THE TERRORNAUTS {1967}

 "SQUIRTED THROUGH SPACE LIKE A BBC BROADCAST!"

  Amicus was pretty expert in the art of the horror film portmanteau/omnibus movie; horror really was their meat & potatoes.  Their few excursions into melding horror with science fiction were less successful.  From the Peter Cushing Doctor Who films to the same year's THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE (admittedly a favourite of mine), Amicus made sci-fi horror movies that were very odd and particularly juvenile.  Today's example:  THE TERRORNAUTS - - practically screaming the era in which it was made; the candy-coloured 1967 where swinging London was the center of world culture.  Based on the 1960 Avon paperback "THE WAILING ASTEROID" by Murray Leinster, the plot concerns Project Startalk headed by Dr. Joe Burke (Simon Oates) assisted by Sandy Lund (Bond girl Zena Marshall) and Ben Keller (Stanley Meadows) which is attempting to detect communication from alien life forms (sort of a swingin' sixties SETI).  The radio telescope complex in which Project Startalk is located is run by the crotchety Dr. Shore (Max Adrian at his most unpleasantly nasty) who keeps threatening to pull their funding because what they're doing is stupid nanny nanny boo boo!  Shore gives the team 3 months to find something before he pulls the plug. 

Of course, almost immediately the team receives a transmission that sounds very much like it's produced by intelligent life.  Shortly, an alien spacecraft levitates the Project Startalk building up into space; unfortunately for them an accountant/auditor Mr. Yellowlees (Charles Hawtrey) and tea lady Mrs. Jones (Patricia Hayes) happened to be in the building when the liftoff took place!  Our heroes are transported to the asteroid belt to Asteroid M-387 (at least that's what it's called in the book) and find a deserted space outpost manned by some clunky robots which looks like they were made by children on a  Blue Peter episode.  Sorta like Doctor Who's Krotons only a lot less well-made (!).   Burke discovers that if he takes one of the hundreds of black cubes with a funnel on top and plugs it into a shower cap with wires attached to it, he can 'channel' a recording left by the late owners of the place.  Because one does.  Through this device, we learn that the outpost was created by the Schmendricks (ok that's NOT their names but I don't recall them being named at all) or the good aliens are at war with the baaaaaaaaaaaaaad aliens (let's call them the . . . . oh, I don't know . . .  the Terrornauts) who have vowed to destroy not only the goody aliens but any other life form which is like them.  Cats and kittens . . . . human beings are like them.  The goodies left these space outposts all around the universe so that, if the Terrornauts are ever detected approaching, the automated station will contact those nearby and aid them in fighting them off.  Long story short:  Terrornauts be coming . . . . Earthlings better fight.  Before the baddies arrive, some hijinx involving a teleportation device that Sandy accidentally falls on (bumped by clumsy-arse Ben) and is transported down to an alien planet which is very rock and looks like a quarry.  Think Doctor Who: The Sontaran Experiment.  Yep, for us Whovians it's nothing more nor less than a transmat.  Anyway, Sandy is grabbed (within about 5 seconds) by a bunch of blue-skinned aliens who immediately throw her on an altar and attempt to sacrifice her with a knife. 

Joe transmats down to the planet (not before arming himself with an alien pistol) and rescues her; the pair transmat back up to the space outpost.  A chevron of Terrornaut spaceships approach and, aided by those black boxes and shower caps, our heroes are able to fire missiles and blow up the attacking craft. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.  Our heroes then transmat down to . . . . well, France.  And since they don't have their passports on them, they are arrested by a French copper.  The last line of the film is given to Patricia Hayes as they are being escorted to jail:  "Never DID think much of foreign parts!"

I have no evidence to support this but THE TERRORNAUTS just could not have been meant for anything other than a children's matinee audience.  It's all silly to the max and seems to me to be deliberately aimed at the under 10 set.  The references I've made to early DOCTOR WHO are in fact very appropriate except for the fact that the special effects/props in THE TERRORNAUTS are much MUCH lower quality than anything seen in the sixties DOCTOR WHO.  In fact, they're even less convincing than those used in the 1930's FLASH GORDON serials!  No scary menace is to be had; things are kept young kid friendly.  And the presence of the comedy whizzes that are Charles Hawtrey and Patricia Hayes keep things even lighter.  The attempted knife sacrifice is kept pretty shock-free and there's nothing during the whole length of the movie which would scar a young'un.  In fact, the whole proceedings seems about one step up from a Christmas pantomime.  That being said, only a grinch would find fault with such a film as THE TERRORNAUTS on the grounds that it's inept or silly because I'm pretty sure that's what they were going for.  Incidentally, this was Zena Marshall's final film.  I don't know if THE TERRORNAUTS specifically put the nail in her career or not but one never knows, do one?