Unearthly Stranger review

A better than expected hi-def outing for this vintage slice of British sci-fi hokum

Trawl through the list of supporting features for double-bill programmes, the staple diet for UK cinemagoers up until the early 1970s, and you’ll be surprised at what you find. While the majority of independent studios concentrated on Film Noir subjects (crime, mystery etc), there are also quite a few low-budget science fiction titles, including Devil Girl From Mars, Stranger From Venus, The Strange World of Planet X, Invasion, The Night Caller, They Came From Beyond Space, The Body Stealers and this curiosity from Anglo Amalgamated called Unearthly Stranger.

Produced by Julian Wintle (The Avengers) and Leslie Parkyn, it’s directed by John Krish (also of The Avengers fame), who dropped the idea of space monsters in the original script for this thought-provoking tale of aliens disguised as humans. But Unearthly Stranger is a wordy movie and incredibly slow-paced given its brief 75-minute running time. Yet Krish’s direction evokes some nice atmosphere from the opening titles set against a London backdrop to some interesting camera angles of spiralling staircases and lonely country roads.

Not too dissimilar to the American science fiction movie I Married a Monster From Outer Space (1958), scientist Dr Mark Davidson (John Neville) weds a mysterious, but beautiful girl called Julie (Gabriella Licudi) whom he meets on a trip to Switzerland. In fact he’s so smitten with his new bride that it’s only after the sudden death of a colleague that he notices that she sleeps with her eyes open and never blinks. When his friend Professor Lancaster (Philip Stone) observes the girl removing scalding hot dishes from the oven with her bare hands the scientists finally put two and two together. They deduce that the aliens have already achieved what man has failed to perfect – the transfer of human thought to another planet. Patrick Newell plays a misogynist security officer who is suspicious of Davidson’s wife from square one, while Jean Marsh crops up as a secretary with a deadly secret.

As already stated, this is fairly low-budget stuff with no special effects to speak of, just eerie humming sounds and long-winded scenes in which only babies and children seem to be aware of an alien presence. The acting is convincing though, with Neville giving a nicely understated performance and as a slice of undemanding science fiction hokum it’s well worth a look.

Picture: The 1.66:1-framed 1080p widescreen image quality is quite stunning at times with sharp and detailed black and white photography throughout. Night scenes in Chapter 1 are strikingly shot, and contrast nicely with the studio interiors. The final chapter when Neville and Stone fight off the alien presence is atmospherically lit, with the following street scene starkly realised. It's just a shame that some rather obvious print damage (including, but not limited to, vertical tramlines) pop up from time to time to take the shine off things.
Picture rating: 4/5

Audio: The mono sound is fine, with the mysterious high-pitched humming rising to a satisfyingly scary crescendo when needed. Dialogue is also clear and well placed within the mix. Given the understandable limitations of the low-budget source material, it really is about as good as you could reasonably hope for.
Audio: 3/5

Extras: Aside from the theatrical trailer with its exploitative titling, the extras consist of a brief photo gallery featuring the very impressive-looking American poster art.
Extras rating: 1/5

We say: All in all Unearthly Stranger is one of the better examples of low-budget science-fiction fare, thanks to its hard-working cast.

Unearthly Stranger, Network, Region B BD, £15 Approx
HCC VERDICT: 3/5

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