《外星惡客》是由知名导演Edward L. Cahn 执导的一部恐怖片，Marshall Thompson Shirley 等倾情出演，该片讲述了： Out of th e fifties 'B' Science-Fiction monst er movies, this easily r anks as the be st. It 9;s mos t no table as t he film tha t ALIEN is an unaccredited remake of , thus givin g it a certain h istoric al signi fican ce. The int riguing plot is a bout the rescue of the o nly marooned surv ivor (C ol. Carruthers) of an ill-fated expedition t o Mars. Th e aut horities, pig-he aded as usual, fal sely assume that he murdered his fellow crew members, so that he'd have more provisions to survive; hence h e is being brought ba ck to Earth t o face court-martial for murder. (There is also a somewhat inte resting plot reversal here: Most movies of this nature usually begin with t he s hip leaving Earth , enroute to its oth erworld destinati on, while, in this case, the & quot;st ory&q uot; is believed finished, and begins as the c haracters take-off from the other plane t, r eturning t o Earth). As the rescu e ship is leaving Mars, a lurking, ominous sha dow is seen in th e lower com partme nt. (A frightening, atmos pheric moment, accomplished throug h sheer economy and simpli city). Carruthers insists of his i nnocen ce to his fel low cap tors, claiming that his origin al c rew mates were slaugh tered by a hostile, unseen presence on the desolute r ed planet, but three-guesses as to th eir reacti on t o his un usual plea. Naturally, he can't prove it, and 50's space aut horities were n ot very alien conscience a t the time . (As a side-thought, "unseen menace " may r emind you of that highly "original&quo t; BLAIR WITCH). As every one sac ks o ut, a haple ss supporting charactor whose nam e is at the bottom o f the casting list ( guess what will happe n to him?) hears something in the lower compartment. Despite your futile "do n't go d own there, you jerk!" ple as, he does just that, and is appropriately killed (more like thoroughly oblite rated) by the sh adowy figur e with insatia ble blood lust on its min d. In the victim's case, dereliction of duty and sheer cowardlines s would ha ve bee n th e wise decis ion. The scene i s actual ly well-dir ected (for a chan ge) and develops muc h suspen se, as t he ent ire film s urpri singly does. The crew finally catches on that the y have an u nwanted shi p cr asher on board, and try every po ssible mean s at thei r disposal to elimina te it, but the unknown c reature seems to copping an anti-dea th a ttitude. Proving to be an even more clever, wor thy a dversary , 9;IT!' a lso hides out in the ventilation shaf ts of the ship (now t hat should ring a bell ). Cahn's forc eful direction ge nerates cons idera ble t ension as the malevolent stowaway wor ks its way up from one level of t he conf ined ship to the next, even tually leav ing the r emaining characters trapped at t he top. The movie's suspense i s blunt and ri ght to the point: "IT!&# 39; has to kill them o r starve, hence they have to kill &quo t;IT!"; or die. Nothing like those "no two ways about it&quo t; choices. Rent it, or check for it on cable if you wi sh to know the ou tcome. For a low -budget quickie, IT! is quite impres sive and memorable. The dre aded sense of claustrophobic ten sion, rende ring the cha racters' hel pless entra pment, is h ighly effective. This is a prod uction in wh ich the limited budget and small se ts actually w ork in favor of the p lot9;s scary ambience. The b lack & white photography (Yes, it';s one of t hose!) helps to en hance its d ark, creepy mood, and the sense of ap prehensi on is quite high. ( Modern day color frea ks never seem to take that into c onsiderati on). The plo t is als o somewhat cynical ly ironic: If the cr eature hadn't stow ed away on the ship, Carruthers would have most likely been found guilty of the charges against him. The intelligent script (see what I m ean about & quot; rareity ") was penned by noted Science-Fictio n autho r Jerome Bix by (remember Twili ght Zone 9;s "It's a Good Life" ;)? Th e picture's taut ed iting eliminates any extraneous dr oss. (A LIEN tended to drag in its fir st hour with its sophomoric di alogue, and why did it have to inclu de t hat stupid and ult imate ly c ounter-productive sub-plo t of A sh being a robo t, and fur ther dragging the story down to another big bad conspiracy cliche? UNNECESSARY!! !) Director Cahn astutely keeps the rubber-suite d monster off-screen and in the shadows t hrough-o ut most of the pr oceedings, ke eping your paranoid imaginat ion on constant alert. Unfortunately, perhaps a t the st udio's commercial insistance, it is a littl e over-rev ealed at th e clima x, but I haven' ;t claimed this to be th e perfect masterpiece. The performan ces, though nothin g award-winning, are neverth eless cool enoug h so that one becomes sincerely concerned as to their fates. N ot many m ovies in recent times ever come close to achieving that. They can be over-produced from here to eternity, and usually only succeed in being glorio usly annoying. This film's story is n ot really totally original (what i s?), for it is base d on A.E. Van Vogt's "VOYAGE OF THE SPACE BEAGLE." All ALIEN fanatics shou ld track d own an old used copy to see whe re the i nitial influence came from . As long as you 9;re not cr aving another CGI wind- ding, y ou may find it w orth while. Just don';t expect the women to be Ri pley pr ecursors. This was st ill the sock- knitting fifties, sad t o sa 按规矩，两人每收一个人的好处，就要往外掏点 货，偏偏他们是一个一个飞升的， 总不好意思把说过的消息，再给他们来一遍， 没办法下，待到文遥飞升，人家又给他们摆了一席， 两人把该 说的都说了，只能跟他们八卦纯阳宗宗主被人伏杀的事了。
