THE NIGHT CALLER (1965) low-key but eerie sci-fi horror

DVD cover artwork

THE NIGHT CALLER
(UK title, 1965)

aka THE NIGHT CALLER FROM OUTER SPACE (DVD title)
aka THE BLOOD BEAST FROM OUTER SPACE (US title)

Region 1 NTSC DVD (from Image Entertainment)

Enjoyable black & white sci-fi horror, in the Quatermass vein

The Night Caller is a low-budget British ‘B’ movie that I repeatedly revisit. That’s partly due to the nostalgia factor – I first saw this as a schoolboy in the seventies, only being allowed to stay up late once a fortnight to watch horror films on TV. It reminds me of the excitement and antcipation I felt for horror films back then – they certainly weren’t as accessible as they are today.

But objectively, it’s also worth recommending because…

- It’s shot in crisp black and white with a creepy use of shadows and ‘dutch’ (slanted) angles when it gets crazy! (This is before TV’s Batman wore out the technique a year later)

- Every actor in it is a star turn – from the leads to the supporting cast – all playing the invasion-from-outer-space plot deadly seriously, but realistically

- It’s directed by John Gilling who here peaked in the mid-sixties along with Hammer horrors Plague of the Zombies and The Reptile

- There's a star cameo by Aubrey Morris as a creepy porn-merchant, flirting with the granite-faced Detective (Alfred Burke) – “magic seeing you again”. Morris later played the abusive probation officer in A Clockwork Orange – talk about typecast!

- Another cameo by the always excellent John Carson – who also played Dr Marcus in Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter, and the squire in Plague of the Zombies

- A rare bit part by Ballard Berkeley – the only time I’ve seen him onscreen, besides playing the ‘Major’ in Fawlty Towers

This sci-fi/horror starts with a UFO landing on wasteland just outside London. The army track it and bring in three scientists from a nearby Government research facility. Convinced that it was a spacecraft, they are all surprised to discover a small sphere, the size of a football, sitting on the ground. There’s no crater, so it must have been guided down. They hold it at their lab for further tests. Surrounded by the army, the scientists discover that, late at night, the object glows intensely and a dark, clawed figure appears.

In the panic, the figure disappears with the sphere, as do dozens of young women a few weeks later. Thinking that they’re going for an exlusive modelling job in the heart of London’s seedy Soho, the don’t realise they’re meeting the monster from the lab. As the kidnappings continue – how can the scientists help the police stop the creature from space?

Should Barbara Stevens have posed for the camera?

Loving the low-budget Quatermassy atmosphere of the film, I forgive the obviously rubber claw that signifies the alien for most of the film, and also the cheesey make-up job for his disappointing unveiling. Also the story runs out of steam at the climax, but it ends logically and faithfully to the original novel ‘The Night Callers’ by Frank Crisp, first published in 1960.

On the plus side are moments of suspense, similar to those currently generated by Asian horror horror films, where an atmosphere of fear is conjured up by the actors, rather than by showing anything much. Even with so little on-screen terror, the film still warranted an X certificate in 1965. This is a British 'X', then only for over-16 year olds, rather than an American 'X' meaning hardcore porn.

Strangely, there’s a scene in the film, ‘blocked' (planning the layout of the set and the actor’s movements) the same way as an almost identical one in Hammer’s The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1974) – where Drac poses as a millionaire in a swish futuristic room, backlit by anglepoise lamps so that his face can’t be seen. The same ‘long room and back-lighting’ subterfuge is used halfway through The Night Caller – I’ve only just connected these two very similar scenes after years of confusing them with each other.

Patricia Haines hasn't looked behind her

A youthful John Saxon heads the cast, years before appearing in cult favourites, Enter the Dragon and Battle Beyond the Stars, and as a cop in Dario Argento’s Tenebre, Black Christmas (1973) and several Nightmare on Elm Streets. He’s accompanied by frosty blonde Patricia Haines, who I’m surprised didn’t make more movies, though she worked steadily in top British TV series, including three episodes of The Avengers.

Artwork used for the VHS and Laserdisc releases

The third scientist is the stalwart Maurice Denham, whose most famous role was probably as the panicky recipient of ‘the runes’ in the classic opening sequence of Night of the Demon (1957).

Warren Mitchell does an apparently improvised scene with Marianne Stone, as parents of a missing teenager. Mitchell is famous as TV’s bigotted Alf Garnett in sitcom Till Death Us Do Part, the original template for Archie Bunker in All in the Family. Despite being typecast as Garnett, he was versatile enough to play Russian diplomats in a couple of The Avengers episodes and Hammer’s space western Moon Zero Two.

The only home video version in circulation is the region 1 US DVD – this is a shame because this is a slightly censored version (an alternate take covers up the nudie magazines in the Soho sex shop) and far worse, it has an awfully dated song over the opening credits, replacing the atmospheric ‘northern soul’ instrumental of the British version, one of my favourite movie theme tunes ever! The track is coincidentally called "Image" and credited to Joe Glenn, Larry Greene and Bob Sande. I was looking forward to finally having a digital copy of this music, but it wasn't to be.

Here's how the it sounds, on the version that's been playing on British TV for decades...

It still plays on TV regularly. So if you get the DVD, ignore the theme song and carry on!

Do you want to know more?
Here's a longer plot description and numerous screen grabs from the DVD on the Horror-wood webzine, (though I heartily disagree that The Cosmic Man is a better film)!