A rocket crashes on Earth and lands in pretty good shape actually and when some people pass by, people who just so happen to have worked with the pilot stop to help out, they find he is dead.  They call the team in to investigate and notice that though the man might be dead, he seems like he might just be in a coma as his functions are normal.  Back at the base, they notice a strange cut on his body, as though something had been forced into the tissue.  While Dave is out making sure everything is secure, he is attacked by something that looks like a large bear, in his words.  After things die down, they notice that the blood of the pilot is still alive and has a third cell other than red or white which turn out to be embryos.  Soon, Doctor Wyman is murdered and the pilot’s body stolen but is found miraculously alive and should they kill the monster, they will kill him.  So everyone had better make sure of what they are doing.

Here is another Roger Corman-produced film, this time directed by Bernard L. Kowalski instead of the man himself.  Obviously low-budget as evidenced by nearly everything in the movie.  From the lack of locations to the paper mache alien, Corman knows how to be stringent and yet still make things work.  What the picture lacks in those departments they more than makeup for in the script.  Sure it has many of the similar clichés that figure into many of the science-fiction pictures of the time such as mysterious deaths, mankind destroying what it does not understand, deciding to communicate with the alien and killing it anyways, and a lot more.  Somehow, it still works no matter how many times one gets that feeling that you have seen a picture featuring similarities to this one.

Our cast is actually quite good and must have eaten up a fair portion of that strained budget with John Baer as Steve, Ed Nelson as Dave, Georgianna Carter as Donna, Angela Greene as Julie and Michael Emmet as the pilot John.  Again, as the film relies more heavily on the script, getting a decent cast to deliver those lines was a must.  As far as B pictures go, or D in this case as it is a bit better than a Z, it was quite enjoyable.  It was not overly long and it did not tax the patience of the audience with trivialities. Night of the Blood Beast hit all the points it was aiming for and except for the weird, furry, chicken-looking alien, it was quite good.  It was almost like watching an episode of classic Star Trek as a matter of fact.  Worth one’s time.

3 out of 5