Ten Days of Terror!: Not of This Earth

Film: Not of This Earth
Format: Streaming video from Mometu on Fire!

Say what you will about Roger Corman, there were a few things that he did really well. He had an eye for talent (check out the number of directors he discovered), and he could tell a story efficiently, if not always well. Not of This Earth is one of those mid-‘50s sci-fi potboilers that always appeared on a double bill. The goal of the movie is to give the audience a weird tale, a scare or two, and a shock, even if it doesn’t make a great deal of sense, and it does that pretty well.

One of the things I love about science fiction and horror from this era is exactly that sense of nuttiness. Writers and directors could make the science as bizarre and nonsensical as they wanted if it allowed them to give the audience a fright. And let’s be honest here—the audience for pictures like Not of This Earth were not Mom and Dad, but teens who probably spent more time making out than watching what was on the screen. And so, Not of This Earth will give us a few Roger Corman regulars, some bad science, and aliens with inexplicable powers and anatomy. What more could you want?

A sunglasses-wearing man calling himself Paul Johnson (Paul Birch) has arrived on Earth. His sunglasses are disturbingly dark, and he carries a briefcase filled with menace. In the opening sequence, we see him subdue a young woman and hook her up to something in the briefcase—we find out later that he’s stealing her blood. Why? Because Paul Birch is an alien from a planet where everyone is slowly dying of a blood disease caused by a nuclear war. Why is human blood something that can be transfused into an alien species? Shut up. Watch the movie.

Johnson, because his blood is diseased (and what this means in terms of the film is that his blood is essentially turning into powder—cut him and it takes time for the blood to start running) decides that he needs a transfusion. He seems to pick a doctor at random, winding up in the office of Dr. F.W. Rochelle (William Roerick). He demands a blood transfusion, but eventually agrees to have his blood tested before the transfusion happens. Revived, he hires away Rochelle’s nurse Nadine Storey (Corman regular Beverly Garland).

Nadine’s job is to keep “Johnson” alive. At his place, she meets Jeremy Perrin (Jonathan Haze, another Corman regular), who acts as Johnson’s bodyguard and chauffeur. The two of them start to notice some oddities about the man (as if the constant sunglasses, weird speech pattern, and seeming lack of knowledge of the world around him weren’t enough). Some of this Nadine feeds to her police officer boyfriend, Harry Sherbourne (Morgan Jones).

But of course Johnson is an alien and we as the audience get to see what he’s up to. What he’s up to is taking off his sunglasses, flashing his milky-white eyes at people, and having them rendered immobile, which allows him to drain their blood. Their bodies are then tossed into the furnace so the evidence is removed (although not the bones, as we will eventually discover). We see him do this with a couple of drunks as well as with a vacuum salesman played by a mugging and fourth wall-breaking Dick Miller.

The thing that’s fun about Not of This Earth is just how dumb everyone is. No one notices how indescribably weird Paul Johnson is. No one seems to worry that he doesn’t allow anyone into the basement, or that he wears his sunglasses indoors.

The culmination of this is when Nadine realizes that Paul is, to quote the title, not of this Earth and runs to her room to make a call Harry. She knows that Paul has killed a couple of people—she has evidence that he’s an alien and can speak to her mentally, and that he’s going to try to kill her (she escapes because he’s vulnerable to loud noises, including screaming). So what does she do? She runs to her own room in Johnson’s house to make a call…and leaves the door open and stands with her back to the door. What a shock when Paul Johnson walks in!

This is the kind of movie that was written in a couple of days by someone with not enough sleep and with too many cigarettes keeping them awake, then pushed through the filming process to get it in front of audiences. It’s dumb, but kind of endearing because of it. Could this be made better and smarter? Well, yes and no. It has, in fact, been remade several times, and none of the remake versions—one from 1988, one made-for-TV from 1995, and under the name Star Portal from 1997 have come close to the charm and fun of this one.

It's not scary and I’m not sure it wants to be, but it’s having fun, and sometimes, that’s enough.