The Creation of the Humanoids (1962)

A deceptively intelligent early sci-fi film that relies quite heavily on dialogue that contain ideas of even more relevance today as we hurtle toward a future in which we will have to come terms with our relationship with our “smarter” technology.

Directed by Wesley Barry
Written by Jay Simms
Produced by Wesley Barry, Edward J. Kay
Cinematography: Hal Mohr
Edited by Ace Herman
Music by Edward J. Kay
Distributed by Emerson Film Enterprises
Running time: 84 minutes


Cast

Don Megowan as Capt. Kenneth Cragis
Erica Elliot as Maxine Megan
Don Doolittle as Dr. Raven
George Milan as Acto, a clicker
Dudley Manlove as Lagan, a clicker
Frances McCann as Esme Cragis Milos
David Cross as Pax, a clicker
Malcolm Smith as Court
Richard Vath as Mark, a clicker
Reid Hammond as Hart, Chairman of Surveillance Committee
Pat Bradley as Dr. Moffitt
William Hunter as Ward, Surveillance Committee Member
Gil Frye as Orus, a clicker
Alton Tabor as Kelly's Duplicate
Paul Sheriff as Policeman

Trailer

The setting: 23rd century post nuclear war holocaust society.

The surviving population suffers from a decreasing birth rate.

The human race is headed for extinction.

People have become dependent on humanoid robots (‘Clickers’) for assistance.

The ‘Order of Flesh and Blood’ fear that the robots will take over and supplant human beings.

The Order tasks itself with preventing the robots from becoming too human and with ensuring that human beings remain dominant.

A scientist experiments with creating human replicas that have genuine emotions and memories.

Two central characters, Kenneth Cragis and Maxine Megan form a close relationship and make a discovery that will call into question all that they thought they knew about the basis of their society and themselves.

And now prepare yourself for “The Creation of the Humanoids” and to have your ideas challenged on what it means to be human along with the possible future direction of our human civilization……..

Read on for more....... 

Battle Beneath The Earth (1967)

 

A diverting and quirky 60s sci-fi film with an unrealised ambitious concept

Directed by Montgomery Tully
Written by Charles F. Vetter
Produced by Charles Reynolds, Charles F. Vetter
Cinematography: Kenneth Talbot
Edited by Sidney Stone
Music by Ken Jones
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Running time: 91 minutes
Budget: £156,307

Cast

Kerwin Mathews as Cmdr. Jonathan Shaw
Viviane Ventura as Tila Yung
Robert Ayres as Adm. Felix Hillebrand
Peter Arne as Arnold Kramer
Al Mulock as Sgt. Marvin Mulberry
Martin Benson as Gen. Chan Lu
Peter Elliott as Dr. Kengh Lee
Earl Cameron as Sgt. Seth Hawkins
John Brandon as Maj. Frank Cannon
Ed Bishop as Lt. Cmdr. Vance Cassidy
Carl Jaffe as Dr. Galissi
Garrick Hobson as Professor Blackthorne
Sarah Brackett as Meg Webson
Bee Duffell as Matron's friend
Chela Matthison as nurse
Burnell Tucker as Jack Ambridge

Trailer

Advanced burrowing machines?

Tunnels dug from China to the United States?

Atomic bombs under major cities?

A dastardly plan to conquer the U.S.?

An expected war with a projected 100 million causalities?

All this kept secret for years!

But now at last

Someone who knows..

Someone who was there….

Will explain…..

Read on for more....

Runaway (1984)

A lesser-known 1980s sci-fi gem that deserves far greater recognition

Directed by Michael Crichton
Written by Michael Crichton
Produced by Michael I. Rachmil, Lisa Faversham, Kurt Villadsen
Cinematography: John A. Alonzo
Edited by Glenn Farr, James Coblentz
Music by Jerry Goldsmith
Production company: Delphi III Productions
Distributed by Tri-Star Pictures
Release date: December 14, 1984
Running time: 99 minutes
Budget: $8 million
Box office: $6,770,587 (USA)

Cast

Tom Selleck as Sergeant Jack R. Ramsay

Cynthia Rhodes as Officer Karen Thompson
Gene Simmons as Dr. Charles Luther
Kirstie Alley as Jackie Rogers
Stan Shaw as Sergeant Marvin James
G.W. Bailey as Chief of Police
Joey Cramer as Bobby Ramsay
Chris Mulkey as David Johnson
Sullivan Walker as K.C.
Anne-Marie Martin as Hooker At Bar
Michael Paul Chan as Wilson, Vectrocon Security Guard
Babz Chula as Construction Foreperson
Marilyn Schreffler as Voice of Lois
Elizabeth Norment as Miss Shields
Carol Teesdale as Sally
Paul Batten as Harry
Betty Phillips as Linda
Stephen Thorne as Tommy
Stephen E. Miller as Rudy
Cec Verrell as Hooker
Amber Borycki as Baby (uncredited)

Sometime in a future which we have almost caught up with, robots perform domestic house-hold, agricultural, construction and many other services. The police have a specialized department tasked with investigating and resolving cases involving malfunctioning robots that pose a danger to humans. Such robots are known as "Runaways"

Trailer

Read on for more......

Speculations & Ruminations - The Lost Last Volume 12 of The Sci-Fi Film Fiesta eBook Series

Sci-Fi Film Fiesta

The Lost Last Volume 12

“Speculations &

Ruminations”

The Lost Last Volume That Was Never Meant To Be!

The Lost Last Volume 12 “Speculations & Ruminations” deals with various implications, themes and ideas that often arise out of the world of science fiction films and literature referenced in the other volumes of this eBook series.

All of this material is organised into four broad sections:

Part 1: “Going Forward”
Part 2: “Dystopia Now”
Part 3: “Poetic Ponderings”
Part 4: “Sci-Fi Future Is here & Now”

The content of this FREE volume is intended to encourage a bit of thought and debate about the world we live in, the kind of future we would (and wouldn’t) wish for ourselves and for future generations, along with an appreciation of the sometimes abused, tenuous and fragile nature of what many of us take for granted such as freedom of thought and speech and our system democracy.

CONTENTS

Introduction

**PART 1: GOING FORWARD

• Going Forward
• Who Will Be To Blame?
• What If? Sci-Fi Film Scenarios
• You will comply
• Biometric Technology & Government Surveillance
• Digital Dictatorship
• Giant Leap Turns Into A Stagger

**Part 2: DYSTOPIA NOW!

Speech &Thought Policed & Prescribed

Sci-Fi & The Future of language & Thought

Stalinist Wasteland

**PART 3: POETIC PONDERINGS

• World In Upheaval
• O Grave New World!
• Once more unto the Moon, dear friends, once more!
• Technology & World Control
• A Warning
• Sci-Fi Blues
• Future Fears For Now
• The Quest For Immortality
• Invisible Invaders*

*

*PART 4: SCI-FI FUTURE IS HERE & NOW

• Mind-controlled exoskeleton suit
• Look, Up in The Sky! Is It A Bird? Is It A Plane?No, It’s A…..Drone
• Surveillance Society Sneaks Into Our Lives
• Big Brother Casts A Shadow
• To Be Known, Or Not To be Known? –THAT Is The Question!
• Surveillance Society Starts At School
• Gene Editing
• 3D Printing Human Organs?
• Pig brains partially revived four hours after death?
• In A Pig’s Eye! Or…..

Afterword

The Complete Sci-Fi Film Fiesta series:

Volume 1: “Here Be Monsters”
Volume 2: “Into Space”
Volume 3: “Other Worlds”
Volume 4: “Journeys Within”
Volume 5: “Alien Contact”
Volume 6: “Alien Invasion”
Volume 7: “The End Is Nigh!”
Volume 8: “Big Bugs & Crazy Critters”
Volume 9: “Accidents & Experiments”
Volume 10: “Supersized & Miniaturized”
Volume 11: “A Tribute To….”
Volume 12: “The Lost Last Volume – “Speculations & Ruminations”

EPUB DOWNLOAD


PDF DOWNLOAD


MOBI DOWNLOAD


KINDLE DOWNLOAD


TXT DOWNLOAD


FRONT COVER IMAGE

Also FREELY available at;

Free-ebooks.net

Google Play Books

This will definitely be the last and final volume of the Sci-Fi Film Fiesta eBook series. There will be no 'baker's dozen! Thank you so much for reading and please check out the other volumes in this series if you haven't already done so. I'll soon get back to presenting some great classic sci-fi films of the 1960s -1980s in this blog, so stay tuned.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

An important and innovative sci-fi classic film but one that is often overrated

Trailer

Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke
Produced by Stanley Kubrick
Cinematography: Geoffrey Unsworth
Edited by Ray Lovejoy
Production company: Stanley Kubrick Productions
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Running time: 142 minutes
Budget: $10.5–12 million
Box office: $146 million

Cast

Keir Dullea as Dr. David Bowman
Gary Lockwood as Dr. Frank Poole
William Sylvester as Dr. Heywood Floyd
Daniel Richter as Moonwatcher, the chief man-ape
Leonard Rossiter as Dr. Andrei Smyslov
Margaret Tyzack as Elena
Robert Beatty as Dr. Ralph Halvorsen
Sean Sullivan as Dr. Roy Michaels[3]
Douglas Rain as the voice of HAL 9000
Frank Miller as mission controller
Edward Bishop as Aries 1B lunar shuttle captain
Edwina Carroll as lunar shuttle stewardess
Penny Brahms as stewardess
Heather Downham as stewardess
Alan Gifford as Poole's father
Ann Gillis as Poole's mother
Maggie d'Abo as stewardess (Space Station 5 elevator)
Chela Matthison as Mrs. Turner, Space Station 5 reception
Judy Keirn as voiceprint identification woman (Space Station 5)
Vivian Kubrick as Floyd's daughter, "Squirt"
Kenneth Kendall as BBC announcer

Opening sequence

The film opens with pitch blackness – a complete absence of light and matter as if at the moment before the universe came into being. On this science and religion can agree: in the beginning there was darkness until...until….until, and that is what the sustained musical note sets us up for as it gradually rises to a crescendo of sound.

Our expectation is then met with the view of our planet suspended in the inky void of space with the sun seeming to emerge from behind and above it. Celestial gases and gravity have long worked their magic gradually coalescing to form light and life-giving stars and planets and solar systems, so many of which come together to form constellations.

By some miracle, this single planetary jewel (perhaps one might be forgiven thinking - the only one in the universe) has been blessed with the addition of a single seemingly unique and miraculous element – LIFE!

Read on for more

Demon Seed (1977)

A chilling prescient and deceptively complex sci-fi thriller of a film

Directed by Donald Cammell
Produced by Herb Jaffe
Screenplay by Robert Jaffe, Roger O. Hirson
Based on novel, “Demon Seed” by Dean Koontz
Music by Jerry Fielding
Cinematography: Bill Butler
Edited by Francisco Mazzola
Production companies: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Herb Jaffe Productions
Distributed by United Artists (United States), Cinema International Corporation (International)
Running time: 94 minutes
Box office: $2 million

Cast

Julie Christie as Susan Harris
Fritz Weaver as Alex Harris
Gerrit Graham as Walter Gabler
Berry Kroeger as Petrosian
Lisa Lu as Soon Yen
Larry J. Blake as Cameron
John O'Leary as Royce
Alfred Dennis as Mokri
Davis Roberts as Warner
Patricia Wilson as Mrs. Trabert
E. Hampton Beagle as Night Operator
Michael Glass as Technician #1
Barbara O. Jones as Technician #2
Dana Laurita as Amy
Monica MacLean as Joan Kemp
Harold Oblong as Scientist
Georgie Paul as Housekeeper
Michelle Stacy as Marlene
Tiffany Potter as Baby
Felix Silla as Baby
Robert Vaughn as voice of Proteus IV

Film Clip

A human has created

a machine…

Now the machine

wants to create

a human!

*********

“A beautiful woman…

A master computer…

The most shocking act

Of creation ever imagined!!”

*********

A woman...

imprisoned

and

forcibly impregnated

by an

artificially intelligent computer!

“Fear for her!!!!”

Read on for more.....

Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)

An over-looked, underrated but very frightening Cold War sci-fi thriller containing a relevant warning about the danger of allowing our technology to rule us 

Directed by Joseph Sargent
Produced by Stanley Chase
Screenplay by James Bridges
Based on the novel “Colossus” by Dennis Feltham Jones
Music by Michel Colombier
Cinematography: Gene Polito
Edited by Folmar Blangsted
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Running time: 100 minutes

Cast

Eric Braeden as Dr. Charles Forbin
Susan Clark as Dr. Cleo Markham
Gordon Pinsent as the President
William Schallert as CIA Director Grauber
Leonid Rostoff as the Russian Chairman
Georg Stanford Brown as Dr. John F. Fisher
Willard Sage as Dr. Blake
Alex Rodine as Dr. Kuprin
Martin E. Brooks as Dr. Jefferson J. Johnson
Marion Ross as Angela Fields
Dolph Sweet as the Missile Commander
Byron Morrow as the Secretary of State
Paul Frees as the voice of Colossus/Guardian
Sid McCoy as the Secretary of Defense
James Hong as Dr. Chin

Who the Hell’s HAL 9000? 

Proteus IV – There’s the door! 

We’re not playing "WarGames” here! 

Skynet – Shmynet! 

Get ready for…… 

COLOSSUS!!! 

Official Trailer

Read on for more......

Sci-Fi Stories That Inspired Classic Sci-Fi Films: “Colossus” by DF. Jones (1966)

“THIS IS THE VOICE OF WORLD CONTROL. I BRING YOU PEACE. IT MAY BE THE PEACE OF PLENTY AND CONTENT OR THE PEACE OF UNBURIED DEATH. THE CHOICE IS YOURS: OBEY ME AND LIVE, OR DISOBEY AND DIE!”

Move over HAL!!! 

Get ready Terminator & Skynet!!!! 

For, here comes…….

COLOSSUS!!!!!!

Colossus: The Forbin Project is a 1970 American science fiction film from Universal Pictures, produced by Stanley Chase, directed by Joseph Sargent, that stars Eric Braeden, Susan Clark, Gordon Pinsent, and William Schallert.

The film is based upon the 1966 science fiction novel, Colossus by Dennis Feltham Jones. The story involves a supercomputer named Colossus that controls the United States' military defense system. After being given full control, Colossus becomes sentient and goes beyond its programming by linking with a similar Soviet system called Guardian.

Having control of both superpowers’ nuclear missile arsenal, Colossus is in a position to force peace upon the world on its own terms. Our every move and our very fate is in now in the hands of a machine. Colossus has purloined our cherished theory of ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’ and applied it as a way achieving that crazy Cold War theory’s implicit aim!

The growth of artificial intelligence and our concerns over its possible outcomes make this film both timely and relevant despite the passage of time and, in some viewers' minds, its feeling of being somewhat dated. The story is in fact quite prescient in terms of the way artificial intelligence and its purposes and uses have become a kind of Pandora's box that could unleash a whole raft of unforeseen consequences upon humanity.

Colossus was given the task of avoiding nuclear Armageddon and achieving world peace, freedom from hunger and disease. Fine! But in order to achieve that objective, what steps would need to be taken? What consequences could arise and for whom? What would be the end result? Failure to ask the right questions could result in a fate that is distinctly Orwellian.

The film adaptation of Jones’s story is very good, containing as it does a pleasing mix of intelligence, humour, satire and drama. The book version explores the makeup of the characters associated with the Project more thoroughly, as well as the contentious relationship between Forbin and the US President. The appearance and personality of the latter comes across quite differently to the film version's president who seems to be somewhat Kennedyesque.

I fully recommend reading DF Jones’ novel and viewing the film version. You might also like to read Jones’ The Fall Of Colossus, and Colossus And The Crab.

Colossus PDF read

Colossus by DF Jones (Borrow)

Movie Script

Full Film Link

CBC Radio Drama Download

Creature with the Atom Brain (1955)

A low budget, entertaining, fast-paced and tongue-and-cheek horror/sci-fi film. A film that has much to say to us.

An exiled American gangster!

A former Nazi scientist!

Revenge!

Radio-controlled atomic-powered zombies!

Directed by Edward L. Cahn
Produced by Sam Katzman
Written by Curt Siodmak
Screenplay by Curt Siodmak
Story by Curt Siodmak
Cinematography: Fred Jackman Jr.
Edited by Aaron Stell
Production company: Clover Productions
Distributor: Columbia Pictures

Cast

Richard Denning : Dr. Chet Walker
Angela Stevens: Joyce Walker
S. John Launer: Capt. Dave Harris
Michael Granger: Frank Buchanan
Gregory Gaye: Dr. Wilhelm Steigg 
Linda Bennett: Penny Walker
Tristram Coffin: Dist. Atty. MacGraw
Harry Lauter: Reporter #1
Larry J. Blake: Reporter #2 
Charles Evans: Chief Camden
Pirre Watkin: Mayor Bremer

Trailer

Spoiler Alert!!!

Creature with the Atom Brain opens at night with the steady menacing approach of a lone silhouetted figure accompanied by the rhythmic sound of a heartbeat,

A car then drives down an empty highway and comes to a stop near a lamp post. The driver possessing a long surgical scar on his forehead exits the vehicle. We are given point of view shots of his destination as he walks with a blank expression on his face towards a building which turns out to be a casino. The man, Willard Pearce is being monitored remotely in a lab.

In the casino, a cashier hands his boss, Jim Hennessey a case containing $20,000. Hennessey places the cash into the wall safe. Pearce smashes through a window and enters Hennessey’s office. He tells Hennessey, "I told you I'd come back….Remember Buchanan?....I promised to see you die and I will!” Hennessey then fires three bullets into Pearce but with no effect. Pearce picks Hennessey up and breaks his back, the full horror of which is suggested via shadow-play on the wall. Pearce grabs the cash from the safe and exits as two casino employees enter the office and fire at him.

At the lab, gangster Frank Buchanan directs Pearce to return. Ex-Nazi scientist, Dr Wilhelm Steigg takes the microphone and directs Pearce to get into the car. Steigg explains that Pearce will automatically return to his source of feeding when his energy runs low. Steigg and Buchanan put on radiation suits and crawl through a tunnel into the main lab where we see two men with surgical scars on their heads sitting hooked up to IV lines.

For Steigg, such creatures can be used to “help people live.” For Buchanan, on the other hand, they are to be used for the removal of “particular people.” The creatures however can only be kept going for a few days as their “glands deteriorate” and the “brain always dies first.”

Here we have an instance of technology not of itself being inherently good or evil. Instead, it is the use to which the technology is put that determines how it is to be assessed.

At the casino, the burglary and murder is being investigated by the police. Dr Chet Walker and Capt Dave Harris discuss the case with District Attorney MacGraw. Chet discovers that the killer’s fingerprints on the windowsill are luminous, and Dave notices that the footprints and blood are also luminous. During a forensic examination of the evidence, Chet concludes that the blood is a “chemical composition” possessing “no haemoglobin” and that the “so-called blood is highly radioactive - +9.”

Forensic science at the time was becoming an established method of criminal investigation employed by the FBI and law enforcement agencies. The kind of impact such technologies were having then is akin to the kind of impact that the use of DNA technology is having on 21st Century criminal investigations and their depiction in films.

The story is so unbelievable that even seasoned reporters don’t initially take it up when they are informed in an off-hand jocular manner that the case involves “a creature that cannot be killed by bullets” and that it is “charged with atom rays.”

Unlike depictions of the restriction of press freedom to report the truth in many films at the time and the practice of authorities since then to suppress certain kinds of information, the biggest scoop in history is at first virtually ignored by virtue of its being so unbelievable!

Later on at Walker’s place, Dave reveals that there was a match on the fingerprints. Astonishingly, they match a dead man's prints. It turns out that according to the “Bureau,” the dead man is Willard Pearce, who was tubercular, had died from asphyxiation and had been dead for 24 days!

After receiving a phone call, Dave and Chet leave to listen to a Dictaphone recording made during the casino robbery and murder. On the recording they hear Pearce’s mechanical-sounding voice, “like a recording of a recording.” 

Meanwhile, District Attorney MacGraw is confronted and killed by another zombie-like creature, in his garage at home. Before dispatching him, the creature informs MacGraw that “I’m from Buchanan. If you know that then you know why I’m here.”

When informed of this latest crime, Chet and Dave go to MacGraw’s place. The coroner is able to determine the cause of death, but cannot explain how a human grip could cause such severe injuries. After examining MacGraw's car with a Geiger counter. Chet instructs Dave to call the inspector to meet with him and to “ask him to have the Mayor and the commanding General of this military area” in attendance since “we're going to need all the cooperation we can get on this one."

A KXIW-TV television broadcast announces a “fantastic story” involving crimes being perpetrated by dead men who are charged with atom rays making them “impervious to bullets.” After watching this broadcast, Steigg and Buchanan conclude that Chet Walker knows too much about their diabolical plans and therefore must be eliminated.

Chet, Dave, Mayor Bremer and General Saunders gather at the office of Chief of Police Camden. Taking a leaf from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Chet uses the Faraday experiment involving the use of electricity on a frog's leg as a way of illustrating the principle of using radioactivity to animate dead tissue. Chet stresses the need to find the source of radioactive emanations by using planes and the resources of the military.

When Chet returns home. His wife Joyce is shocked to read the headlines in the local newspaper;

Chet believes that there is a pattern to the deaths and that their daughter is in no immediate danger playing outside. Dave then comes by and informs Chet that there is a connection between Hennessey and MacGraw as they both had ensured the conviction of Buchanan a decade earlier leaving Hennessey to become the top mobster. Buchanan swore revenge, “I’ll get you for this!”

Once a story of this nature falls into the hands of the tabloid press, rational, considered and well-informed thought is soon replaced by superficial, sensationalist, and minimalist ranting that plays on and fuel people’s emotions, especially their fears. Pick up a tabloid today (say, from the latter half of 2014, for instance) and feast your eyes on the visual, graphic and textual manipulative muck that purports to be news…..

Three men are later brought in to police headquarters for their own protection: Lester Banning, previously assistant D.A. on the Buchanan case and currently a lawyer in private practice; Jason Franchot, Buchanan's accountant; Tom Dunn, Buchanan's gunsel, slang euphemism for a hired gun or "paid killer." The three men refuse to be incarcerated for their own protection, but they reluctantly agree to around the clock police protection.

Later on a creature disguised as a policeman arrives to relieve the officer protecting Franchot. He kills both Franchot and the officer he was supposed to relieve. One down, two to go.

KXIW-TV television news presenter announces: "...with the murder of Jason Franchot last night I must apologize for my recent scepticism regarding these radioactive creatures. It seems they do exist and are prowling the streets."

While the military use their vehicles and aircraft to locate the source of the radioactivity, Dr. Steigg notices a search vehicle outside the bar at which he is having a beer. He hurriedly pays for the beer leaving a $10 bill in his haste to avoid detection. A sergeant carrying a Geiger counter enters the bar and obtains strong readings on both the glass of beer and the sawbuck.

At the office of Kenneth C. Norton, M.D. at City Hospital, Norton informs Chet that Steigg was a German scientist who had conducted dog and monkey experimentation overseas. Norton then shows Chet an informative film (an almost obligatory feature of sci-fi films of the time) on brain implant research. The film shows a dog with 18 electrodes implanted in its skull and how ultra-sonic waves and impulses of different frequencies are used to induce hunger and other states (amygdala stimulations)

The amygdala is an almond shaped mass of nuclei located deep within the temporal lobe of the brain. It is involved in the processing of emotions such as fear, anger and pleasure, as well as helping to determine what memories are stored and where they are stored in the brain.

When Chet touches on the possible extension of this technology into the realm of human mind control, Norton almost ominously replies;

“We haven’t arrived at that stage of our experiments – yet!”

It is astounding how much scientific inquiry is devoted to better understanding how the human mind and body works which serves to do so much to improve the human condition but which also provides potential tools with which to control, manipulate and enslave people.

Back at the lab, Buchanan directs one of the creatures to contact Chief Camden and tell him to withdraw all trucks and planes or many people will be killed. They have one hour – by 3 o’clock – to comply. The authorities refuse to comply with the ultimatum resulting in a series of violent and destructive acts.

PLANE, BUS, RAIL CRASHES STIR PUBLIC!

“As governor, I’m declaring a state of emergency….If you go outside, have identification papers with you!”

Such a depiction sits uncomfortably close to our modern-day scenario (as if history has not provided enough examples!) involving the perceived threat from certain overseas and domestic extremist groups. In such cases we seem to be confronted with a group of almost mindless brainwashed thugs being manipulated into committing atrocious acts of violence against innocent people. They appear to be manipulated by those who have perverted the true purpose and direction of that which underpins and motivates their actions. They seem to have been seduced and directed by those who have become adept at using technology to spread their world view of fear and hatred. Unfortunately such messages resonate with a minority of the intellectually and morally deceased of our world. In addition to the violence and destruction caused by such extremist organisations, we now have in response whole nations succumbing to fear, panic and paranoia. Those on all sides are indeed turning into different creatures seemingly intent on creating hell on Earth.

Meanwhile, Franchot has himself been turned into a creature and is disguised as a military officer to be used to kill Chet. Instead, he winds up killing Dave who is then taken to the laboratory for surgery. 

Dave, now a mindless zombie visits Chet Walker’s place. Chet has already left for the office, but Dave sits with Penny in the living room looking and acting creepy which surprisingly goes unnoticed. Dave leaves after receiving information from Joyce concerning the two remaining men under protective custody. Their likely fate is indicated by the crushed and dismembered remains of the doll. Poor Henrietta will no doubt reincarnate into “Annabelle” some 60 years later!

At the county jail Dave kills Banning and Dunn and soon after drives away with Chet who has jumped into the front seat of the car. Dave is directed by Buchanan to crash the car in order to eliminate Chet, but Chet jumps out in time. After Dave's body is brought to the hospital for examination, he escapes, steals a police car, and makes his way back to the lab and his radioactive power source.

As the police and military surround the lab, Steigg panics and is killed by Buchanan who then directs the remaining creatures to combat the police and military personnel. Dave meanwhile attempts to enter the lab through a window. Chet suddenly enters first and grapples with Buchanan. Dave then enters the lab and kills Buchanan. Chet sets about destroying the lab which deactivates the creatures.

Later at Penny’s birthday party, Penny blows out the candles on her cake and there is a camera zoom in on the newspaper headline; 

"CREATURES WITH ATOM BRAINS DESTROYED."

Points Of Interest

In the film Creature with the Atom Brain, we have the concept of "remote-controlled creatures, their brains powered by atomic energy, roaming the streets, directed from a central point," making the title a very aptly named one. We need to keep in mind that in the mid ‘50s notions of radioactive isotopes and atomic power were a source of fascination and fear. Exploiting such fears and adapting the Frankenstein story with an attempt to resurrect the dead using atomic energy and mid-20th century electronic technology serves to make this a very effective sci-fi / horror film.

Spot the oversight!

The film is also very funny (intentionally and unintentionally) especially for modern audiences considering how attitudes have evolved concerning the way in which gender roles and relationships are presented on film and elsewhere. Contrasted with the horror and chaos happening “out there” Chet gets to occasionally seek the sanctuary of his apple pie white-picket fence 1950's domestic bliss complete with a pre-women's lib beautiful blonde wife and a cute but annoying kid. Some might well chuckle when Chet declares, "my wife only talks when I'm ready for bed" and when he arrives home only to be presented with a perfect target of his wife’s backside as she is bent over the doorstep. C’mon, what else was Chet supposed to do?! 

The climactic scene involving the battle between the zombie army and the police / military personnel reminds us of later horror films such as the "Night of the Living Dead." In this case, unlike most of the film, the action switches to extreme close-ups of the zombie combatants making the audience feel like they are in amongst the action.

I recently watched an episode from the excellent sci-fi series, Torchwood which featured the use of alien technology in the form of contact lenses that allow remote viewing and monitoring via a computer screen of whomever and whatever is being looked at by the wearer of the lenses. Rewind sixty years and what do we have in Creature with the Atom Brain? The idea of using a TV screen to receive and view images from the zombie creatures’ eyes! It seems that history teaches us that much of what we do, think and see these days is little more than a variation on an old theme……..

©Chris Christopoulos 2014