Night of the Blood Beast is a 1950s sci-fi B-Movie produced by Roger Corman (and his brother, Gene).
An outer space mission goes disastrously wrong as the solo astronaut returning to Earth has a malfunction on reentry. Curiously, the plummeting ship lands fairly intact, horizontally in a cornfield, and the astronaut's body is relatively intact (and is indeed still alive).
It turns out that the reason he's still alive is that an alien has commandeered his body to act as a surrogate mother, and has impregnated him with numerous shrimp-like alien babies.
The other problem is that the alien apparently hitched a ride with him, and is trying to prevent the humans from calling for help until the big plan comes to fruition. It's up to this team, isolated from the outside world, to save the day and thwart the impending alien investigation.
For the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version, please go to the episode recap page.
Not to be confused with The Blood Beast Terror.
Night of the Blood Beast contains the following tropes:
- Artistic License – Biology: While "dead", Johnny manages to have a normal blood pressure. Blood pressure is caused the beating of the heart, and is measured by the highest and lowest pressures in each beat. Since his heart wasn't beating at the time, that's quite the trick.
- Bronson Canyon and Caves: Most of the film's exterior scenes are shot at the canyon, and the climax is shot at the cave.
- Closed Circle: The team is stuck in Bronson Canyon thanks to the alien destroying their vehicles and jamming their radio. This means that they have to rely solely on their own resources to chase it off.
- Covers Always Lie: Zigzagged. The alien does decapitate Dr. Wyman, but his severed head is never seen, also it isn't big enough to palm a skull. Donna and Julie, meanwhile, keep their tops on throughout the movie; it's John that gets shirtless.
- Damsel in Distress: Donna gets grabbed by the alien while Steve 1 and Steve 2 are investigating John's wrecked capsule. She does nothing but scream in panic until the Steves chase it off.
- Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: The alien apparently needs other species to impregnate with its shrimp babies. Oddly compared to how this trope is usually played, the victim doesn't seem to mind it and spends the rest of movie trying to convince everyone else that the alien isn't a bad guy.
- Heel Realization: Once the alien reveals its idea of coexistence with the human race, John is appalled to have been singing the alien's praises and gives his life to destroy it.
- Heroic Sacrifice / Redemption Equals Death: spoilered above.
- Killed Offscreen: The alien decapitates Dr. Wyman offscreen and leaves his body hanging from the ceiling.
- Kill It with Fire: Since the alien can shrug off bullets, the team winds up using Molotov cocktails to roast it to death.
- Mars Needs Women: The titular beast seems much more interested in the female characters than the rest of the cast. Odd, considering that earlier in the film it impregnated a man...
- Oddly Small Organization: If this movie is to be believed, the support team for John's space mission consists of the other five characters in the movie, plus whoever is on the other end of the radio.
- Only Mostly Dead: Put crudely, this is basically John's role for the first half of the film.
- Shooting Superman: When the monster breaks into the room, one of the other characters immediately responds by shooting at it repeatedly — which was previously shown to be completely ineffective. The beast doesn't show fear or pain until they throw a lantern at it and it almost catches fire.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: After the group brings John's body back to the base, he spends the entire middle of the film shirtless. Justified at first, because the others were conducting medical examinations; but even after these are finished it is several scenes later before he puts on any clothing.
