looks like one of those sort of head massagers that you'd find at like, um, one of those gift shops at the airport or something. Totally a SkyMall prop or something. Yeah. Exactly. It's just like these three wires with a little ball on the end that come out of this handle. And yeah, that's what she uses to control the robot. She doesn't do anything with it. There's no adjustments. There's no buttons. There's no nothing. She just kind of points it.

[00:39:33] And yeah. So anyway, but through the scene, she does have some, you know, like concern looks on her face for split seconds. And she does some stuff with her eyes and her eyebrows, uh, move. And, uh, but then boom, he's hypnotized. He hands it back. And she's like, this is the third time you've tried to trick me. I was realized like, okay, Johnny, the robot is not going to do anything in this movie either. Like he doesn't pick anything up. He doesn't like the only thing he does is laser those three things at the beginning,

[00:40:03] but then he never uses that. All he does is walk down the ramp and this one really slowly. And then that's it. We don't see him again. No. And then it really is this simple is that the Albert comes running out and he goes onto the ship instead of Michael at this point. Well, they all, yeah. So she's going to blow them all up. She based, they all decide they're going to hide essentially.

[00:40:31] And so Albert comes out and is willing to, he's going to go with her. And the professor says something here too. Doesn't he want to go to? Well, the professor wants to go because the professor wants to save his ass. Yeah. Right. Not see Mars, of course. Yeah. There's just this little sort of thing. Well, why shouldn't I? And then the reporter's going to go. And then in the end, they all decide they're just going to hide. Because she does say something about she's going to head to London and blow up London as well. And so, yeah. So the reporter wants to go because he says he'll be your guide. Right.

[00:41:01] And the reporter also says like, I know why wouldn't I want to save my ass? But anyway, in the end, Albert willingly goes and follows her to the ship. And then the ship takes off. And then that's when like the reporter and one of the girls come out and then like watching the ship fly away. He's like, quick, get down. And I didn't understand why he had to get down because nothing happens. The ship just kind of takes off. It goes up in the atmosphere and then explode.

[00:41:30] It explodes actually with a cool cloud tank effect. Yeah. And it just keeps going and going and going and going. Yeah. But that's the big effect of the movie. I was like, I actually went back thinking I missed some part of the conversation with Albert and his girlfriend because like, but I didn't. No, they don't tell you what Albert does to explode the ship. But should mention for you guys to maybe some of the younger guys don't know what the cloud tank is.

[00:41:59] And it's it was a very cool effect of the old days where you would have one color die, usually a black pigment in a tank of water. And then you have a bunch of syringes or pumps full of cream or white liquid and you just inject them in there and it makes this really cool cloud effect. It's still used in a lot of modern stuff just because it's a bit of a nod to it. I might have a movie that I'm working on now that is using using an it's it's more we're calling it an ink effect, but it's an ink in a tank.

[00:42:29] Yeah. The cloud tank stuff is great. And yeah, you'll see it in a lot of intros and stuff like that, but it was cool to see it in this because it made me wonder. I'm like, I wonder when, like how early some of the cloud tank effects were being used because this one happens up in the sky. It looked pretty good. Anyway, it was worth mentioning, but that's it. Credits roll. Well, no, because then then they all like they're all back at the bar and they have a drink and they got to celebrate. Um, and then credits roll. No, they have the drink.

[00:42:59] That's it. They have the drink and everybody's like, yeah, this is fine. And then the phone rings and the guy answers the phone and the person on the other side of the phone says, Hey, we've been trying to get in touch with you for a couple of days. So maybe that's your timeline there. They said, is it? Something's been wrong with the line. And the guy's like, nope, we're all fine here. Click. That's it. So now the phone works because the UFO is gone. That's when the credits roll. 77 minutes. I'll take it because I wouldn't have wanted it to be a minute longer. Thank God. Yes.

[00:43:27] This would be again. Go ahead. I should say, I have a note in here at one point that just said, um, this is around the time she was threatening to kill them all. And I just wrote down, I don't care. Kill them all. Yeah. There is no redeeming quality of any of the, any of the human characters here. You don't care if they live or die. And you really just don't want to support. Again, you just want one of them to get on the ship as soon as possible because you want

[00:43:54] to see Mars or you want to know more about the ship, which we get none of. Well, part of what her plan is or what she's going to do when she gets to London or, you know, all that stuff. That's a far more interesting story that would have been expensive to make and they didn't do. Exactly. I think, uh, again, with this movie and especially the time and the subject matter, this would probably be an okay 25 minute Twilight Zone episode. Yeah.

[00:44:24] Although what I would say about that being a 25 minute Twilight Zone episode, they usually have a good payoff in the ending or something that you're not suspecting. Like nothing here happened where I was like, oh, this is cool. Or this is interesting. It just, she showed up and then as she was leaving the ship exploded, there wasn't any cool twist or change or anything. There was, there's no sense of threat, you know? I mean, well, what else?

[00:44:50] It's one Martian in a, in a single spaceship and supposedly she's going to take all the men on earth. Like the, the ship we see, the inside of the ship is not that big. No. Did she say that or is she just there for like premium specimens to take back to Mars? Well, she's going to London though, right? Like if she was just after, you know, she could have just zipped around Scotland and then just picked up a few dudes and gone back. Yeah.

[00:45:16] But they're going to London and you know, it's the, the most, what the highest density population city in Europe or something. I don't know. Maybe Paris is, but they're going to London for a reason. And they're going to London for a reason because they shot the movie in London. Actually, I think they filmed it on a stage in Scotland as well, but, um, this movie did, uh, show up in the, uh, hundred worst movies on the official Razzie guidebook.

[00:45:46] And I, I'm kind of like, there are bad movies out there. This isn't a bad movie. This is just a movie of the time. You know, it doesn't have any, I don't think it's a horrible film, you know? No, it's just, uh, it's just boring. Yeah. It's just like a direct comparison to movies released then versus now is also an unfair thing with Razzie's too. Like there's so many movies from fifties and sixties and seventies. And I'm just like, well, you can't compare them all to like Schindler's list.

[00:46:14] Like it's just, it's not really a fair thing. So I always think the Razzie thing's a bit of a, uh, it's a bit of an overstep. But yeah, with that director again, David McDonald, very much after watching it, you can tell it's just, it's just a theater play, you know? And it's all in one shot, one location. The camera's locked off all the time. Um, pretty common style of filmmaking then too. Like this was just every, all of these people were coming off theater and directing theater and stuff.

[00:46:44] So, you know, dialogue just confined in one set, one space. I want to jump back to your, your thing about, um, you know, compare like the, the Razzie thing and comparing movies. I should point out it's like some of the other movies that came out in, in 54. Well, 53 gave us a war of the worlds. Okay. Um, 54 gave us 20,000 leagues under the sea creature from the black lagoon, Godzilla. Maybe it's not that great by comparison. Them came out in 54. Oh, it did. Yeah. Okay.

[00:47:12] So yeah, it's just, you know, yeah, it's, it's not great when you compare it to those invaders from Mars came out in 53. Um, that was earlier than I thought. Yeah. So it's like, yeah. It's just as I scroll through Wikipedia. Um, so I mean, there were some good sci-fi movies in the fifties. Um, this isn't one of them. No, because it's not science fiction. It just has a UFO in it.

[00:47:39] Like, you know, other than, I mean, again, I'll give it that. Cause I liked the discussion about the self healing ship because I think that's ahead of its time. But otherwise, yeah, there's not much else, uh, going on here. Here. How long do you think this movie took to shoot Jason? Oh, well, I was doing it nowadays. Probably do it in nine days. Well, I'm glad you said that because this movie was shot in 10. Oh, geez. There you go. I thought you were going to tell me it was like 26 or something.

[00:48:09] No, this is one of the few times where we've looked up, where I've looked up a shoot duration for something we've covered. And I'm like, okay, this is valid. Yeah. You know, I don't know where the 30 days went for the psychic shoot, but this seems a little more efficient as a 10 day shoot for sure. Yeah. And even then, uh, because it's, it's, it's one stage really, or two stages essentially. Um, and one location. I mean, you could, it's 77 minutes.

[00:48:38] You kind of pump this thing out a little faster than that nowadays of some proper planning. Which comes back to the Twilight Zone thing. Again, it's just that that's exactly how these, they were done. They were on a, a two wall set. You know, like I said, you didn't see the ceiling off and everything else. Shot them in five days. I should, I should mention that, uh, Naya's ray gun in this movie, the little dumb pistol that she has, which is of no definitive remarkable design or any cut.

[00:49:07] But this prop actually ended up being used again in the crawling eye, which is a movie worth watching the trailer for. Cause it just has this cool brain blob eye, but again, probably a visually more interesting movie than this, but it is funny to see that this dumb little prop still shows up being used cross. Um, what I'd say about this movie, uh, Oh, actually I should do, uh, I think IMDB score of five.

[00:49:37] It's high. Yeah. It's high. Um, all right. So I was just, you know, Wikipedia and I saw this on their legacy and it says the film inspired Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Octavia E. Butler to begin writing science fiction. So she's quite well known, um, for, uh, some stuff that, um, exogenesis is hers, uh, parable of the sower. Uh, Kindred is another one that's actually quite well known of hers. Um, I've got a couple of these. I admit I haven't read yet.

[00:50:06] They're sitting on my Kindle waiting for me to get to, but anyway, it follows up and it also says after watching the motion picture at age 12, she declared that she could write something better. Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah, that's fair. So that just made me laugh. It's funny that that's an inspiration though, as well, even to a kid just being like, what? I'm a 12 year old. I can do something better than this. That's good. Well, I think with this, what I would probably do is watch the trailer, watch the clip that

[00:50:35] I'm going to upload on Instagram of Johnny, the robot, uh, skip the movie, get the poster. I like the poster. I like all these posters. Um, yeah. Posters great. Well, the posters is reminiscent of like any of the pulp sci-fi novels from the fifties to sixties as well and stuff. Right. Which is, you know, you probably gather like Sam and I love that crap. So it's schlocky, but it's awesome. Absolutely.

[00:50:59] And I would say forget this movie entirely and watch the Twilight Zone episode, the invaders from season two. I wouldn't give any spoilers because that is personally one of my favorite of all Twilight Zone movies. Also one, I have a memory of seeing as a young kid and it terrified me and I love it. So without reading anything about it or watching anything on trailers or clips or spoilers,

[00:51:24] just watch, I think it's season two or it's a tail end of season two, uh, invaders. It's, it's an awesome Twilight Zone movie way better than this. Or Twilight Zone episode, but just, just watch Twilight Zone because it's generally just can't go wrong with Twilight Zone. Um, and they're all like 25, 22, 26 TRT. Yeah, it's the odd one that's like 44 or whatever, but yeah. Yeah. So that's it. We're halfway through our British run and next week I've got one that should,

[00:51:54] uh, ramp things up a little bit in Seminoid, which is going to be fun. And we will keep things up. And I'd like the boredom that I like to face upon you. Well, that's the whole point. We're trying to discover these things and I still had a fun time talking about it. I have a fun time watching it. Uh, as always, we definitely watched this movie so you don't have to. Without a doubt. Yeah. Cool. Well, thanks Jason. And, and I should say we're trying out, uh, some new software and everything trying,

[00:52:21] uh, to make the audio a little bit better as we're sort of growing. We want to just try and be sure we can get this stuff going. So let us know if this one sucks. Yes. Or, uh, if it sounds like ass or if it's better, just, uh, let us know. We're still experimenting. Yeah. But we think this is going to sound better. So, um, here's hoping. But anyway, thank you guys all for tuning in. We appreciate it. And, uh, keep the message and stuff coming and we will see you all next week. Thanks Jason. Thank you. Cheers. Bye.

[00:52:52] Therefore, whatever appears on a television screen emerges as raw experience for those who watch it. Therefore, television is reality. And reality is less than television.