THE NIGHT CALLER (BLOOD BEAST FROM OUTER SPACE)

(director: John Gilling; screenwriters: from the novel The Night Callers by Frank Crisp/Jim O’Connolly; cinematographer: Stephen Dade; editor: Philip Barnikel; music: Johnny Gregory; cast: John Saxon (Dr Jack Costain), Maurice Denham (Dr Morley), Patricia Hames (Ann Barlow), Alfred Burke (Detective Supt Hartley), Robert Crewsdon (alien mutant from Ganymede); Runtime: 84; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Ronald Liles; Anchor Bay Entertainmen; 1965-UK)

“It does not deserve to be an obscure film.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

A low-budget b/w sci-fi film that’s not great but is well-crafted and passably entertaining. It does not deserve to be an obscure film. Director John Gilling(“Fury at Smuggler’s Bay”/”Where the Bullets Fly”/”Murder Will Out”) bases it on the novel by Frank Crisp and the screenplay by Jim O’Connolly. Its aim is to warn us of the dangers of nuclear war.

It tells the story of an alien mutant from Ganymede (Robert Crewsdon), one of Jupiter’s three moons, a place that is just recovering from a nuclear disaster. The alien is on a mission in London to kidnap beautiful women to take back to his moon. To secure the women he places ads in a Bikini magazine. The aim is to bring the women back home to produce non-mutant offspring for the depleted population.

John Saxon is a young American scientist investigating a mysterious transmitting orb. Maurice Denham is Saxon’s partner scientist, who becomes the alien’s first victim. When the investigating detective (Alfred Burke) wonders about why there are so many cases of missing women who answer the ads for the magazine, the fellow scientist to Saxon and Denham, Patricia Hames, agrees to pose nude for the magazine to entrap the kidnappers.

The suspense builds, until the alien is cornered before returning home. He then becomes philosophical as he puts forth his case. This part of the film loses me, as it becomes too silly to take seriously. But over-all, it’s not a bad film.

REVIEWED ON 9/17/2015 GRADE: B-