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Sci-Fi Movie Decider: '50s and '60s Schlock Edition

Pay homage to the history of sci-fi with these gloriously terrible B movies.

By Corrie AlexanderPublished 3 years ago 6 min read
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From "Plan 9 from Outer Space" By: The original uploader was MarkGallagher at English Wikipedia. Later versions were uploaded by Ibaranoff24 at en.wikipedia. - Originally from en.wikipedia; description page is/was here., Public Domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1827532

My dad loved old movies so I saw my fair share of them growing up. I have come to appreciate all the old classics, like Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, High Noon, and countless others.

But my dad also had a penchant for schlocky B movies, particularly the sci-fi and monster-flick variety. The worse they were, the better.

I grew to love them too. We spent many Saturday afternoons watching such films together, laughing our heads off at the lost plots, silly special effects, and corny costumes.

From a slightly more reverent standpoint, we appreciated them as snapshots of a time long gone; a wonderful, if ridiculous, piece of history to be treasured.

So in honor of my beloved late father and his raising me to have questionable taste in cinema, I present to you my best terrible old movie recommendations from the '50s and '60s, based on how they relate to the movies of today.

If "Arrival" (2016), Then "Plan 9 from Outer Space" (1957)

By Distributors Corporation of America, Public Domain

Arrival is a poignant, heartrending piece of science fiction that puts a unique spin on why aliens would visit our planet.

I’ll come clean: The only thing this movie has in common with Plan 9 from Outer Space is that they’re both about aliens who visit the Earth. Beyond that, these films are about as similar as Mozart and Eminem.

But that’s because Plan 9 is a spectacular trainwreck of a movie with no equal. In fact, it has been proclaimed by many film aficionados to be the worst movie of all time.

Directed by Ed Wood, a man who clearly preferred not to waste film by shooting a scene more than once, this so-bad-its-good flick about zombie-creating aliens is a must-see for any sci-fi lover.

It’s practically a right of passage.

Nevermind the complete lack of continuity or anything resembling a coherent plot. It’s the wobbly UFOs on strings, goofy Lagosi stand-in, and riveting opening monologue by Criswell that thrusts this movie into the schlocky cult classic that it is.

(Sidenote: If you haven’t seen Tim Burton’s Ed Wood, a movie about the making of Plan 9 and its director, you’ll definitely want to check that out too!)

If "Kill Bill" (2003), Then "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" (1958)

By Reynold Brown , Public Domain

Kill Bill: Get revenge on your scuzzy ex with the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique.

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman: Get revenge on your scuzzy ex by turning into a giant and crushing him with your palm.

Kill Bill: Vols 1 and 2 have got to be among the best revenge movies of all time. But Uma Therman is far from the first actress to play a one-woman death machine on a mission.

Allison Hayes has her beat by 45 years when she played Nancy Fowler, a drunk-aristocrat-turned-murdering-giantess in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.

Fowler has a bad day when she gets touched by an alien mega-hand and then catches her husband cheating on her with the town floozy. It’s all downhill from there when she grows ten times her size and decides that divorce isn’t as fun as using her new supersized body to decimate her husband and the town with him.

Watching Meglo-Nancy rampage through the streets in a scanty garb of bedsheets, like King Kong with on-fleek eyebrows, is 66 minutes well-spent in my books.

If "Replicas" (2018), Then "The Brain That Wouldn’t Die" (1962)

By Reynold Brown, Public Domain

Normally, Keanu Reeves's intense inflections bring a certain self-awareness to otherwise over-the-top films that make you feel like it's in on the joke. His movies tend to laugh along with you.

But even Reeves doesn't quite save Replicas, a poorly received sci-fi about a mad scientist who ressurects his dead family by downloading their consciousnesses into clones.

Yet, it’s an oscar-worthy movie compared to The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, which is about a mad scientist who resurrects his decapitated fiance by sticking her severed head in a tray of brain gravy.

The head isn't too happy about this and takes her revenge by befriending the resident Closet Monster and burning the labratory to the ground in a blaze of maniacle laughter and hokey special effects.

But the best moment of the movie is the comically prolongued demise of the mad scientist's assistant, whose arm gets ripped off by the closet monster. I can finish my taxes in the time it takes him to wander around the house in armless agony before he finally croaks.

If "The Shape of Water" (2017), Then "Creature from the Black Lagoon" (1954)

By Reynold Brown - Creature from the Black Lagoon. Wrong Side of the Art. Retrieved on 2013-02-21. See The art of Reynold Brown. for additional film posters by Brown., Public Domain

You will certainly notice that the fish-man from The Shape of Water bears an uncanny resemblance to the monster from the 1954 classic, Creature from the Black Lagoon. As it turns out, this is no accident; Director Guillermo Del Toro confirmed that he drew inspiration from the flick for his oscar-winning movie.

Creature from the Black Lagoon is about a group expedition to the Amazon gone wrong when two of the scientists meet an amphibious man and things get decidedly undiplomatic when the creature kills them both.

The Creature then decides to stalk the rest of the group and quickly becomes enamored with Kay, the protagonist’s girlfriend.

In both movies, the amphibian men are antagonized by humans who don’t understand them. They are also both love stories except that in Creature’s case, the love is unrequited.

Yet, I somehow find the Gill-man’s under-water stalking less disturbing than the bathroom love scene from The Shape of Water.

Aside from the ridiculous rubber suit, Creature is actually one of the better monster movies to come out of the '50s and has a large cult following to this day.

If "I Am Mother" (2019), Then "Robot Monster" (1953)

By Astor Pictures - Unknown, Public Domain

I Am Mother is a chilling post-apocalyptic story about the extinction of the human race and one robot’s mission to repopulate the earth. It’s an impressive film full of many twists and turns, made even better by a fantastic performance from Hilary Swank.

Robot Monster is also about the annihilation of the human race but without the clever plot or competent acting. The Robot Monster aka “Ro-Man” is responsible for wiping out the entire human race with his death ray except for 8 pesky humans he’s determined to hunt down personally.

As in all great monster movies of the day, our villain develops a soft spot for one of the survivors - a beautiful woman - that distracts him from completing his mission, and it becomes his undoing.

The Ro-Man costume alone is enough of a chuckle to give this film a watch. He doesn’t look like a robot monster so much as he does Sasquatch in a scuba diving helmet. The terrible performances and eye-rolling ending are just the cherries on top.

Summary

It's true that I love these films for largely sentimental reasons. Still, I believe that as a sci-fi fan, it’s your duty to pay homage to the classic films of old, even the terrible ones.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry (from laughing), and they'll leave you with a new appreciation for how far we’ve come in today’s science fiction movies.

If you enjoyed this story, please hit the like button and consider leaving a small tip!

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About the Creator

Corrie Alexander

Corrie is an ISSA-certified PT, fitness blogger, fiction-lover, and cat-mom from Ontario, Canada. Visit her website, thefitcareerist.com

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