2
(nothing substantial)
7
(mild violence)
2
(so bad it's amusing)
They Came From Beyond Space ….space...space....space
If you ever saw Invasion of the Body Snatchers and thought, “This would be a really great movie if only it made less sense,” then you will probably enjoy this oddity of an old alien outing. Aliens ride to Earth on meteors and begin taking over the bodies of the scientists that come to investigate. Only Dr. Temple is immune to their control thanks to a metal plate in his head. He's determined to figure out why everyone is acting so strangely even if he has to face off against armed guards. The stakes are raised when some alien disease begins killing off the locals (Temple is immune to that too it seems, good thing he has that metal skull, huh?) He runs into one roadblock after another as he searches for answers and will ultimately have to deal with (cue unnecessarily excessive reverb) The Master Of The Moon!
This is what would happen if you put Wile E Coyote in a sci-fi movie. As Temple makes one attempt after another to achieve victory, each attempt is blocked like a boulder in a narrow canyon path. I started expecting the character to hold up a sign saying “bye” as he fell into a ravine before climbing back out to use some Acme device to make another attempt.
The aliens act more like robots than life forms and their voices are so over the top that I half expected them to reveal a portable voice disguiser issued to each alien-possessed lackey.
The only reason to see this at all is for Michael Gough as the Master of the Moon. It has nothing else to offer. The situations are goofy, the action is pitiful, and the characters are laughable. Even when the acting isn't bad the low quality audio kills any performance with the potential to be entertaining.
Morality
This is a very tame movie. There's no sexuality, nudity, or even any strong language to speak of. While there's a lot of gun firing going on there isn't any violence worth mentioning either.
Spirituality
We could get into a discussion here about the nature of spiritual possession and all that, but what's going on here isn't a supernatural phenomenon. There are some similarities seeing as how the human bodies are put to evil uses, but there's no real depth to it.
Final Thoughts
They Came From Beyond Space boarders on being so bad it's amusing. Really, though, it's just unremarkable. Unless you have some obsession with Michael Gough I recommend avoiding this one.
Buying Guide
"They Came from Beyond Space" is yet more proof that virtually anything public domain can have a presence in the DVD market.
There are several DVD options the most notable of which is a “remastered edition” from A2zcds. There are numerous multi-packs as well (one of which I'll talk about in detail), but the most notable ones that I could find are “Elvira's Movie Macabre” with Gamera Super Monster and a Blu multi-pack.
While the A2zcds disc may be remastered I couldn't find any comments on how good the quality actually is. There are no presentation specs given and no mention of extras.
The "Collector's Edition" lists absolutely nothing to make me think it's any better suited for collectors than any other release. There are no details to be found.
The Elvira feature mentions a 1.33 full-frame ratio but no other details. Count on some amusing hosting from Elvira, but other than that I don't see a mention of any extras. There is no suggestion of any remastering, either.
The Attack of the B's Blu collection seems to be part of a slowly growing trend (or perhaps attempt at a trend) of using Blu's storage capacity to fit a lot of movies on a single disc. 18 public domain films (some very common, some fairly rare) reside on a single disc in standard 480i definition (no HD here). The best I can say for these is that they seem to occasionally present the original image ratios and may be very slightly improved quality over some of the cheaper DVD budget packs. Otherwise they offer nothing special aside from being exceptionally self-space friendly. They offer no extras and can be somewhat hard to find.
Final Recommendation:
You can chance the remastered edition if you want although I really don't think it's worth the asking price I've seen. The Elvira disc might be worth it if you like her humor. Beyond that just go with the best bargain you can find.
I'll be telling you about the Chilling 20 pack copy.
Video
1.33:
There is no widescreen version. It's somewhat trashy which is worse at some times than at others. It's grainy and fuzzy, and features shifting and bleeding colors.
Audio
2.0 mono:
The audio is distorted because of levels boosted too high and is plagued by white noise.
Packaging
The disc comes in a paper sleeve that lives in a plastic case. You can get more details about the set as a whole by checking out the Chilling (20 pack) guide.
Extras
There are none.