The main thing I liked about this film is the basic premise. An assorted group of people find themselves in an abandoned city with an alien menace lurking about. The first half of this film is quite creepy and is very effective. However, once the alien robots show up, the film becomes just another ordinary 1950's alien invasion flick.
Like many of these 1950's science fiction and horror flicks, I first saw TARGET EARTH on T.V. in the sixties. Then the film vanished from television and I did not get a chance to see it again till I purchased a video copy about ten years ago. In the interim (when I was a teenager) I read the short novel "The Deadly City" by Paul Fairman which TARGET EARTH was adapted from. Having seen the film several times since, I can tell you the film is actually better. In the novel the invaders were not robots, but flesh and blood aliens (if aliens have flesh and blood!). They are never described, but someone utters something like (I'm not kidding): "They don't look like us!" While the films characters are the standard type found in films of this nature, those in the novel are all unpleasant types. No reader would care if they survive or not. Like the film, the characters are menaced by an escaped killer, but at least in the film he has a motive to menace the characters. In the novel the killers motives are unclear. Also, the novel ends by having the aliens suddenly drop dead with no explanation offered other than someone alluding that the aliens might not have been able to adapt to conditions on Earth.
Overall, TARGET EARTH is not a bad film. It's to bad it's makers let the film drift into a routine alien invader film after the very effective first half. The second half is okay, but it just doesn't deliver anything special. At least the writers didn't use the same unpleasant characters found in the novel. Like many cheap films made in the early fifties, TARGET EARTH is much better and enjoyable than many low budget films made in the later fifties.
Like many of these 1950's science fiction and horror flicks, I first saw TARGET EARTH on T.V. in the sixties. Then the film vanished from television and I did not get a chance to see it again till I purchased a video copy about ten years ago. In the interim (when I was a teenager) I read the short novel "The Deadly City" by Paul Fairman which TARGET EARTH was adapted from. Having seen the film several times since, I can tell you the film is actually better. In the novel the invaders were not robots, but flesh and blood aliens (if aliens have flesh and blood!). They are never described, but someone utters something like (I'm not kidding): "They don't look like us!" While the films characters are the standard type found in films of this nature, those in the novel are all unpleasant types. No reader would care if they survive or not. Like the film, the characters are menaced by an escaped killer, but at least in the film he has a motive to menace the characters. In the novel the killers motives are unclear. Also, the novel ends by having the aliens suddenly drop dead with no explanation offered other than someone alluding that the aliens might not have been able to adapt to conditions on Earth.
Overall, TARGET EARTH is not a bad film. It's to bad it's makers let the film drift into a routine alien invader film after the very effective first half. The second half is okay, but it just doesn't deliver anything special. At least the writers didn't use the same unpleasant characters found in the novel. Like many cheap films made in the early fifties, TARGET EARTH is much better and enjoyable than many low budget films made in the later fifties.