Night of the Blood Beast
Encyclopedia
Night of the Blood Beast is a 1958 American science-fiction horror film about a team of scientists who are stalked by an alien creature, which implants its embryos in an astronaut's body during a space flight. Produced by B movie
filmmaker Roger Corman
and his brother Gene, the film was one of the first films directed by Bernard L. Kowalski
and was written by first-time screenwriter Martin Varno, who was 21 years old. It starred several actors who had regularly worked with Roger Corman, including Michael Emmet, Ed Nelson, Steve Dunlap, Georgianna Carter and Tyler McVey.
It took Varno six weeks to write the script, the original working title of which was Creature from Galaxy 27. The story was partially influenced by the real-life Space Race
and the Howard Hawks
film The Thing from Another World
(1951). Screenwriters Jerome Bixby
and Harold Jacob Smith gave Varno uncredited assistance with the dialogue. With a budget of about $68,000, it was shot over seven days at the Charlie Chaplin Studios
, Bronson Canyon
and a television station on Mount Lee
in Hollywood.
The Blood Beast alien costume was also previously used in the Roger Corman film Teenage Cave Man
(1958), which was filmed just two weeks earlier. Art director Daniel Haller
, who built the rocket-ship and other props, slept at the sound stage between work sessions. Following dissatisfaction with his treatment by the Cormans, Varno pursued two successful arbitration cases, one of which was for underpayment. The other was in response to Gene Corman's original story writing credit , even though Varno claimed to have written the entire story himself.
The film was featured in a 1996 episode of the comedy television series, Mystery Science Theater 3000
.
, marking the United States' first manned space launch. Shortly after taking off, the ship is struck by an unknown object, forcing Corcoran to abort the mission and land. However, the equipment cannot handle the fast descent back into the atmosphere and the ship crash lands in the woods, killing Corcoran. Dave Randall (Ed Nelson) and Donna Bixby (Georgianna Carter), two technicians from a nearby space agency tracking station, locate the crashed ship and recover Corcoran's body. They are baffled, however, by what appears to be a giant tear in the side of the destroyed spacecraft and a mud-like substance covering some of the wreckage. Randall and Bixby are joined by lead scientist Dr. Alex Wyman (Tyler McVey), technician Steve Dunlap (John Baer) and physician Julie Benson (Angela Greene), who was also Corcoran's fiancee. Wyman observes that Corcoran's body exhibits no signs of rigor mortis
, and that the blood pooling beside him is not livid as it should be. The team brings the corpse back to their lab to run tests and find further irregularities. Although the body lacks a heartbeat or pulse, it maintains the blood pressure of a living human being. After looking at his blood in a microscope, they find unusual, unidentifiable cells that seem resistant to destruction from human white blood cell
s.
The team tries to call for further assistance, but find the radio is no longer working. Randall heads outside to check the power transformers, and it attacked by a large creature (Ross Sturlin) hiding in the underbrush around the station. Randall fires a few shots at the creature with his pistol and escapes unscathed. Although he did not get a good look at the creature, he describes it to the rest of the team as similar in size to a bear. Later, the team finds the infirmary has been trashed and Corcoran's body is gone. They initially believe the creature has broken in and stole the corpse, but are shocked to instead find Corcoran has mysteriously regained consciousness. Upon checking his blood again, there is no trace of the mysterious cells from before, but after investigating Corcoran's body, they find the cells have changed into lizard-like fetuses and entered into his abdominal cavity. The creature later breaks into the lab again, this time beheading and killing Dr. Wyman. Randall and Dunlap are initially suspicious that Corcoran was involved in the death, which he denies, but it appears he has some sort of telepathic connection with the creature. Despite Wyman's death, Corcoran does not believe the creature is evil, but rather simply misunderstood. He implores the others to give the creature a chance to explain its actions, and asks that they not condemn it as a monster simply because it is different.
As the others plot to destroy the creature with improvised gas bombs and flares, Corcoran flees the station and finds the creature in a nearby cave. After consuming Wyman's brain, the creature is now able to speak with the scientist's old voice and has absorbed his knowledge. Corcoran asks whether Wyman's death was needed, but the creature insists it was a necessary sacrifice. The others arrive to destroy the creature, but hesitate because Corcoran will not step aside and let them throw their bombs. The creature insists it is not an evil monster, but an intelligent alien who has come to Earth to save the human race from its own self-destructive tendencies. It explains that Corcoran's body has been implanted with its embryos, which will allow the alien species to multiply and take over the human race, which the creature claims is the only way to truly save humanity. Upon realizing the creature is forcing the will of its species on the human race, Corcoran concludes the creature is evil after all and commits suicide so its embryos cannot come to fruition. The others then throw their explosives and kill the creature, which in its dying breaths warns that others from his species are waiting in space and will return one day to conquer humanity.
Night of the Blood Beast was one of several films produced by B movie
filmmaker Roger Corman
and his brother, Gene Corman. The two also partnered together in making Hot Car Girl (1958), Beast from Haunted Cave (1959), Attack of the Giant Leeches
(1959) and The Premature Burial
(1962). Jerome Bixby
, the science fiction screenwriter who wrote It! The Terror from Beyond Space
(1958), was originally approached for the job, but Bixby was working on another project and recommended his close friend Martin Varno for the job. Varno, the son of veteran actor Roland Varno, was 21 years old at the time. He met with Roger and Gene Corman, who discussed with him what Varno called "some sort of a weird idea for the picture". They offered Varno a couple hundred dollars for the job, which was below the minimum compensation rates known as "scale", but Varno was not part of the Writers Guild of America
at the time and did not know about the guidelines. He accepted the offer and signed a contract. Although Varno had a rough idea it would be a low-budget film, he said the Cormans set no specific guidelines for him: "I gave them the impression that I knew pretty much what I was doing, and they sort of got the idea that I wasn't going to use 50,000 extras and things."
It took about six weeks to write the Blood Beast script. It was written under the working title Creature from Galaxy 27, which was conceived by Varno, but the Corman brothers later changed it to Night of the Blood Beast. Gene Corman received film credit for conceiving the film's story, but Varno claimed he wrote the film almost entirely himself and that Corman had little to do with the story: "He had some rambling ideas but they didn't have very much to do with the movie that became Night of the Blood Beast." Varno also said of him: "Gene didn't open his mouth, really, until Roger told him he could." Varno said he wrote the screenplay alone and showed parts of it to Roger and Gene Corman as he went along. Varno researched medical and aerospace technology at a library in Hollywood near Vine Street
. The story, which fictionally portrays America's manned voyage into space, was heavily influenced by the real life Space Race
ongoing between the United States and Soviet Union
at the time. Gene Corman said another major inspiration was The Thing from Another World
(1951), a Howard Hawks
-directed science fiction film about a group of soldiers and scientists threatened by an alien creature in a remote Arctic
research outpost. He said of the film, "How could you not be [influenced]? We had to be, if only indirectly or subconsciously. That was a classic film then, a classic film today." However, Varno said any influence from The Thing was only subconscious: "I loved some of the scenes in The Thing and I'm sure that crept in one way or another, but not overtly."
Varno said he received uncredited assistance from his friends and fellow screenwriters Jerome Bixby and Harold Jacob Smith, the latter of whom won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay
for the film The Defiant Ones
(1958). Varno ran lines and ideas by both men and sought advice. Smith in particular inspired lines for the speech made by the monster at the end of the film, in which the creature discusses how the human characters consider him the embodiment of evil simply because he is different from them. Varno said much of that dialogue from Smith, however, ended up getting cut from the final film. One of the primary themes of the film, as embodied in John Corcoran's attempts to defend of the alien creature, was that simply because someone or something is ugly or different does not necessarily make it evil. However, the script also followed a common trait of most horror films of the 1950s that even somewhat understandable monsters are not entirely sympathetic, and the Blood Beast creature proves itself evil by impregnating Corcoran against his will and pursuing world domination.
, who was 28 years old at the time. Kowalski also directed Roger Corman's Hot Car Girl. Night of the Blood Beast was Kowalski's one of his first directorial credits and his first science fiction film, although he later went on to direct Attack of the Giant Leeches. For the Blood Beast cast, they mostly selected actors that had worked on other Roger Corman films. Michael Emmet had worked together on the Western
television series Boots and Saddles
, where Kowalski directed most of the episodes Emmet had a major role in and was impressed with the actor's work ethic. Emmet later starred in the Roger Corman film Attack of the Giant Leeches. Ed Nelson also worked on several Roger Corman films, including Swamp Women
(1955), Attack of the Crab Monsters
(1957), Teenage Doll (1957) and She Gods of Shark Reef
(1958). When asked what Nelson remembered about the film during a 2003 interview, he admitted, "Not much", but he said Roger and Gene Corman were very knowledgeable about film and treated the material "light-heartedly".
, which was called Kling Studios at the time. Some rewriting was done as the filming progressed, and director Bernard L. Kowalski called it a collaborative process that involved himself, the Cormans and the whole crew. Varno, however, said he was not happy with how the filming process went, and that the Cormans changed dialogue and story elements without his consultation or permission. He said it reached the point where he called his agent and said, "I am not working for these sons of bitches any more! I am sick and tired of the whole thing!"
All of the interior scenes were shot at sound stages inside Kling Studios. Most of the exterior shots were filmed as Bronson Canyon
, a set of caves at Griffith Park
in Los Angeles
that was a popular shooting location for low-budget films. The exterior scenes of the tracking station were shot at a television station on Mount Lee
, not far from the Hollywood Sign
. Varno said it was the first television station built in Los Angeles, but was only being used for emergency broadcasts when Blood Beast was filmed; it had also been used during World War II
to send information and propaganda to the Allied Forces
' overseas allies. Varno secured permission to film there simply by calling the city of Los Angeles and asking permission, something he said nobody else considered trying because they assumed the city would not allow it. Varno was familiar with the station because his father, Roland Varno, appeared in the first dramatic television show released in Los Angeles and it was transmitted from that station. For the Blood Beast shoot, Los Angeles charged a fee of $8 per actor to shoot at the station, but the crew could be any size. All shooting took place outside the station and none inside. Most of the station night scenes there were shot during the day, and the film crew often had to find shadows to shoot in or block out the sun to give the impression of nighttime. Gene Corman said of the shooting: "That was one of the more mobile units I've ever been involved with. Normally, everybody chases the sun; we were chasing the shadows."
The alien costume featured in Night of the Blood Beast was the same as the one used in another Roger Corman film, Teenage Cave Man
(1958). This was done to save money, as the Cormans often tried to incorporate existing sets, costumes and other elements from previous films into new ones for financial savings. Varno said the Corman brothers were so conscious of their spending that "'cheap' was the main word in their vocabulary". The monster costume scenes in Teenage Cave Man and Night of the Blood Beast were shot within about two weeks of each other. The costume was modified slightly for Blood Beast; Varno claimed somebody on the set said "the nose looks too Jewish", so it was cut down slightly to more resemble a beak. Ross Sturlin wore the costume for the scenes in both Teenage Cave Man and Night of the Blood Beast. Filming was very difficult for Sturlin because it grew extremely hot inside the costume during the exterior shots. John Mathew Nickolaus, Jr. was director of photography for the film, and Jack Bohrer was the production manager. Daniel Haller
, who went on to become a film director himself, worked as art director on Night of the Blood Beast. Haller did much of the manual construction work on the set himself, and brought a trailer in to the sound stage so he could sleep there and between work sessions. Among the props he built was the rocket-ship, the frame of which was made of plywood that had been cut into circles, then covered with a plastic sheet and spray-painted to look metallic. Haller also created blood cells that the characters looked at under a microscope, and the baby aliens (which resembled seahorse
s) they looked at under a fluoroscope
. Alexander Laszlo
composed the music for the film. Almost the entire crew went on to work on Attack of the Giant Leeches with the Corman brothers and Kowalski.
Varno later filed a second arbitration upon learning that Gene Corman was to receive writing credit for the original story. Varno claimed Corman had nothing to do with the story, and produced large amounts of dated notes he claimed proved he wrote it himself. Varno won both arbitration matters. However, Roger Corman refused to pay Varno, and as a result he was not allowed to use Writers Guild of America members on his films. Corman used non-union writers for several years, but he finally agreed to pay Varno when he wanted to use a union writer on one of his films. Varno said he would have sought more money for the delay, but he was out of the country when Corman paid the money and missed his opportunity. Additionally, despite winning arbitration in the writing credit matter, Gene Corman was given on-screen original story credit in Night of the Blood Beast. When contacted by the distributor, American International Pictures
, he was told removing Corman's credit would mean recalling all of the prints and changing them, which would have cost thousands of dollars, and Varno agreed to allow it remain unchanged.
English professor who has written extensively about science-fiction film, unfavorably compared Night of the Blood Beast to The Creeping Terror
(1964), which was also about an astronaut returning from space with a stowaway alien creature. Although Flynn said it lacked the "epic pretentiousness" of that film, he nevertheless said of Blood Beast: "Corman made a career out of making cheap knock-offs of popular films, but he seems to be scraping the bottom of the barrel here". Film critic and historian Steven H. Scheuer
said of the plot was a good idea but criticized what he called a "sloppy execution". Literary and film critic John Kenneth Muir
said he considered the film a failure because the monster "simply could not live up to expectations once revealed". Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide
gave the film one-and-a-half out of four stars with the entry: "Well directed, but too low budget to succeed." Night of the Blood Beast was among several films universally considered terrible that film reviewer Michael Adams watched as part of a book about his quest to find the worst film of all time. However, Adams said he enjoyed it on a B movie level, calling it "cheap but enjoyable and buoyed by its ideas". John Stanley, who hosted the San Francisco television show Creature Features about science-fiction films, said Night of the Blood Beast deliberately imitated the best scenes from The Thing from Another World.
on November 23, 1995, as episode #701TD, broadcast live as a Thanksgiving
special. It ran along with The Chicken of Tomorrow
(1948), a 20-minute short film about advances in chicken and egg farming from that era. Night of the Blood Beast was one of several Roger Corman-produced or -directed films that were featured on the show, along with Attack of the Giant Leeches, It Conquered the World
(1956), The Viking Women and the Sea Serpent
(1957) and Teenage Cave Man
(1958).
B movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
filmmaker Roger Corman
Roger Corman
Roger William Corman is an American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for...
and his brother Gene, the film was one of the first films directed by Bernard L. Kowalski
Bernard L. Kowalski
Bernard Louis Kowalski, often credited as Bernard L. Kowalski was an American film and television director, nominated for 2 Primetime Emmys...
and was written by first-time screenwriter Martin Varno, who was 21 years old. It starred several actors who had regularly worked with Roger Corman, including Michael Emmet, Ed Nelson, Steve Dunlap, Georgianna Carter and Tyler McVey.
It took Varno six weeks to write the script, the original working title of which was Creature from Galaxy 27. The story was partially influenced by the real-life Space Race
Space Race
The Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national...
and the Howard Hawks
Howard Hawks
Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era...
film The Thing from Another World
The Thing from Another World
The Thing from Another World , is a 1951 science fiction film based on the 1938 novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell . It tells the story of an Air Force crew and scientists at a remote Arctic research outpost who fight a malevolent plant-based alien being...
(1951). Screenwriters Jerome Bixby
Jerome Bixby
Drexel Jerome Lewis Bixby was an American short story writer, editor and scriptwriter, best known for his work in science fiction. He also wrote many westerns and used the pseudonyms D. B. Lewis, Harry Neal, Albert Russell, J. Russell, M. St...
and Harold Jacob Smith gave Varno uncredited assistance with the dialogue. With a budget of about $68,000, it was shot over seven days at the Charlie Chaplin Studios
Charlie Chaplin Studios
Charlie Chaplin Studios is a motion picture studio built in 1917 by silent film star Charlie Chaplin just south of the southeast corner of La Brea and Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California....
, Bronson Canyon
Bronson Canyon
Bronson Canyon, or Bronson Caves, is a section of Griffith Park in Los Angeles, California that has become famous as a filming location for a very large number of movies and TV shows, especially westerns and science fiction, from the early days of motion pictures to the present...
and a television station on Mount Lee
Mount Lee
Mount Lee is a peak in the Santa Monica Mountains, in Griffith Park in Los Angeles, California, USA. The famous Hollywood Sign is located on its southern slope. The sign is visible north of the Mulholland Highway. A good view of it can be had by driving north up Gower Street from Hollywood...
in Hollywood.
The Blood Beast alien costume was also previously used in the Roger Corman film Teenage Cave Man
Teenage Cave Man
Teenage Cave Man is the name of a 1958 science fiction film directed by Roger Corman. It was shot as Prehistoric World, but was changed by American International Pictures to its final title. Years later in an interview, Corman stated "I never directed a film called Teenage Caveman"...
(1958), which was filmed just two weeks earlier. Art director Daniel Haller
Daniel Haller
Daniel Haller is an American film and television director, production designer, and art director. Haller studied at the renowned Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles....
, who built the rocket-ship and other props, slept at the sound stage between work sessions. Following dissatisfaction with his treatment by the Cormans, Varno pursued two successful arbitration cases, one of which was for underpayment. The other was in response to Gene Corman's original story writing credit , even though Varno claimed to have written the entire story himself.
The film was featured in a 1996 episode of the comedy television series, Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000 is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc., that ran from 1988 to 1999....
.
Plot
A rocket-ship carrying astronaut John Corcoran (Michael Emmet) launches and orbits the EarthEarth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
, marking the United States' first manned space launch. Shortly after taking off, the ship is struck by an unknown object, forcing Corcoran to abort the mission and land. However, the equipment cannot handle the fast descent back into the atmosphere and the ship crash lands in the woods, killing Corcoran. Dave Randall (Ed Nelson) and Donna Bixby (Georgianna Carter), two technicians from a nearby space agency tracking station, locate the crashed ship and recover Corcoran's body. They are baffled, however, by what appears to be a giant tear in the side of the destroyed spacecraft and a mud-like substance covering some of the wreckage. Randall and Bixby are joined by lead scientist Dr. Alex Wyman (Tyler McVey), technician Steve Dunlap (John Baer) and physician Julie Benson (Angela Greene), who was also Corcoran's fiancee. Wyman observes that Corcoran's body exhibits no signs of rigor mortis
Rigor mortis
Rigor mortis is one of the recognizable signs of death that is caused by a chemical change in the muscles after death, causing the limbs of the corpse to become stiff and difficult to move or manipulate...
, and that the blood pooling beside him is not livid as it should be. The team brings the corpse back to their lab to run tests and find further irregularities. Although the body lacks a heartbeat or pulse, it maintains the blood pressure of a living human being. After looking at his blood in a microscope, they find unusual, unidentifiable cells that seem resistant to destruction from human white blood cell
White blood cell
White blood cells, or leukocytes , are cells of the immune system involved in defending the body against both infectious disease and foreign materials. Five different and diverse types of leukocytes exist, but they are all produced and derived from a multipotent cell in the bone marrow known as a...
s.
The team tries to call for further assistance, but find the radio is no longer working. Randall heads outside to check the power transformers, and it attacked by a large creature (Ross Sturlin) hiding in the underbrush around the station. Randall fires a few shots at the creature with his pistol and escapes unscathed. Although he did not get a good look at the creature, he describes it to the rest of the team as similar in size to a bear. Later, the team finds the infirmary has been trashed and Corcoran's body is gone. They initially believe the creature has broken in and stole the corpse, but are shocked to instead find Corcoran has mysteriously regained consciousness. Upon checking his blood again, there is no trace of the mysterious cells from before, but after investigating Corcoran's body, they find the cells have changed into lizard-like fetuses and entered into his abdominal cavity. The creature later breaks into the lab again, this time beheading and killing Dr. Wyman. Randall and Dunlap are initially suspicious that Corcoran was involved in the death, which he denies, but it appears he has some sort of telepathic connection with the creature. Despite Wyman's death, Corcoran does not believe the creature is evil, but rather simply misunderstood. He implores the others to give the creature a chance to explain its actions, and asks that they not condemn it as a monster simply because it is different.
As the others plot to destroy the creature with improvised gas bombs and flares, Corcoran flees the station and finds the creature in a nearby cave. After consuming Wyman's brain, the creature is now able to speak with the scientist's old voice and has absorbed his knowledge. Corcoran asks whether Wyman's death was needed, but the creature insists it was a necessary sacrifice. The others arrive to destroy the creature, but hesitate because Corcoran will not step aside and let them throw their bombs. The creature insists it is not an evil monster, but an intelligent alien who has come to Earth to save the human race from its own self-destructive tendencies. It explains that Corcoran's body has been implanted with its embryos, which will allow the alien species to multiply and take over the human race, which the creature claims is the only way to truly save humanity. Upon realizing the creature is forcing the will of its species on the human race, Corcoran concludes the creature is evil after all and commits suicide so its embryos cannot come to fruition. The others then throw their explosives and kill the creature, which in its dying breaths warns that others from his species are waiting in space and will return one day to conquer humanity.
Writing
B movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
filmmaker Roger Corman
Roger Corman
Roger William Corman is an American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for...
and his brother, Gene Corman. The two also partnered together in making Hot Car Girl (1958), Beast from Haunted Cave (1959), Attack of the Giant Leeches
Attack of the Giant Leeches
Attack of the Giant Leeches is a low-budget 1959 science fiction film from American International Pictures. It was directed by Bernard L. Kowalski, produced by Gene Corman, and the screenplay was written by Leo Gordon. The film is in black and white, and runs for 62 minutes...
(1959) and The Premature Burial
The Premature Burial (film)
The Premature Burial is an American International Pictures horror film, directed by Roger Corman and starring Ray Milland, screenplay by Charles Beaumont and Ray Russell based upon the story of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe.-Cast:...
(1962). Jerome Bixby
Jerome Bixby
Drexel Jerome Lewis Bixby was an American short story writer, editor and scriptwriter, best known for his work in science fiction. He also wrote many westerns and used the pseudonyms D. B. Lewis, Harry Neal, Albert Russell, J. Russell, M. St...
, the science fiction screenwriter who wrote It! The Terror from Beyond Space
It! The Terror from Beyond Space
It! The Terror from Beyond Space is a 1958 black and white science fiction film directed by Edward L. Cahn.-Plot:The film opens with a nuclear-powered spaceship perched on the cratered surface of an alien world. A voice-over tells us that the year is 1973 and that this is the planet, Mars. This...
(1958), was originally approached for the job, but Bixby was working on another project and recommended his close friend Martin Varno for the job. Varno, the son of veteran actor Roland Varno, was 21 years old at the time. He met with Roger and Gene Corman, who discussed with him what Varno called "some sort of a weird idea for the picture". They offered Varno a couple hundred dollars for the job, which was below the minimum compensation rates known as "scale", but Varno was not part of the Writers Guild of America
Writers Guild of America, west
Writers Guild of America, West is a labor union representing film, television, radio, and new media writers. The Guild was formed in 1954 from five organizations representing writers, which include the Screen Writers Guild...
at the time and did not know about the guidelines. He accepted the offer and signed a contract. Although Varno had a rough idea it would be a low-budget film, he said the Cormans set no specific guidelines for him: "I gave them the impression that I knew pretty much what I was doing, and they sort of got the idea that I wasn't going to use 50,000 extras and things."
It took about six weeks to write the Blood Beast script. It was written under the working title Creature from Galaxy 27, which was conceived by Varno, but the Corman brothers later changed it to Night of the Blood Beast. Gene Corman received film credit for conceiving the film's story, but Varno claimed he wrote the film almost entirely himself and that Corman had little to do with the story: "He had some rambling ideas but they didn't have very much to do with the movie that became Night of the Blood Beast." Varno also said of him: "Gene didn't open his mouth, really, until Roger told him he could." Varno said he wrote the screenplay alone and showed parts of it to Roger and Gene Corman as he went along. Varno researched medical and aerospace technology at a library in Hollywood near Vine Street
Vine Street
Vine is a street in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California that runs north-south from Melrose Avenue up past Hollywood Boulevard. The intersection of Hollywood and Vine was once a symbol of Hollywood itself...
. The story, which fictionally portrays America's manned voyage into space, was heavily influenced by the real life Space Race
Space Race
The Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national...
ongoing between the United States and Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
at the time. Gene Corman said another major inspiration was The Thing from Another World
The Thing from Another World
The Thing from Another World , is a 1951 science fiction film based on the 1938 novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell . It tells the story of an Air Force crew and scientists at a remote Arctic research outpost who fight a malevolent plant-based alien being...
(1951), a Howard Hawks
Howard Hawks
Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era...
-directed science fiction film about a group of soldiers and scientists threatened by an alien creature in a remote Arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
research outpost. He said of the film, "How could you not be [influenced]? We had to be, if only indirectly or subconsciously. That was a classic film then, a classic film today." However, Varno said any influence from The Thing was only subconscious: "I loved some of the scenes in The Thing and I'm sure that crept in one way or another, but not overtly."
Varno said he received uncredited assistance from his friends and fellow screenwriters Jerome Bixby and Harold Jacob Smith, the latter of whom won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay
Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay)
The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best script not based upon previously published material. Before 1940, there was an Academy Award for Best Story for writing. For 1940, it and the award in this article were separated into two awards. Beginning with the...
for the film The Defiant Ones
The Defiant Ones
The Defiant Ones is a 1958 drama film which tells the story of two escaped prisoners, one white and one black, who are shackled together and who must co-operate in order to survive. It stars Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Theodore Bikel, Cara Williams, Charles McGraw, and Lon Chaney, Jr...
(1958). Varno ran lines and ideas by both men and sought advice. Smith in particular inspired lines for the speech made by the monster at the end of the film, in which the creature discusses how the human characters consider him the embodiment of evil simply because he is different from them. Varno said much of that dialogue from Smith, however, ended up getting cut from the final film. One of the primary themes of the film, as embodied in John Corcoran's attempts to defend of the alien creature, was that simply because someone or something is ugly or different does not necessarily make it evil. However, the script also followed a common trait of most horror films of the 1950s that even somewhat understandable monsters are not entirely sympathetic, and the Blood Beast creature proves itself evil by impregnating Corcoran against his will and pursuing world domination.
Casting
The Cormans cast the film together with director Bernard L. KowalskiBernard L. Kowalski
Bernard Louis Kowalski, often credited as Bernard L. Kowalski was an American film and television director, nominated for 2 Primetime Emmys...
, who was 28 years old at the time. Kowalski also directed Roger Corman's Hot Car Girl. Night of the Blood Beast was Kowalski's one of his first directorial credits and his first science fiction film, although he later went on to direct Attack of the Giant Leeches. For the Blood Beast cast, they mostly selected actors that had worked on other Roger Corman films. Michael Emmet had worked together on the Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
television series Boots and Saddles
Boots and Saddles (TV series)
Boots and Saddles is an American Western television series that aired in syndication from 1957 to 1958. The series was created by Robert A. Cinader.-Synopsis:...
, where Kowalski directed most of the episodes Emmet had a major role in and was impressed with the actor's work ethic. Emmet later starred in the Roger Corman film Attack of the Giant Leeches. Ed Nelson also worked on several Roger Corman films, including Swamp Women
Swamp Women
Swamp Women was one of the first films directed by Roger Corman. This adventure/crime/horror film follows undercover police officer Lee Hampton who joins three female convicts and escapes from prison. The escape is part of a larger plot to uncover a cache of diamonds hidden deep within the swamps...
(1955), Attack of the Crab Monsters
Attack of the Crab Monsters
Attack of the Crab Monsters is a 1957 American black-and-white science fiction film, written by Charles B. Griffith and produced and directed by Roger Corman via Los Altos Productions, on contract for distribution by Allied Artists Pictures Corporation. The plot follows a scientific expedition...
(1957), Teenage Doll (1957) and She Gods of Shark Reef
She Gods of Shark Reef
She Gods of Shark Reef is a 1958 adventure film directed by Roger Corman that was filmed on location in Kaua'i.-Plot:A young and reckless criminal Jim , stows away on his brother Chris Johnston's boat after killing two men...
(1958). When asked what Nelson remembered about the film during a 2003 interview, he admitted, "Not much", but he said Roger and Gene Corman were very knowledgeable about film and treated the material "light-heartedly".
Filming
The film was shot over seven days with a budget of about $68,000. Both Roger and Gene Corman were present for most of the film's production and involved creatively as well as financially. Gene was more involved with running the day-to-day operations while the more experienced Roger Corman supervised and provided guidance to both Gene and Kowalski. Martin Varno was also present for shooting. They operated out of the Charlie Chaplin StudiosCharlie Chaplin Studios
Charlie Chaplin Studios is a motion picture studio built in 1917 by silent film star Charlie Chaplin just south of the southeast corner of La Brea and Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California....
, which was called Kling Studios at the time. Some rewriting was done as the filming progressed, and director Bernard L. Kowalski called it a collaborative process that involved himself, the Cormans and the whole crew. Varno, however, said he was not happy with how the filming process went, and that the Cormans changed dialogue and story elements without his consultation or permission. He said it reached the point where he called his agent and said, "I am not working for these sons of bitches any more! I am sick and tired of the whole thing!"
All of the interior scenes were shot at sound stages inside Kling Studios. Most of the exterior shots were filmed as Bronson Canyon
Bronson Canyon
Bronson Canyon, or Bronson Caves, is a section of Griffith Park in Los Angeles, California that has become famous as a filming location for a very large number of movies and TV shows, especially westerns and science fiction, from the early days of motion pictures to the present...
, a set of caves at Griffith Park
Griffith Park
Griffith Park is a large municipal park at the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The park covers of land, making it one of the largest urban parks in North America...
in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
that was a popular shooting location for low-budget films. The exterior scenes of the tracking station were shot at a television station on Mount Lee
Mount Lee
Mount Lee is a peak in the Santa Monica Mountains, in Griffith Park in Los Angeles, California, USA. The famous Hollywood Sign is located on its southern slope. The sign is visible north of the Mulholland Highway. A good view of it can be had by driving north up Gower Street from Hollywood...
, not far from the Hollywood Sign
Hollywood Sign
The Hollywood Sign is a landmark and American cultural icon in the Hollywood Hills area of Mount Lee, Santa Monica Mountains, in Los Angeles, California. The sign spells out the name of the area in and white letters. It was created as an advertisement in 1923, but garnered increasing recognition...
. Varno said it was the first television station built in Los Angeles, but was only being used for emergency broadcasts when Blood Beast was filmed; it had also been used during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
to send information and propaganda to the Allied Forces
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
' overseas allies. Varno secured permission to film there simply by calling the city of Los Angeles and asking permission, something he said nobody else considered trying because they assumed the city would not allow it. Varno was familiar with the station because his father, Roland Varno, appeared in the first dramatic television show released in Los Angeles and it was transmitted from that station. For the Blood Beast shoot, Los Angeles charged a fee of $8 per actor to shoot at the station, but the crew could be any size. All shooting took place outside the station and none inside. Most of the station night scenes there were shot during the day, and the film crew often had to find shadows to shoot in or block out the sun to give the impression of nighttime. Gene Corman said of the shooting: "That was one of the more mobile units I've ever been involved with. Normally, everybody chases the sun; we were chasing the shadows."
The alien costume featured in Night of the Blood Beast was the same as the one used in another Roger Corman film, Teenage Cave Man
Teenage Cave Man
Teenage Cave Man is the name of a 1958 science fiction film directed by Roger Corman. It was shot as Prehistoric World, but was changed by American International Pictures to its final title. Years later in an interview, Corman stated "I never directed a film called Teenage Caveman"...
(1958). This was done to save money, as the Cormans often tried to incorporate existing sets, costumes and other elements from previous films into new ones for financial savings. Varno said the Corman brothers were so conscious of their spending that "'cheap' was the main word in their vocabulary". The monster costume scenes in Teenage Cave Man and Night of the Blood Beast were shot within about two weeks of each other. The costume was modified slightly for Blood Beast; Varno claimed somebody on the set said "the nose looks too Jewish", so it was cut down slightly to more resemble a beak. Ross Sturlin wore the costume for the scenes in both Teenage Cave Man and Night of the Blood Beast. Filming was very difficult for Sturlin because it grew extremely hot inside the costume during the exterior shots. John Mathew Nickolaus, Jr. was director of photography for the film, and Jack Bohrer was the production manager. Daniel Haller
Daniel Haller
Daniel Haller is an American film and television director, production designer, and art director. Haller studied at the renowned Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles....
, who went on to become a film director himself, worked as art director on Night of the Blood Beast. Haller did much of the manual construction work on the set himself, and brought a trailer in to the sound stage so he could sleep there and between work sessions. Among the props he built was the rocket-ship, the frame of which was made of plywood that had been cut into circles, then covered with a plastic sheet and spray-painted to look metallic. Haller also created blood cells that the characters looked at under a microscope, and the baby aliens (which resembled seahorse
Seahorse
Seahorses compose the fish genus Hippocampus within the family Syngnathidae, in order Syngnathiformes. Syngnathidae also includes the pipefishes. "Hippocampus" comes from the Ancient Greek hippos meaning "horse" and kampos meaning “sea monster”.There are nearly 50 species of seahorse...
s) they looked at under a fluoroscope
Fluoroscopy
Fluoroscopy is an imaging technique commonly used by physicians to obtain real-time moving images of the internal structures of a patient through the use of a fluoroscope. In its simplest form, a fluoroscope consists of an X-ray source and fluorescent screen between which a patient is placed...
. Alexander Laszlo
Alexander Laszlo (composer)
Alexander Laszlo was an Hungarian-American pianist, musical composer, arranger and inventor....
composed the music for the film. Almost the entire crew went on to work on Attack of the Giant Leeches with the Corman brothers and Kowalski.
WGA arbitration
Martin Varno's dissatisfaction with the Cormans eventually led him to take them into formal arbitration proceedings. Although Varno was not a member of the Writers Guild of America when he wrote the Blood Beast script, he was encouraged by actor Jay Jostyn to discuss the matter with them. According to Varno, Jostyn claimed several actors and writers had similar problems with the Cormans in the past, but were not taking action because the Cormans provided them continued work in their films. After meeting with the Writers Guild, Varno became a member and filed arbitration papers against the Cormans for not paying him enough. Roger Corman was in the process of editing the film when he received the arbitration notice, and he became so angry he started screaming and throwing things in the cutting room. Varno claims one of the film crew members approached him and promised the Cormans would hire Varno to work on many of their future films if he dropped the matter, but Varno refused.Varno later filed a second arbitration upon learning that Gene Corman was to receive writing credit for the original story. Varno claimed Corman had nothing to do with the story, and produced large amounts of dated notes he claimed proved he wrote it himself. Varno won both arbitration matters. However, Roger Corman refused to pay Varno, and as a result he was not allowed to use Writers Guild of America members on his films. Corman used non-union writers for several years, but he finally agreed to pay Varno when he wanted to use a union writer on one of his films. Varno said he would have sought more money for the delay, but he was out of the country when Corman paid the money and missed his opportunity. Additionally, despite winning arbitration in the writing credit matter, Gene Corman was given on-screen original story credit in Night of the Blood Beast. When contacted by the distributor, American International Pictures
American International Pictures
American International Pictures was a film production company formed in April 1956 from American Releasing Corporation by James H. Nicholson, former Sales Manager of Realart Pictures, and Samuel Z. Arkoff, an entertainment lawyer...
, he was told removing Corman's credit would mean recalling all of the prints and changing them, which would have cost thousands of dollars, and Varno agreed to allow it remain unchanged.
Distribution
Night at the Blood Beast was distributed by American International Pictures. It was test-screened for audiences in unadvertised sneak previews, in which audiences attending a different film were surprised with a screening of Blood Beast instead. Coincidentally, Martin Varno attended one of these sneak previews without any advance knowledge of what it was. The screening was also attended by Roger and Gene Corman, who were not pleased by Varno's presence. It was the first time the screenwriter had seen the completed film, which he did not enjoy, and he said of watching it: "On my left side was sitting Forry Ackerman, and on my right side was sitting Jerry Bixby. And their main job was to keep my hands held down so I wouldn't cut my throat." During its theatrical release, Night of the Blood Beast was a double featured co-billed with She Gods of Shark Reef.Reviews
John L. Flynn, a Towson UniversityTowson University
Towson University, often referred to as TU or simply Towson for short, is a public university located in Towson in Baltimore County, Maryland, U.S...
English professor who has written extensively about science-fiction film, unfavorably compared Night of the Blood Beast to The Creeping Terror
The Creeping Terror
The Creeping Terror is a 1964 horror/science fiction film, in which a slug-like monster terrorizes an American town after escaping from a crashed spaceship...
(1964), which was also about an astronaut returning from space with a stowaway alien creature. Although Flynn said it lacked the "epic pretentiousness" of that film, he nevertheless said of Blood Beast: "Corman made a career out of making cheap knock-offs of popular films, but he seems to be scraping the bottom of the barrel here". Film critic and historian Steven H. Scheuer
Steven H. Scheuer
Steven H. Scheuer is a film and television historian and critic. He edited all seventeen editions of Movies on TV published between 1958 and 1993 and wrote The Movie Book, subtitled A Comprehensive, Authoritative, Omnibus Volume on Motion Pictures and the Cinema World...
said of the plot was a good idea but criticized what he called a "sloppy execution". Literary and film critic John Kenneth Muir
John Kenneth Muir
John Kenneth Muir is an American literary critic. He has written twenty-one reference books in the fields of film and television, with a particular accent on the horror and science fiction genres....
said he considered the film a failure because the monster "simply could not live up to expectations once revealed". Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide
Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide
Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide is a book-format collection of movie capsule reviews that began in 1969 and has been updated yearly since 1978. It was originally called TV Movies, which became Leonard Maltin's TV Movies and Video Guide, which then became Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide...
gave the film one-and-a-half out of four stars with the entry: "Well directed, but too low budget to succeed." Night of the Blood Beast was among several films universally considered terrible that film reviewer Michael Adams watched as part of a book about his quest to find the worst film of all time. However, Adams said he enjoyed it on a B movie level, calling it "cheap but enjoyable and buoyed by its ideas". John Stanley, who hosted the San Francisco television show Creature Features about science-fiction films, said Night of the Blood Beast deliberately imitated the best scenes from The Thing from Another World.
Cultural references
The film was spoofed on Mystery Science Theater 3000Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000 is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc., that ran from 1988 to 1999....
on November 23, 1995, as episode #701TD, broadcast live as a Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day is a holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Thanksgiving is celebrated each year on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. In Canada, Thanksgiving falls on the same day as Columbus Day in the...
special. It ran along with The Chicken of Tomorrow
The Chicken of Tomorrow
The Chicken of Tomorrow is a 1948 documentary short film about advances in chicken and egg farming. This mini-documentary was narrated by Lowell Thomas and is in the public domain....
(1948), a 20-minute short film about advances in chicken and egg farming from that era. Night of the Blood Beast was one of several Roger Corman-produced or -directed films that were featured on the show, along with Attack of the Giant Leeches, It Conquered the World
It Conquered the World
It Conquered the World is a 1956 American science fiction film about an alien from Venus trying to take over the world with the help of a disillusioned human scientist. It was directed by Roger Corman, written by Lou Rusoff , and starred Peter Graves, Lee Van Cleef, Beverly Garland, and Sally...
(1956), The Viking Women and the Sea Serpent
The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent
The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent is a 1957 film directed by Roger Corman. It starred Abby Dalton, Susan Cabot, and June Kenney. The film was featured in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.-External links:*...
(1957) and Teenage Cave Man
Teenage Cave Man
Teenage Cave Man is the name of a 1958 science fiction film directed by Roger Corman. It was shot as Prehistoric World, but was changed by American International Pictures to its final title. Years later in an interview, Corman stated "I never directed a film called Teenage Caveman"...
(1958).