Rijndri
Load of rubbish!!
Beanbioca
As Good As It Gets
Pacionsbo
Absolutely Fantastic
john_vance-20806
Hey, it's Roger Corman so you know you're in for a good time if not for cinematic genius.All the actors/characters in the movie are great in a campy kind of way. Peter Graves, Lee Van Cleef and Beverly Garland (is she cute or what?) take a limited opportunity and work hard to get the best out of it. As has been noted by other reviewers the lines and monologues are a bit, well, umm...well they're just not very good, but they are entertaining in an unintended way. The peripheral acting support is sub-par working with a sub-par script so it's sometimes hard to watch.The star is supposed to be the monster, but it's appearance makes it a less than compelling threat to the well-being of the planet. The legend is that when Beverly Garland saw the prop for the first time she blurted out "THAT conquered the world?" and promptly kicked it over on its side.Now if you want to have some real fun, see if you can run down the MST3K version. Along with Attack of the Eye Creatures I think it's one of their most inspired productions.
mark.waltz
Is this plan one from outer space? Don't blame aliens, blame the commies when all of a sudden, power sources all over the world are affected by mysterious waves felt by military scientists. But of course, the audience knows almost from the beginning that this is bunk. They saw a space ship enter earth's atmosphere and a carrot like monster with shellfish like claws emerge, sending bat-like critters from its bottom out to attack various innocent passers-by. America goes into a panic, evacuating its cities as strange buzzing noises emerge in the sky. Those attacked by the bat like creatures from the alien's butt are basically body snatched as their minds are now controlled by the aliens, killing anybody who doesn't follow immediate orders to head to a camp for the ultimate conquest.Cult favorites such as Peter Graves, Beverly Garland and Lee Van Cleef headline the cast here, although the credits determine that an unbilled Paul Blaisdell was asked to wear the rubber carrot costume and flail the lobster claw arms. It's too bad that you don't see this costume among all the Elmos, blue breasted hookers and Spider Mans in Times Square. Even more astounding is that with the bat-like alien creatures, there seem to be no strings attached. Unlike Ray Harryhausen (who chose to deal with a giant crab by having him boiled in a hot water spring so those trapped in the forbidden world could have a lavish dinner even if there wasn't any butter or lemon in sight), this monster is a little harder to conquer.While the location footage is well shot, the indoor sets are extremely cheap looking. Van Cleef gets a speech much like Bela Lugosi's revelation in "Bride of the Monster" where his obvious madness is revealed. Graves (shiskababbing one of the bats) and Garland win audience sympathy. Still, there's a feeling of "Haven't we already seen this before?" and obviously each of them were done a bit better and didn't have the unintentional laughs that this one does. With classics out there like the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", this just fails to live up to the moralistic goals it implies. However, when they do retrospects of the history of science fiction movies, this one seems to always get a clip in there, even having been the film that Elvira shows in her "Mistress of the Dark" movie with the film's conclusion there for those who have not seen it to enjoy in all its campy glory.
mgconlan-1
Basically "It Conquered the World" is the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" meets "The Day the Earth Stood Still" — and the quality of those two movies only underscores how pitiful this one looks by comparison. I'll give Roger Corman credit for being the best director who ever regularly worked at American International — not that that's saying much for him — and for at least attempting to work serious political and social commentary into a few of his movies, including this one. Ideologically, "It Conquered the World" is a hard-Right propaganda piece (much the way John Carpenter's 1983 "They Live" took the central premise of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and used it for liberal-Left propaganda) in which the Venusian strategy for conquering the world is exactly what the Right of the time said the Communists were doing — targeting political, scientific and military leaders, recruiting them and using them to subvert the country by stealth — and Lee Van Cleef's character is clearly supposed to be what the Right of the time called a "Com-Symp," someone who wasn't an active Communist but so dangerously iconoclastic he was easy prey and all too willing to do their dirty work. But any attempt Corman and his writer, Lou Rusoff, might have been making for serious political commentary is subverted (pardon the pun) by the sheer ludicrousness of the appearance of the Venusian alien. (The makers of the first "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" showed great wisdom in avoiding any shots of the alien invaders in their natural form.) Maybe the upended half-cucumber with toothpick arms isn't quite as risible as the diving-helmeted gorilla who conquered the world in "Robot Monster," but that's damning with faint praise; the ridiculous monster takes what could have been a decent piece of half-serious science fiction and turns it into pure camp.
bensonmum2
While It Conquered the World can't compare with some of the best sci-fi from the 50s, it's still a fun movie if you can get past the special effects. The plot is straight out of the 1950s Guide to Sci-Fi/Monster Movies. An alien comes to earth with the intention of taking over the place. The alien uses some sort of bat looking things to help him gather "volunteers" to his cause (they hit them in the back of the neck and inject them with some mind-control device). The biggest difference between the plot of It Conquered the World and other similar movies is that one character, Dr. Tom Anderson (Lee Van Cleef), is in communication with the alien and willingly tries to help him. This brings the whole Red Scare subtext found in a lot of these movies to the front as Dr. Anderson's friend and colleague Dr. Paul Nelson (Peter Graves) calls him a traitor. Being called a traitor (i.e. a commie) was about as bad as you could get in the 50s.One thing that elevates It Conquered the World is the cast. You don't expect (at least I don't expect) to see names like Peter Graves, Lee Van Cleef, Beverly Garland, and Dick Miller in the same low budget Roger Corman film. I can't think of many movies shot on this kind of budget with four names I'm so familiar with. Corman really had a knack for spotting young talent.The less said about the special effect the better. The monster is not as bad or poorly thought out as something like Ro-Man from Robot Monster, but it comes close to being just as silly. It Conquered the World might have benefited from not showing the monster. I recently watched The Space Children and noted that Jack Arnold was wise to limit his monster's screen time. What I wrote for that film applies here too – "Too often, low-budget sci-fi films from this period look ridiculous because of the desire for elaborate special effects (i.e. monster and aliens) that outstripped the funding it would require." In the end, while you can certainly find better sci-fi from the 1950s than It Conquered the World, you can just as easily find much worse. This one is about average but worth at least one look if you're into this kind of thing. You might want to check it out just to hear Peter Graves closing speech – "Man is a feeling creature, and because of it the greatest in the universe. He learned too late for himself that men have to find their own way, to make their own mistakes. There can't be any gift of perfection from outside ourselves. When men seek such perfection they find only death, fire, loss, disillusionment and the end of everything that's gone forward. Men have always sought an end to our misery but it can't be given, it has to be achieved. There is hope, but it has to come from inside, from Man himself." It's worth the price of admission if you ask me!
