THE STRANGE WORLD OF PLANET X

Gaby Andre trapped by a big bug!

THE STRANGE WORLD OF PLANET X (aka The Cosmic Monster/1958). Director: Gilbert Gunn. Colorized.  

In a small British town, the egocentric Dr. Laird (Alec Mango) -- aided by the American Gil Graham (Forrest Tucker of The Crawling Eye) -- is using a machine to transform the properties of elements, a machine that produces a magnetic field that may be expanding far beyond the confines of the laboratory. The beautiful new French assistant, Michelle (Gaby Andre),  seemingly falls in love with the gruff, barely-attractive Gil within five minutes, and vice versa. An outer space visitor who calls himself "Smith" (Martin Benson) warns the both of them that the machine has caused a rift in the ionosphere that has let in cosmic rays that will not only drive some men crazy, but negatively effect the fast breeders, such as insects. On this he is quite correct, as it isn't long before the nearby Briarly Woods is full of giant, hungry, chomping, voracious bugs of all kinds!

Hugh Latimer, Martin Benson, Forrest Tucker

The Strange World of Planet X (Planet X actually turns out to be Earth, as our visitor tells us) is a riot of gruesome close-up bug footage, UFOs, maniacs wandering in the woods, little girls finding huge insect eggs and being told to "boil" them, and a great climax where both Michelle and the new school teacher, Helen (Patricia Sinclair) are trapped in the woods at the same time by huge insects, with Michelle caught in a spider's web and waiting her turn as the arachnid devours a writhing beetle, and Helen caught inside the school house as bugs try to crash through the door and windows. 

Andre and Tucker

At the halfway point, Strange World transforms from a talky if interesting look at a dangerous scientific experiment into, I believe, England's only entry in the big bug sweepstakes that was begun with Them. The actors are all quite professional, spouting the pseudo-scientific talk with utter conviction, and even Tucker sounds as if he has a brain. Others in the cast include Hugh Latimer and Geoffrey Chater as officials who are concerned about Laird's experiments and his lack of concern over what could -- and does -- go wrong. The movie was very loosely based on a novel by Rene Ray (it was also turned into a British TV serial that is now lost) that apparently did not have any giant insects in it. The movie is crude and low-budget, but effective, and the big bugs are even more disgusting in color. You can read about this film and others like it in my tome Creature Features: Nature Turned Nasty in the Movies. 

Verdict: Perhaps the most gruesome of the giant insect movies. ***.