bababear NIGHT FRIGHT is not really an accurate title. There is very little night. Instead, the cameraman and director chose to shoot "day for night" which involves filming in broad daylight using tinted lenses on the camera to make it look like night. Shooting in black and white, this can be an effective technique. In color, though, it makes colors look dim and faded. Worse yet, there is no continuity; scenes go from day to night and back again with no rhyme or reason. This might work if some of the scenes took place in Los Angeles and others were set in Eastern Europe. But the geographic area involved is a tiny town near Dallas. And there is not a single fright anywhere to be seen.The plot has been done before and since. A experimental rocket is launched into space, then comes crashing back to Earth. One of the lab animals aboard survives the crash and mutates into a terrible beast that terrorizes the countryside.To be more accurate, it terrorizes a small group of incredibly bad mannered college students, who richly deserve what happens to them, and along the way kills off a few character actors.The town Sheriff tries to restore order. He's played by John Agar, whose brief marriage to Shirley Temple overshadowed his screen work. He's courting a pretty nurse who works at the local hospital. Neither his nor her character is developed enough to involve the viewer.Much has been made of the "bad" acting in the film, and I feel compelled to defend the efforts of the cast. Having lived in Texas all of my life I'm used to the various dialects to be found in the state. Some people in North Texas have a flat pattern to their speech with very little inflection. Besides which, nobody here gets what one would call great dialog.Agar does what he can with the material at hand. He says his lines clearly and stands at the right place at the right time. His career was an interesting one. He had many supporting roles in major studio productions, often in westerns starring John Wayne. IMDB shows him with ninety-six film and tv credits over a fifty-six year career. Had drinking (and arrests for drunk driving) not interfered, he could have had a major career. He figured out that if he were willing to work with Poverty Row studios he could get top billing, and would get paid for a project that would probably have a short shooting schedule.At the end of the day, acting is a job. It's great to be directed by Allan Dwan in SANDS OF IWO JIMA, which received four Academy Award nomination. But a project like NIGHT FRIGHT, directed by James A. Sullivan, got him top billing and a paycheck and a job is a job. A carpenter would rather work on a mansion in Malibu than on a new convenience store on the freeway access road. But, a working man's got to eat and has to feed his family.There are a couple of surprisingly good supporting actors. Bill Thurman, who would go on to play character parts in movies like THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, plays Deputy Ben Whitfield, the Sheriff's right hand man who unfortunately forgets that he is carrying a gun at a critical point in the story.But the real scene stealing comes from Roger Ready as Professor Alan Clayton. To start with, he appears to be a truly gifted actor: without much screen time he establishes himself as just a nice, regular guy. He seems perfectly at ease on screen. To establish the Professor's credentials as an intellectual, the director uses one of the oldest cliches in the history of drama: in a couple of scenes, we see him smoking a pipe. This lets Ready draw attention from the main actors in the scene because he is always poking, prodding, scraping, lighting or relighting his pipe. His hands are never still. And if he is speaking and makes a gesture, it is always in his downstage hand and he can use the stem as a pointer. These scenes aren't worth stealing, but it's the thought that counts.It's a shame that the movie looks and sounds so dreary. It just looks cheaped out, with the North Texas locations providing no sense of place. There are too many scenes of trees, sometimes with wind blowing them, in a failed attempt to create suspense.The monster's costume isn't really all that bad. But when we see it in broad daylight, which a lens filter attempts to convince us is moonlight, it just isn't all that good either.

BA_Harrison This incredibly crummy piece of 60s sci-fi nonsense was retitled for the UK video market in the 1980s as E.T.N.: The Extraterrestrial Nastie, giving the impression of a gory, exploitative take on Spielberg's classic family favourite; but those fooled into renting the film believing that they were in for some serious graphic violence would have been extremely disappointed, for the nastiest things about it are the appalling acting, awful direction, pathetic story, and horribly dated 60s fashion, music and dialogue—there's not a drop of blood to be seen during the whole sorry mess.The 'extraterrestrial nastie' in question is the result of a government experiment on animals in space, a massive mutated monster (played by a man in a gorilla suit and rubbish plastic mask) that crashes back to Earth and goes on a rampage, killing teens who are making out or partying in the woods. There are a few laughs to be had from the 'kids' hilarious 60s lingo (although it's still nowhere near as ridiculous as the way youngsters communicate these days—LOL!) and their energetic gyrating at the 'blast at the lake' is perversely entertaining (some strange moves with most of the groovy chicks being easy on the eye), but apart from that, there's little to recommend about this badly dated piece of amateurish drive-in drivel.

oldschoolhero2006 please disregard all the above ''critics'' who feel it's their 'mission' in life to ridicule classic cinema from the good old days! well, I'm here to set the record straight! NIGHT FRIGHT is a fun, interesting little movie with beautiful girls, a very cool monster & an excellent swinging 60s soundtrack by ''The WILDCATS''. I've watched it numerous times & it's like taking a time machine back to simpler, more enjoyable times. this film has what i call ''60's charm''. i can give it no higher praise than that. other movies that have ''60's charm'' are: HORROR of party beach [1964], FRANKENSTEIN meets the space monster[1965] & SANTA CLAUS conquers the martians[1964]. if you want to cozy up in your favorite chair with popcorn, soda & an open mind, this is a charming slice of a bygone era.

oscar-35 *Spoiler/plot- 1976, In a small town, a large object falls to Earth and strange happenings begin to occur. The local teenagers are the object of a mysterious killer that turns out to be a mutated ape from a NASA space shot.*Special Stars- John Agar *Theme- Hard science exploration can cause unfortunate mistakes.*Based on- 60's space flight myths and science fiction stories*Trivia/location/goofs- John 'Mr. Shirley Temple' Agar could have phoned-in his film acting performance in this film. It was uninteresting, shallow and predictable. This film plot is a rip off of hundreds of 50's science fiction Drive-in films with an attempt to updated the plot. It was very badly done.*Emotion- A somewhat forgettable early 1970's film that goes TOO long with endless chase and teen-age dance sequences because the film plot is too 'thin'. It's sad to see such a large star (Agar) settling for these wimpy lead roles and he's not trying his best to 'chew up the scenery' when the plot opportunity presents itself clearly. No pacing in this monstrosity. Please, this is a boring and too long a film, shorten it.