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Writer, director, producer Robert
Gurney Jr., screenwriter behind an inarguable drive-in
classic, Invasion of the Saucer Men, plucked
elements from several sci-fi sub-genres to concoct this
cheap, yet strangely savory cinema stew.
Terror From the Year 5,000,
a 1958 AIP release, has more to recommend it than a
first glance reveals. It does indeed contain a pinch
of this film and a dash of that one, yet one can't help
feeling that, once the initial viewing has been digested,
Gurney came up with something a little different, maybe
even a little better than average.
Set on an isolated Florida island,
(a dash of Dr. Moreau) it details the experiments of
two renegade scientists utilizing a matter transporter
(a pinch of The Fly) to transport objects across
the breech of time itself (The Time Machine and
countless others). Needing outside verification of their
findings, they consult a cynical geologist (beefily
handsome Ward Costello), who soon wades into their swampy
retreat (Attack of the Giant Leeches, Swamp Women)
to investigate, consequently laying the groundwork for
a lame love-triangle (every movie ever made) involving
the elder doc's daughter.
It seems that, on the sly, the
younger of the two technicians has succeeded in delivering
a four-eyed cat into the here-and-now, but to conceal
his nefarity, he packs it into a suitcase and drops
it in the swamp. His cover is blown when a shapely female
mutant, bedecked in a black leotard, steps from their
time portal, assaulting the doc, before scampering into
the swamp. What seasoned B film fan would have guessed
that the post-atomic future is peopled by mutants (Day
the World Ended, World Without End, et. al.) who
need burly, present-day men to repopulate.
 Who
cares that the plot is a patchwork? Gurney's earnest
approach makes up for this basic vagary of drive-in
cinema. Throughout the film, flat, unimaginative domestic
scenes give way to odd camera angles and dramatic lighting,
and Gurney succeeds in turning his boiler-room basement
lab into a genuinely creepy set.
The bucktoothed, mutant makeup
doesn't wash, and a protracted fist fight is stretched
a bit thin, as is the leering and lusting of a grubby
groundskeeper.
One scene of note depicts our
protagonists emerging from a downtown theater, surrounded
by posters ballyhooing Herb Strock's Teenage Frankenstein.
Costello even amuses his date with a quick impression
of the monster's menacing gait.
In summation, splicing genres
in hopes of delivering boffo box office has rarely,
if ever, been artistically provident. Evidence is offered
in the form of the following films, each an example
of a bargain-basement hybrid gone slightly awry:
The Phantom
Planet (1960)
It's very surprising that this C-grade gem,
chronicling the travails of an astronaut who crash-lands
on a planet inhabited by tiny folk, isn't revered as
a camp classic. It features sagely silent-film great
Francis X. Bushman as Sesom (spell it backwards), Richard
(Jaws, Eegah) Kiel as a laughably menacing alien
and flight suits left over from TV's Men Into Space.
Acting: C
Atmosphere: C
Fun: A-
Curse of the
Undead (1959)
Dark, drooling Michael Pate is featured as
a gunslinging vampire stalking the old west. He bites
off more than he can chew in the form of cattle baron
Bruce Gordon (Frank Nitti of Untouchables fame)
and Rawhide's Eric Fleming, who wins the day as town
pastor.
Acting: B+
Atmosphere: D-
Fun: B-
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