Lee Van Cleef, who plays Tom, does not want the new satellite to launch because he knows, even though others do not, that there is alien life and they do not want man in space.  They want to keep us grounded he says, but he is too late as it is launched literally as he is talking.  Three months later, it remains in orbit until one day it just disappears.  Of course, everyone freaks out.  Tom it seems has a machine that lets him hear and talk to whatever it is that lives on the planet Venus.  His wife thinks he is insane, but he knows there is someone answering him.  When the satellite is brought down, the alien is on board and survives the crash to Earth.  Suddenly all power on the planet has gone out and people are getting bitten by little alien bats one at a time and being taken control of.  And as things get worse, Tom, insane up to this point, now seems rational and the greatest traitor to mankind.

Van Cleef is crazy good as the crazy man who talks to the creatures of Venus.  He plays the part perfectly as he talks to his ‘friend’ throughout the film.  Beverly Garland plays the distraught wife of Tom, whom she loves above all else no matter how insane he gets.  Opposite Van Cleef, is our protagonist Paul, played by Peter Graves who does a fine job, but cannot even come close to just how dynamic Van Cleef is in his role.  If there was one standout role, Van Cleef takes it home for literally stealing this movie.  It was somewhat strange to see him play such a character as we are so used to seeing him in westerns and more often not, the bad guy and while he does play the villain in this film, it is only because his mind is damaged, though in the end, he eventually redeems himself.

This film also features one of the absolute worst cases of special effects ever put on film.  The creature in question is the cheapest looking piece of plastic and cloth ever put together to resemble a monster and what makes it even worse is that it looks like it is smiling.  It looks like a cross between some sort of vegetable and the exaggerated face of a dog and up until it appeared on screen, the movie almost got away with being fairly decent.  If Roger Corman, our fearless director, had stuck to just showing the tentacles and the bat-things, the film would have been much greater for it.  The fear of the unseen is much greater than what ended up being presented to us.

When all is said and done, the film was not that terrible, even when faced with such a travesty of a monster.  We got some good performances out of our cast, and a story that was actually half-decent.  Is it worth watching?  Sure, if only for Van Cleef, but it would never be worth seeing it more than once.

3 out of 5