Zontar, The Thing From Venus

One of a half-dozen remakes of old American-International Pictures scripts made for television by producer Sam Arkoff, ZONTAR, THE THING FROM VENUS isn't quite so bad as its cult reputation would lead you to believe. Based on Roger Corman's IT CONQUERED THE WORLD (1956), it later inspired memorable parodies on "SCTV" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show," as well as Boston's underground Zontar, the Magazine from Venus. But this tale of a Venusian invader using an Earth scientist to pace the way for a takeover is mostly just dull, betraying the minimal budget and hurried conditions under which it was made.

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