The Terrornauts (1967 UK)

The first act of this film bears a strong resemblance to the plot and theme of Contact (1997), the Jodie Foster film based on Carl Sagan's book, which delved into the possibilities of making contact with extraterrestrials by listening to signals from outer space. As in that film, the main problem for the scientist in this one is the lack of funding for such a project. The problem for the audience is that too much of this film involves this problem about money, becoming repetitive by the 20-minute mark. On top of that, an accountant enters the picture at this point to audit the books of this project, to further belabor this story point.

Of course, this picture veers off into different directions from the Carl Sagan story. The entire building with the scientist and his fellows is abruptly whisked away by alien forces. The small group of humans seem to be subjected to various tests of stimuli in an alien ship. One problem with all this is that the various alien gadgetry looks like it's made of paper mache. The other is the character of the cleaning woman - one of the most annoying characters ever, just jabbering on about nothing. Things take on a crazy frenetic tone in the final act when two of the characters are abruptly teleported to an alien planet where they are chased around by green-skinned aliens and the female is almost sacrificed in a ritual. It all happens very quickly, a matter of a few minutes, and ends just as abruptly. The point of all this remains a mystery until the last 10 minutes, when it's finally unveiled that the humans are needed to ward off some sort of invasion. BoG's Score: 3 out of 10