Customer Reviews

Gamma People [VHS]

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"The Gamma People" is excellent rainy, Saturday afternoon science fiction/horror fare. Two journalists on their way to a music festival in Salzburg accidentally arrive in the unknown Kingdom of Gudavia (somewhere in Eastern Europe), where mysterious deaths occur, brown-shirted bully boys run amok in the village and hideous goons lurking in the shadows diverts our heroes from their planned itinerary. This movie and its goons gave me the creeps as a child. Not a perfect film, but a highly entertaining and enjoyable one.

Check the production credits and you will see some notable names: Irwin Allen ("Lost In Space") and Albert Broccoli (James Bond films) are executive producers. Syd Cain art designer for such films as "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and "Frenzy" provides his touch in the creation of a diabolical mind-control laboratory. Cinematographer Ted Moore, who filmed many of the early James Bond films, captures the essence of the film in dark, black and white German expressionistic tones. The lyircal music score by George Melachrino also adds to the fantasy atmosphere of the mysterious Kingdom of Gudavia and its secrets. Paul Douglas and Leslie Phillps are not your stereotypical leading men, yet they add heroic style and aplomb to the solving of Gudavia's dark secrets. Walter Rilla plays the Mabuse-like evil scientist Brononski with diabolical grace. Philip Leaver as the bungling Commandant Koerner lends comic relief to ease the 1984 nightmarish tension of the film.

"The Gamma People" is a 1956 science fiction/horror film that can be described as a cross between "1984," "The Boys From Brazil," "Night of the Living Dead," and "Brigadoon" (sorry, I am really into offering up such comparisons this week). American reporter Mike Wilson (Paul Douglas) and his English photographer, Howard Meade (Leslie Phillips) are on a train bound for Salzburg to cover the music festival when their car becomes uncoupled, ends up on an abandoned spur, and rolls all the way to the Kingdom of Gudavia, nestled somewhere in Eastern Europe behind the Iron Curtain. The two unwanted visitors discover a weird confluence of strange people and events. There are military types in costume uniforms lend by a bungling kommandant named Koerner (Philip Leaver), a young boy named Hugo (Michael Caridia) who clearly has Hitler as a role model, an even younger piano protégé named Hedda (Pauline Drewett), strange monstrous figures walking the streets, a beautiful fraulein scientist named Paula Wendt (Eva Bartok) riding a horse, and Bronoski (Walter Rilla), a brilliant scientist who prattles on about the wonderful effects of Gamma rays on improving the human species. Oh, and there turns out to be a castle. Mike likes Paula, feels sorry for Hedda, declares Hugo to be strange, and worries that Boronski is fooling around too much with the Gamma rays (keep in mind that this film was made years before Stan Lee used Gamma rays to create the Incredible Hulk). Meanwhile, the original music by George Melachrino underscores every scene with tension and peril even when the plot is unclear and the acting misses the moment.

It is not that "The Gamma People" is MST3K fodder because it is so bad, but rather because it is just not good (yes, there is a difference). For example, there is a point where Hedda and her father try to escape from Gudavia and Hugo's harsh critique of her piano playing, taking a horse over the mountains. But of course the bad guys show up to foil their escape. A moment later Mike shows up, apparently just out for a nice little walk so he can smoke a cigarette, even if it means wearing a suit and tie and hiking a couple of miles out of town up the side of a mountain. Then again, it is amazing how many characters happen to pop up during this scene out in the middle of nowhere.

John Gilling's film will really remind you of "Night of the Living Dead" in its visual style and the acting (tilted camera angles, groups of characters moving in an exaggerated manner, etc.), which I guess is not surprising for a man who directed "Mother Riley Meets the Vampire" and wrote the script for "Trog." Perhaps the strangest thing in the film is Paul Douglas as the hero. I mean, this is an actor I associate with baseball comedy movies like "It Happens Every Spring" and the original "Angels in the Outfield," and not as some sort of action hero. Douglas seems like a fish out of water in "The Gamma People," but then everybody seems out of place in this rather ambitious low-budget Fifties science fiction/horror film. Certainly worth a look, The Gamma People is not quite up to cult classic status.

I saw this movie long ago at a small theatre in Georgia. It is still kind of a campy low budget SciFi thriller. The tape was in good condition but the sleeve did show some wear. Not to worry for me as all I wanted was to see the movie.

OK, folks, it's a "good news/bad news" situation. The bad news is that this is really a bad movie. A REALLY bad movie. Our heros arrive in Ruritania (which reminds me more than anything of the Grand Duchy of Fenwick, but that's a different movie...) when (wait for it) their railroad car inadvertantly decouples from the train and rolls sloooooowly to a stop in the boondocks of what is supposed to be?? Eastern Europe?? Never mind - it's just a show, and you should really just relax. The locals are, um, different. Maybe it's because they are all zapped by gamma rays (you know, the kind that turned mild-mannered Bruce Banner into The Incredible Hulk) at an early age, turning them into either geniuses or goons.

So - what's the GOOD news, you ask? This is essentially virgin territory for your own riffing! Get this tape, invite over some pals, and have a do-it-yourself Mystery Science Theater! Believe me, it isn't good for anything else. It's filmed in painfully depressing black and white, has scenery reminiscent of the local slag heap, pot holes big enough to drag solar systems through, surprisingly old and unattractive male protagonists, cheesy and short-lived special effects, in short - PERFECT for that hard-to-kill rainy Saturday afternoon. END