It Conquered the World

I know it's a Corman flick and all even by his standards this is cheap and poorly made. It's very jumpy and filled with tons of robotic wooden acting and plot expose. It doesn't even waste time right out of the gate just throwing plot expose nonstop and never showing any real character to anyone. Also, there's too many characters in this for just over an hour runtime as well. The "special" effects are so cheap and so is the set design. You can't even say it's old Sci-Fi so what would you expect because this is the same year Forbidden Planet came out. And Corman in plenty of other flicks can balance cheap with charm and creativity. This is like 1-2 steps above Ed Wood quality. The camerawork is super basic, and this feels like a 90 minute flick because it's so dull. The ending I guess is the best part but it's all right. The music is probably the best thing and it's just ok. Everything else is just poorly done. You think you'll at least get a cool reveal and the alien isn't anything special. It's trying to build suspense like Them! towards the reveal but it's so boring and poorly made it can barely meet the passable storytelling standards. Skip this. there are much better Corman flicks and way better Sci-Fi from this era and in general.

One of the late great Roger Corman (The Intruder, De Sade) most iconic of his science fiction films with early appearances by Peter Graves (The Long Gray Line, Angels in the Outfield) and Lee Van Cleef (The Octagon, Speed Zone)

Being a baby boomer and a lover of SCI FI especially those from the 1950's & early 60's , this Roger Corman film is one of my favorites! Sadly its not officially on DVD/ BLU RAY still under the clutches of Susan Hart whom I hope will finally approve of it being remastered n released to DVD/BLU RAY! It stars Peter Graves, Lee Van Cleef and the beautiful Beverly Garland! Sooo many lesser known 50's SCI FI films have been released to BLU RAY Like TOBOR THE GREAT (1954), THE GIANT CLAW(1957), ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS( 1957) (another fav of mine) and THE MONSTER FROM PIEDRAS BLANCAS( 1959) I really hope IT CONQUERED THE WORLD gets a decent DVD/BLU RAY release!! And soon before I depart Planet Earth!!

Classic monster movie from the great Roger Corman

Kinda quaint in its low-budget way. Some decent speechifying about the nature of being a human being. Some poor acting mixed in the some competent stuff, but the science part of the science fiction is pitiful, the mind control is so ridiculously straightforward and much of the dialogue writing is just poor.

Giant turnip scare Blobbo.

A classic must see b-movie. Lee Van Cleef is about as good as it gets on the acting portion, and the story is interesting. 2 1/2 or 3 Star movie, Lee Van Cleef makes it a must watch b-movie. Rating: 70% 7.0/10

This is a classic and the lovely Beverly Garland is stunning. If you don't appreciate older cinema for what it is, then don't even bother posting a score. The older generation did it first. A+

Lots of movies revolved around an alien or creature simply referred to as 'it' back in old days. This time instead of being awoken from a deep slumber in some deep Earth crevice somewhere, this time its an alien, from Venus, that looks like an upside down ice cream cone, and it wants to take over the Earth using mind control. Yeah I got nothing here. But yes that is literally the plot here, an alien from Venus contacts a lonely human scientist on the phone or whatever, and convinces him to assist him in taking over the Earth. The end goal...complete human mind control, using something, for some reason that I don't know, but by God its dastardly! Oh no wait! the alien is claiming to want to bring peace to the human race by eliminating all our emotions through mind control, somehow. How this would help us? I have no clue, why the human scientist agrees to help? I have no clue, why does this even bother the alien? I dunno, guess it needs a hobby, just accept the situation. The lone scientist in question just happens to be Lee Van Cleef so simply down to that, I can give the movie some slack and understand why the alien chose him. Anderson (Cleef) agrees to help the alien presumably because he thinks he's doing the right thing, bringing peace to Earth. Naturally the tall, good looking all American protagonist played by Peter Graves doesn't agree, and fights back with all his American might. Not really sure how this alien intends to control the entire planets population though. You see it uses these flying alien bat things to prey on victims, bite them or something, and then they are under the aliens control. But we discover the alien clearly has a money problem because he only has like seven or eight of these bat things, and they only bite one specified person, like a homing bat thing. So how the fuck is he gonna control millions of people without millions of bat things?? I don't believe the controlled humans do anything to non controlled humans (in a zombie-esque sense), so I have no clue how this plan would work. Of course landing in some small American town in the middle of nowhere probably doesn't help either, these aliens love small American towns in the middle of nowhere. The alien itself is one of the most horrendously bad alien suits you will come across in 50's sci-fi, and that's saying something. I said before it looks like an upside down ice cream cone, well it does, its just an inverted triangle with big pointy teeth, two claw arms and two evil eyes. The things shuffles around in a hilarious manner that only goes to show the suit was not actually designed for moving. All this creature can do is move its claw arms up and down...slowly, its mouth doesn't open, its fixed in one evil grin, its eyes don't move and it can only move forwards and backwards unconvincingly. Yes I know these old movies didn't exactly have big budgets and yes I know the terrible effects are half the fun with these flicks, but seriously...this is just awful! What makes it even more hilariously stupid is the young Lee Van Cleef looking and acting deadly seriously with his pointed cheek bones and slit-like eyes, whilst this big foam triangle with teeth wobbles around trying to stand upright. It kinda makes you wonder what the effects team behind this were thinking really. How could an alien species like this possibly progress to the technological level they are at, with such a useless physical makeup. Sure they might be clever but if you don't have the body to build stuff then you're screwed. Presumably the spaceship it travels in fits large triangular creatures. The main problem here besides the terrible looking alien is the basic plot setup, its just pants. For a start as I already pointed out, the alien controls humans by sending out these bat things to bite them, like a flippin' vampire. But the alien only has eight of these things so what the fuck! Van Cleef's character is seemingly perfectly fine with betraying the entire human race and allowing everyone to become emotionless zombies, but would this eventually include him? Surely it must because why would he want to live in a world with no emotions? Also I'm not too sure why Van Cleef's character is so embittered against his fellow man, at least to such a high degree, I mean Jesus Christ he's only a local scientist, it can't be that bad! At the same time his wife is totally against this plan, and the alien, yet she isn't on the list for brain controlling. The alien allows her to mill around causing issues with her constant moaning and defiant behaviour, eventually this leading to her trying to kill the alien, but why would the creature allow this to carry on? But essentially the entire thing just boils down to my original point, how the fuck can this stupid alien take over the Earth with just eight mind controlling bat things??? Even if it had a million that still wouldn't cover it. It feels odd being genuinely negative about this movie because its a cheap, tacky 50's science fiction flick...because that's exactly what you would expect, that's half the fun of these things. Nevertheless I can't just bump this up because its a trashy black and white sci-fi and I'm a fanboy of trashy black and white sci-fi flicks. Yes it stars Lee Van Cleef which is awesome, yes it does have yet another cameo/bit role for the legendary Dick Miller (hurrah!), and yes the whole premise is deliciously hokey and outrageously daft, but at the same time its also crap. Yes that's right crap, crap of the highest order I'm afraid, I couldn't get into it because it was simply too stupid with its plot, and the alien was just beyond dire. Had the movie at least had some interesting locations or action or effects etc...then maybe, but its all very drab and boring with the alien hiding in a cave. Oh and its of course impervious to bullets...but not a blowtorch it seems, go figure.

A really goofy B-Movie, but what makes it stand out from the rest is the fact that Lee Van Cleef, Peter Graves and Beverly Garland are putting their all into it, giving the best performances they possibly can to make up for the fact that the monster is so silly-looking and has bat-shaped parasites that are clearly flying around on strings. The script is really nothing that great, but the performances and Garland's strong, proactive wife are really well worth watching. Also Van Cleef's face.