Not Of This Earth!

Not Of This Earth is a horror movie pretending to be a science fiction movie, and those are movies I usually like quite a bit. I like this one too, but being a Roger Corman low-budget affair, it has its weaknesses of course.

Not among those weaknesses is the vivacious Beverly Garland, an actress I first encountered on TV's My Three Sons and was startled a bit to discover had such a racy past in small-budget films. She plays a nurse in this one dispatched to tend to a weirdo in sunglasses who spends a few minutes most days stealing blood, sometimes from living people. Garland when she's on the screen though is the show and has a particularly erotic stockings scene just about in the middle of the movie.

Alongside Garland is Paul Birch who plays the part of the alien vampire. He's come to Earth through a dimensional doorway to find a place for his dying people to live as their home world though this is a bit confused. He knocks you out with his wicked eyes then sucks out your blood with a hand machine he carries in a metal briefcase. He's a demanding S.O.B. and has Garland and some gangster punk working for him while he wanders around killing people.

Often in these movies the authorities are inefficient or ineffective and that proves to be the case here. While there is a lot of furious rumbling across the streets and parkland grass on motorcycles, the cops despite having inside information (one cop's girl friend is Garland) they seem unable to understand the nature of the threat or to be able to locate it until the very end. Particularly memorable is the debut appearance of Dick Miller in a Corman flick, who plays an unlucky vacuum cleaner salesman.

Aside from some terrifically painful looking eye lenses that Birch has to wear at times, there are few special effects in this one. Paul Blaisdell though did supply a transportation booth which has some spinning knobs (which apparently, they forgot to turn on all the time) and a little flying beastie which looks like a cross between a beach ball and a swimming cap. But this show ain't about special effects, if you buy the story, it's because of the acting and for a movie of this stripe the acting is well above average in most instances.

NOTE: This is a Dojo Revised Classic Post. 

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