"She was a **word I'm not allowed to use on IMDb** and I wanted her", explains novelist/inn owner Jeff Callum (Patrick Allen) to his wife Frankie (Sarah Lawson) after she sees him snogging his sexy 'secretary' Angela Roberts (Jane Merrow). Things aren't going great for poor Frankie: not only does she discover that her husband has had an affair, but she also learns that the island of Fara on which she lives is under attack by alien creatures that have raised the temperature to an unbearable degree. Oh, and her hairdresser has given her an extremely unflattering hairstyle (so bad, it might even go some way to explain Jeff's infidelity).
Investigating the bizarre winter heatwave is Godfrey Hanson (Christopher Lee), whose conclusion that aliens are using the island as a test site for an invasion is swallowed without hesitation by the unquestioning locals, who include Peter Cushing as Dr. Vernon Stone. With Cushing and Lee on board, and Hammer director Terence Fisher calling the shots, one might reasonably expect this British horror/sci-fi to be an unmissable classic, but sadly this is not the case: the pace is dreadful, the love-triangle is more suited to a day-time soap opera, and most of characters aren't very likeable (Hanson is brusque and anti-social, Angela is manipulative, Callum is callous, and pub regular Tinker Mason, played by Kenneth Cope, is a would-be rapist).
Horror stalwarts Lee and Cushing look embarrassed to be involved, maybe because they know what is in store at the end of the film: the eventual appearance of the aliens, which look like giant, glowing fried eggs, trundle clumsily at a snail's pace, and, in the abrupt finalé, are killed when it starts to rain (proving that it's always wise to do a little research when planning an invasion of another planet).
Investigating the bizarre winter heatwave is Godfrey Hanson (Christopher Lee), whose conclusion that aliens are using the island as a test site for an invasion is swallowed without hesitation by the unquestioning locals, who include Peter Cushing as Dr. Vernon Stone. With Cushing and Lee on board, and Hammer director Terence Fisher calling the shots, one might reasonably expect this British horror/sci-fi to be an unmissable classic, but sadly this is not the case: the pace is dreadful, the love-triangle is more suited to a day-time soap opera, and most of characters aren't very likeable (Hanson is brusque and anti-social, Angela is manipulative, Callum is callous, and pub regular Tinker Mason, played by Kenneth Cope, is a would-be rapist).
Horror stalwarts Lee and Cushing look embarrassed to be involved, maybe because they know what is in store at the end of the film: the eventual appearance of the aliens, which look like giant, glowing fried eggs, trundle clumsily at a snail's pace, and, in the abrupt finalé, are killed when it starts to rain (proving that it's always wise to do a little research when planning an invasion of another planet).