Unearthly Stranger is a 1964 British film that was directed by John Krish and written by Rex Carlton. The Wikipedia says the movie was based on an idea by Jeffrey Stone and that he was an actor who was the model and inspiration for Prince Charming in the 1950 Disney Cinderella. The IMDb listing for John Krish says he mostly directed documentaries and shorts. He directed ten feature films but I don't believe I've seen any of them. I did see the three episodes of The Avengers he did, same with the episode of The Saint. When it comes to Rex's work I can say I've seen his The Brain That Wouldn't Die, Blood Of Dracula's Castle and Nightmare In Wax. Not the greatest films but watchable. This is a better movie than those three.
That's John Neville on the left, he's just come back from vacation with a new bride. Jean Marsh is his secretary and Phillip Stone is another professor at the super secret spaceflight project. The group is trying to invent teleportation. John you might remember from the Terry Gilliam movie The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen or one of the many movies he was in.
I suspect everyone knows Jean but not everyone might know Phillip Stone. His second acting job was the play a character in Hot Snow, the pilot episode of The Avengers, which aired April 21 1969. Only 15 minutes of that episode exist and only 3 episodes of the1st series survived. I believe that the 1st role I had seen him in was playing Alex's dad in A Clockwork Orange and three years later he had three parts in O Lucky Man!
Once back at work John starts to notice his new bride is a bit odd, he'd meet her on vacation, in a whirlwind romance he'd married her. His wife doesn't seem to blink. Once he found her totally unconscious with her eyes open and she had no pulse. Minutes later she wakes up as if nothing had happened. John's co-workers take notice of his problems, especially the security guy. Other strange things happen that make people more suspicious.
It's a nice little SF thriller with a vague but still entertaining ending. Some say that's a bit of an important film. I wouldn't say that but I liked it enough to order the Blu-ray off of Amazon this morning. It's only about 12 bucks with postage. Unfortunately, for some, it's a foreign disc. I'm also looking at region Free Blu-rays as I am starting to get some of them. Want to keep all options open.
Our second film was The Return Of The Living Dead 2. It came out in 1988 and Ken Wiederhorn is the writer - director. It's not a direct sequel to the first movie, in fact, it was written as a different film. The producer liked the script but wanted a sequel so it was rewritten. The movie gets started in a similar way. One of the Army's zombie storage containers falls off a truck and a kid breaks it open. The gas that escapes turns people into zombies that want some brains.
There's plenty of yelling and running about as the zombies ramble about looking for a snack. James Karen, left, and Thom Matthews, second from right, were in the first movie but they played different characters. Their parts are similar, Thom is a guy who just started working for James. In the first they are working at a medical supply house and in the sequel they are guys who steal skulls out of cemeteries for the black market. They get turned into zombies in both films.
It's a good sequel and more of a comedy than the first movie. Not that there wasn't some good gags in the first movie. That half a dog is still a hoot. I gave it a 6 and I'd watch it again someday.
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