If you love film, you likely have been to a repertory screening at some point in your life. The chance to watch an older movie, on the big screen, with a crowd as in love with the opportunity to watch a movie in theatres, maybe for the first time, or maybe to recapture that sense of wonder of when you first saw it. The idea of repertory showings of movies still exists, but it’s also become corporatized through Fathom Events and their annual TCM series. That’s not inherently a bad thing (it’s how I finally watched “Vertigo” and “Jaws” on the big screen), but it also takes away some of the pleasure of going to an art house theatre like Atlanta’s The Plaza, which constantly has older films on tap, as well as special showings; my experiences with “The Crow” and “The Shining” there are unmatched.
This year, I’m going to lean a lot into my favorite genre of all-time, science fiction, for this year’s entries in this series. Films I haven’t seen. Films that are overdue for review. And I’m even going to try to watch some classic TV series I haven’t before. Our bookend filmmaker had to be a fitting one, and though he’s most known for horror, John Carpenter has done plenty in this genre, starting with our first film for 2026, his 1988 satire, “They Live”.
Next up, I watched 1953’s “It Came From Outer Space” for the first time.
Viva La Resistance!
Brian Skutle
www.sonic-cinema.com
“It Came from Outer Space” (1953)- B+
Science fiction and horror were inextricably linked the 1950s. Typically, they involved invaders from off the Earth, and the results varied based on screenplay, and special effects. 1953’s “It Came From Outer Space,” made as a 3D film (likely during when we see the monster), is a mixed bag in the genre, but it is a solid one, because it keeps things straightforward.
John Putnam (Richard Carlson) is an amateur astronomer who happens to be stargazing, when he sees something that looks like a meteor shower. He goes to see what landed, and it definitely doesn’t look like any regular meteor. He tries to convince his fiancée, Ellen (Barbara Rush), but even seeing a monster as they are driving doesn’t seem to make her believe it. As townsfolk begin to disappear, only to reappear somewhat off, more and more people start to feel uneasy. Maybe Putnam is on to something. What if he is one of the things that came from outer space?
As more movies began to be made in color, genre films mostly stayed in black-and-white. Part of that is due to the cost- it was cheaper than color, and cheaper to make meant the likelier a profit. Another way to keep costs down was to minimize the creature’s appearance in the film. Having the monster transform into humans is a good way of doing that, and it works very effectively in the story by Ray Bradbury and screenplay by Harry Essex. This is a film made right smack dab in the middle of the Cold War, and thus, the metaphor can be read as people being assimilated into Communism, with the paranoia of McCarthyism. Director Jack Arnold (“The Incredible Shrinking Man,” “Creature of the Black Lagoon”) isn’t looking to dig too deep into the sociopolitical nature of the story; he’s being asked, first and foremost, to create a successful creature feature, and I believe he does so.
One of the reasons the ’50s sci-fi horror genre has remained so fascinating is because it helped expand both genres, and what they did. The visual effects for both space vehicles and the monsters helped push sci-fi into another level of storytelling, and horror by expanding what monsters could be- taking known things in nature at times, and making us terrified of them. The creature effects also meant that anything could be scary- it didn’t just have to be a man behind prosthetics. That flourishing of genre is part of why “It Came from Outer Space” may be cheesy, but it’s still effective 73 years later.
Previous “Repertory Revue” Films
“They Live” (1988)
“Starship Troopers” (1997)
“Welcome II the Terrordome” (1995)
“Battledream Chronicle” (2015)
“Born in Flames” (1983)
“Testament” (1983)
“Things to Come” (1936)
“When Worlds Collide” (1951)
“Metropolis” (2001)
“Soylent Green” (1973)
“Fire in the Sky” (1993)
“Star Trek: The Motion Picture” (1979)
“The Fly” (1958)
“Forbidden Planet” (1956)
“Capricorn One” (1977)
“Atlantis: The Lost Empire” (2001)
“Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within” (2001)
“It Came from Outer Space” (1953)
See Brian’s list of 2009 “Movies a Week” here.
See Brian’s list of 2010 “Movies a Week” here.
See Brian’s list of 2011 “Movies a Week” here.
See Brian’s list of 2012 “Movies a Week” here.
See Brian’s list of 2013 “Movies a Week” here.
See Brian’s list of 2014 “Movies a Week” here.
See Brian’s list of 2015 “Movies a Week” here.
See Brian’s list of 2016 “Movies a Week” here.
See Brian’s list of 2017 “Movies a Week” here.
See Brian’s list of 2018 “Movies a Week” here.
See Brian’s list of 2019 “Movies a Week” here.
See Brian’s list of 2020 “Repertory Revues” here.
See Brian’s list of 2021 “Repertory Revues” here.
See Brian’s list of 2022 “Repertory Revues” here.
See Brian’s list of 2023 “Repertory Revues” here.
See Brian’s list of 2024 “Repertory Revues” here.
See Brian’s list of 2025 “Repertory Revues” here.
