The Eye Creatures!

The first thing I noticed about Larry Buchanan's shlock offering The Eye Creatures is that the artwork for the poster was cribbed from a British flick titled The Crawling Eye.

A quick look reveals all in that regard. Now having said that, the story itself is a reshaping of a vintage science fiction flick titled Invasion of the Saucer Men, a flick which is really a comedy. The Eye Creatures is not as funny, though it tries to be in spots. The aliens are no less ludicrous, but not being small miss the mark a bit. And there's the acting...sigh. Larry Buchanan's productions were done on the cheap and this one is no exception and it shows all over the place.

The movie features a legit movie star in John Ashley who shares the screen with a lot of well-meaning amateurs. At some moments there are two tones in the movie, Ashley's calm and everyone else freaking out or trying to act scared. 

The plot is helplessly complicated with two "teens" eloping and finding a space ship instead. While the military works overtime to cover up the arrival, the alien wander around the local woods and kill a few folks and scare even more as the police trying to make sense of it all blame the kids and their shenanigans. We've all seen it before and better. 

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Beware Of Zontar!

This is one of those so-bad-it's-good kinda' movies, except in this case it's just all bad. Really that's a bit unfair. Zontar - The Thing from Venus is a cheapo remake of Roger Corman's It Conquered the World. Why we needed a remake in 1966, a mere decade since the original is anyone's guess.

The plot is dead simple. The beings of Venus want to invade the Earth and to expedite that incursion they convince an Earthly named Dr. Keith Ritchie that they are the only salvation for the world now that mankind is moving into space. He assists Zontar with advance information through a communication device and converts other human beings to Zontar's way by  using winged bats of a sort to deliver stingers which  allow Zontarr to take over their will. Standing up for Earth is Dr. Curt Taylor (John Agar) who tussles intellectually with his mate as to what is the proper path.

The movie wanders all over the place, with some comedic attention paid to some soldiers who weirdly seem not under Zontar's controls. Also reluctant and willing to fight are Ritchie's lovely wife. Many folks fall victim and are killed before the threat is repelled.

This is not a good movie by almost any measure, but despite all its dullness and incessant talking, it does manage to at least offer up a few characters you care about before they die needlessly. I can't recommend it, but it won't do you any harm. The Corman original with Graves, Garland and Van Cleef is a much superior diverson.

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