Killers From Space Review

What we have here, people, is an atomic age science fiction docudrama from 1955, directed by W. Lee Wilder and starring Peter Graves, called KILLERS FROM SPACE, not to be confused with Wilder's PHANTOM FROM SPACE, made the year before. This movie is the one where the space aliens have ping pong balls for eyes.

Graves plays Dr. Martin, a scientist working on top-secret A-bomb tests who has a blackout that's not alcohol-related but in fact alien-induced. As you may have gathered from the title, the extraterrestrials in KILLERS FROM SPACE are not cute and cuddly like Alf or E.T., but more like the kind of alien life form that'll abduct you, lay you out on a slab, and probe you in ways that are most unpleasant, if you know what I'm saying. That's what's in store for our hero, and it's a fate even worse than watching this movie.

A lot of times, the science in science fiction is real, and sometimes it's complete gibberish. Guess which is true of this movie? When the alien scientist is showing Dr. Martin their energy storage system, he says they've stored "several trillion electron volts" of energy. While an electron volt is a unit of energy, it is a very small one. One trillion electron volts would be enough energy to power a 100 Watt lightbulb for slightly over one million-millionth of a second. Or so I'm told.

Director W. Lee Wilder was born Wilhelm Lee Wilder in Austria in 1904, his brother Samuel was born two years later. Being Jewish, both brothers fled to America after Hitler rose to power in the 1930s. Samuel, better known as Billy, had studied to be a lawyer. Wilhelm settled in New York City, and went into business making purses, founding the Wilder Handbag Company, while his younger brother went to Hollywood, and gained fame as the writer/director of such classic films as THE LOST WEEKEND, SABRINA, and SUNET BOULEVARD.

W. Lee Wilder saw the success that his younger brother had achieved, and went west to make movies. Unfortunately, the two brothers weren't on speaking terms, and W. Lee was unable to duplicate his brother's success. Billy Wilder dismissed him as a "Dull S.O.B." which I believe stands for Stupid Older Brother. Anyway, while his younger brother Billy was making films like ACE IN THE HOLE, STALAG 17, and SOME LIKE IT HOT, W. Lee Wilder directed such low-budget B-flicks as THE SNOW CREATURE, MANFISH, and PHANTOM FROM SPACE.

KILLERS FROM SPACE is a guilty pleasure for fans of cold war era sci-fi drive-in type flicks. It's got some creepy chills right up to the point where they nuke the bug-eyed sumbitches to kingdom come by dropping an A-bomb on their butts. Blows ‘em up real good. That'll get it done every time.

Available on DVD from Alpha Video and various other purveyors of public domain titles.