Terror From The Year 5000 (1958) (film review).
In the past, people viewed time as just another barrier or obstacle to overcome. The most Professor Howard Erling (actor Frederic Downs) and financier Victor (actor John Stratton) have been able to retrieve from the future is a radioactive statue. He sends the statue to Dr. Robert Hedges (actor Ward Costello) for external verification, but a colleague believes its radioactivity to be the ideal murder weapon. So Hedges goes to investigate and meets Erling’s daughter, Claire (actress Joyce Holden), who takes him to their island. I find it surprising how determined the film ‘Terror From The Year 5000’ is.
Let’s sort out the relationships. Claire is Victor’s fiancée and jealous of Hedges. Hedges discovers Victor’s secret while swimming in a nearby abandoned machinery pool with Claire. Claire, too, finds herself drawn to Hedges and perceives Victor as a potential bully.
Later, at the lab, Hedges wants to use something unprepared for the time swap and allows his Phi Kappe key to be exchanged, and they get a different disc back with the words ‘Save Us’ on it.
Considering Mark is playing with the device late at night, you would think someone would have heard the noise it makes, let alone the voltage drops. Hedges thinks Victor has brought something living from the future and is concealing it in a locked room. Erling doesn’t believe him, so Hedges returns to the lake to retrieve it. However, he unexpectedly encounters Mark, leading to a violent altercation. Hedges demonstrates Mark’s secondary radiation burns to Erling, who is still not convinced. They do convince him to let them take him to the mainland hospital to have some tests made.
Mark leaves the hospital without telling them, and they don’t believe he could get back to the island without them, so they stay and watch a film, eat, and find out at the local bar that Mark has gotten drunk. He also steals a boat to get back to the island and uses the time gadget again at a higher voltage. As they see the effect in the electrical devices, they race back to the island to stop him, but the generator blows. They find Victor hurt and send the family retainer, Angelo (actor Fred Herrick), to get the hospital doctor, Blair (Bill Downs), to have a look, and he says he’ll send a nurse back.
Later, a mysterious woman (actress Salome Jens) kills Angelo, and they discover his corpse. Victor tells them about her. They do miss the nurse being killed and the future woman stealing her face, replacing it, and getting to Mark. Hedges and Ealing, wearing radioactive protective suits, have gone to investigate. The ‘nurse’ tells Victor they need ‘fresh blood’ in the future and one in five people is a mutate, and Claire tries to stop her as Ealing and Hedges arrive. A hypnotised Victor turns on the time machine, and the woman steps in. He recovers and short-circuits it, killing himself and her. Have I said too much?
Objectively, this story has a lot of padding. It does treat its science seriously, even if it is a bit implausible. Quite how the future woman could stay hidden for so long beats me. Maybe she was waiting for the time for Victor to be most vulnerable. I like the solution at the end and the line, ‘The future is what we make it.’ Now where in the future have we heard that one?
GF Willmetts
December 2024
(public domain. 1 dvd 66 minute black and white film).
cast: Ward Costello, Joyce Holden, Frederic Downs, Salome Jens.
