8mm Forum: It Conquered the World

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Posted by James N. Savage 3 (Member # 83) on December 09, 2010, 09:07 AM:

I must admit, back in the late 70's, I was getting quite 'jaded' by some of the great new, full-color, gross horror movies that were coming out. "Squirm", "Melting Man", "Phantasm", etc. I had just about lost my interest in the older, black and white movies that I had grown up with, and was getting caught up in the whole "Fangoria" hype. (Aren't teenagers dumb? [Wink]

).

So, it was quite out of character for me to suddenly purchase this 200 foot black and white digest about a giant cucumber that wants to take over the world. (Yes, you heard right).

Curiosity is a strange thing. For what ever reason, I could never catch this movie on T.V., so one day, down at my local camera shop where I bought many of my super 8 digests over the counter, I gave in and picked up that neat little colorful box, with the cucumber making a really mean face on the front, and dished out close to twenty hard-earned bucks, and took it home.

"It Conquered the World", 200 foot digest.
A Ken Films release.

The digest starts with a quick A.I.P. logo, then, titles, and the Ken narrator voices over, with something like, "A monster tries to take over the world....", I really cant remember what he says, but is was sooo funny, and seemed out of place.

Bare with me, because its been a long time since I've seen this digest. But, the main scene I remember, is when the beautiful Beverly Garland (star of My Three Sons, many B movies, etc), goes to a cave to kill the cucumber. Then, he sneaks up behind her, and she says "So, thats what you look like. Well, your UGLY. HORRIBLE!" The cucumber then proceeds to kill her. As his claw grabs at her, it folds over like hollow rubber! Too funny!!

Then, in the climactic scene, we see the cave surrounded by army troops, as the captain says something like "Nothing can stop that thing!" Then, our hero Lee Van Cleef approaches the monster, and says something like "I welcomed you into this world, and you made it a charnel house!". He then fires a torch into the cucumber's eye, and it dies (as it kills Lee Van Cleef).

The End.

Well, I can't tell you how much GRIEF I got from my "peanut gallery" audience, who had also been totally jaded (worse than me) from the Fangoria bug. In fact, they bothered me so much about this digest (This was dumb....What made you buy this movie...etc). I got so mad, I didn't watch it for years.

Of course, now that I'm older, and much more mature [Wink]

, I LOVE the old black and whites much better than the gross-out movies of the 70's.

I wish I still had this one, as its a great example of cheap, fun, tacky B movie from the 50's.

P.S.- I wonder if this movie was the inspiration for the famous Lost In Space episode- "The Great Vegetable Rebelion"??

Sure wish I had a picture of the box to post (Douglas?......)

James.

Posted by Pasquale DAlessio (Member # 2052) on December 09, 2010, 10:21 AM:

James-
Is this what your loking for?
Pat-

Posted by James N. Savage 3 (Member # 83) on December 09, 2010, 10:55 AM:

Yes Pasquale! Thanks for that!

Look at those TEETH! And thats not a bad drawing of Ms. Garland either.

I always loved this picture, as well as the publicity stills I would see in the old monster mags back then. Again, it does make one curious, so it was great publicity.

James.

[ December 10, 2010, 05:33 AM: Message edited by: James N. Savage 3 ]

Posted by Bill Phelps (Member # 1431) on December 09, 2010, 09:13 PM:

I would like to see this one. Frank Zappa has a song from 1974 (Roxy and Elsewere LP) called 'Cheepnis' about cheesy horror movies and talks about this film in his opening remarks before the song. It is really funny...I've wondered about this film ever since!

Bill [Smile]

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