Vamp or Not? It! The Terror From Beyond Space

This is one that was reviewed very recently by Exclamation Mark and Mark posted here to ask me my thoughts about the film’s vampness. The film, directed by Edward L Cahn and released in 1958, does have an alternative title “It! The Vampire From Beyond Space.”

Intrigued I checked for it being listed at Vampyres Online only to find that they do not list it at all. However I also checked the most astoundingly complete vampire filmography supplied to me by Leila at Leila's Vampire Movies and it was listed on that. Incidentally Leila would probably email you a copy of said filmography if you asked her nicely.

And so, with a rapidity that surprised even myself, I managed to get hold of a copy of “It!” to watch, in order that I might check out its vampire type elements. First thing to note is that the title (either version) is inaccurate. The It of the title is not from beyond space (though what is beyond space, anyway?) and is actually from Mars. It is interesting to note that the film poster states that it “gorges on blood” – always a good start, though we should note that the film posters often lie. In this case the claim is mostly accurate, as we shall see. I do not intend to go into the general story, check Mark’s excellent review for that, but a brief synopsis is in order. Carruthers (Marshall Thompson) is the only survivor of the first manned mission to Mars. The rescue party assume, as do the people back on earth, that he murdered his crew. He says that they were killed by some kind of monster. Said monster has stowed away on the rescue ship and begins to make its way through that crew.

It is the monster we are interested in. Firstly we should note that It is not a supernatural being, It is a native of Mars. Of course being a supernatural being is not a necessary qualification for being a vampire but many purists balk at the idea of a natural creature being the focal point of a genre film. I guess I’m just not a purist.

Like a more traditional vampire, It is very difficult to kill. The crew use grenades (on a spaceship, I ask you), guns, gas grenades, an electrical charge powerful enough to kill 30 men, radiation exposure powerful enough to kill 100 men and even a bazooka. All to no avail. So the creature is tough. It is not invulnerable though. The flame from a welding torch, aimed at It’s eyes, was enough to hold It at bay and they do find a way to kill It eventually. However, in a vampire sense, this difficult to kill aspect is good, though certainly not a perfect barometer.

More important is It’s feeding pattern. It seems that it uses a form of osmosis to drain the body of all fluid; water, blood, bone marrow (although the film also states that all oxygen is gone from the body, which is not actually a fluid, but I took the point!). This feeding upon bodily fluids is important as such feeding ties in with the genre very well and I loved the look of the victims. The gaunt faces with black ringed eyes looked particularly effective. It was also clear that the creature was incredibly strong.

The film makes the point crystal clear that It is hungry and intelligent. This hunger was problematic (I mean It was very, very hungry) in that it made me wonder exactly what It fed upon on Mars. There was no indication that the Mars of this film was teeming with life. It made me wonder as to whether It would go into a form of hibernation (almost a state of undeath), but the film does not look that closely into such things.

The film had a definite missed opportunity. Early on Carruthers is shown a skull of one of his crew with a bullet hole in it and this was done to underline his perceived guilt. Carruthers can only respond by saying that, when he and the crew where attacked, there was a sandstorm and the crew were shooting at It. The unfortunate (or fortunate) fellow must have been hit accidentally in the confusion. I hoped that this might have been a red herring and that It actually penetrated the skulls for feeding. Alas it was no red herring and osmosis was the order of the day.

I found interesting a couple of references that, given I was watching this for vampire references, made me prick up my ears. A couple of crew members are injured by the creature and the wounds are infected by an alien bacterium. This bacterium caused (what sounded like from the dialogue) leukaemia like symptoms, certainly it attacked the bone marrow. These victims needed plenty of infusions of fresh blood. Certainly the amount of fluids the rescue ship captain, Van Heusen (Kim Spalding), needs is enormous and there is a concentrated shot on the empty fluid bottles. Whilst I don’t for a moment imagine that this was deliberate (given that it was added for a specific plotline), it did bring to mind the idea of the vampire’s victim becoming a vampire.

Also, at the head of the film Carruthers tells us that on Mars he “Came to know only death.” He then goes on to say that, when he returns to earth, his superiors at Washington will prove to be another kind of death. These are the administrators and it wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest that such administrators are (generically) a kind of vampire and bureaucracy is their fang of choice! This, of course, is my own warped view of the universe and, in no way, effects my final thoughts on whether this movie was vamp or not.

To answer that I am relying on the following evidence. It is very strong, intelligent and virtually indestructible, It hungers and It drains (all) bodily fluids to feed. Because of this (especially the last two points) I would say yes, this is a movie that can be classed in the vampire genre but, to be fair, it is one that is right on the periphery of the genre.

The imdb page is here.