Review of The Man from Planet X (1951) by Tim S — 21 Sep 2017

While The Man from Planet X seems to be nothing more than a cheap B movie from the 50s sci-fi craze, it winds up being better than many of its counterparts. First things first on this one: it's a no budget movie, and the filmmakers were given only a week to complete it.

With that amount of time and little to no money, you would expect them to produce something along the lines of Plan 9 from Outer Space. As it turns out, they did the best they could with what little they had.

The characters and the plot are all set up fairly well and the plot itself is a bit intriguing, which is saying a lot. It's not the most original of plots, but the monster itself is totally alien.

It doesn't speak English and can't communicate with humans at all, which is already a step up from something like The Day the Earth Stood Still wherein Michael Rennie spoke English well. The cast is fairly good and they do the best with the tiny sets that they have, and there's some atmosphere in there to be had as well.

I kind of liked the movie more than I thought I would and was surprised by it, and I'm sure that many people who are into this era of B movies are when they watch it too. It's not a perfect movie, but it's much better than I expected to be, and I'd say I'd recommend it.