Night Of The Blood Beast (1958)

Playing Top Trumps Horror was one of life’s earliest obsessions. Between us we owned both packs, each filled with a wonderful assortment of monsters from the golden age of horror cinema, and countless afternoons disappeared in epic battles of “Fear Factor” and “Killing Power.”

The cards we treasured most were always the obscure ones: Venusian Death Cell, Death (!), Jailor, and above all a mysterious creature called Talon, depicted as a huge beaked monster pecking savagely at some unfortunate victim’s neck while blood sprayed in every direction. For decades I had absolutely no idea what film Talon came from, only that it looked like the greatest monster ever committed to cardboard.

Nearly fifty years later the mystery was finally solved.

To my delight, I discovered I already owned the DVD.

With mounting excitement, Night of the Blood Beast promptly found its way into the player.

The fact that the film had been produced by Roger Corman only heightened my anticipation. Corman’s astonishing contribution to low-budget cinema hardly needs repeating, and I also have particularly fond memories of spending a couple of delightful days with him and his lovely wife Julie at the Neuchâtel Fantastic Film Festival back in 2004.

Night of the Blood Beast begins promisingly enough. A lone astronaut is returning to Earth when his spacecraft suffers a catastrophic collision in orbit. The crippled rocket plummets towards the planet before crashing spectacularly not far from the base from which the mission has been monitored.

The recovery team, led by the astronaut’s fiancée, reaches the wreckage only to discover that John appears to be dead. There is no heartbeat and no sign of life whatsoever.

Unnoticed, however, something stirs ominously in the nearby bushes.

Back at the laboratory the medical examinations produce increasingly baffling results. Although John remains clinically dead, his body stubbornly refuses to behave like a corpse. Three hours pass without any sign of rigor mortis. His blood pressure appears perfectly normal despite the complete absence of respiration or heartbeat.

Dr. Wyman, head of the scientific team, attempts to summon outside assistance, but mysterious magnetic interference has cut off communications with the outside world.

Clearly, something has returned to Earth with the crashed spacecraft.

When one of the team members ventures outside he is attacked by what he describes as a creature “the size of a bear.” He claims to have emptied several rounds into it with little apparent effect. Soon afterwards an even grimmer discovery is made: Dr. Wyman’s body is found suspended upside down, half his face seemingly chewed away.

The situation becomes even stranger when John suddenly revives.

Although technically dead only hours earlier, he now calmly explains that the alien creature means no real harm and is attempting to establish peaceful relations between its species and mankind. More astonishing still, John reveals that he is carrying the alien’s offspring and pleads with his increasingly alarmed colleagues not to destroy the visitor before communication can be established.

Needless to say, the rest of the team remain somewhat unconvinced—particularly after witnessing Wyman’s fate.

At long last Talon himself finally appears.

And what a magnificent sight he proves to be.

Imagine Herschell Gordon Lewis’s Blood Freak turkey-headed monster after several years of comfort eating, with the physique of a heavyweight wrestler and a beak that looks capable of removing body parts with alarming efficiency. Think Donald Trump after eighteen holes in blistering sunshine and you’re somewhere in the vicinity.

Talon abducts one of the female scientists before she is rescued, but the encounter merely accelerates the inevitable confrontation. John attempts one final diplomatic appeal, hoping to forge some understanding between humanity and the alien visitor.

Unfortunately negotiations take a disastrous turn when Talon suddenly begins speaking in Dr. Wyman’s voice, explaining that he has absorbed the unfortunate scientist into his own biological system.

Diplomacy rapidly gives way to survival.

Will John become the unwilling father of a brood of miniature Talons destined to colonise Earth, or can some form of peaceful coexistence still be achieved?

All is revealed in a surprisingly thoughtful and unexpectedly effective climax.

Though very much a product of 1950s science-fiction cinema, Night of the Blood Beast possesses far more intelligence than its wonderfully absurd title might suggest. The monster itself—my childhood Holy Grail after all those years of Top Trumps—is every bit as memorable as I’d hoped, even if the budget occasionally struggles to keep pace with the film’s lofty ambitions.

For one glorious evening at least, fifty years of anticipation were finally rewarded.