IT! The Terror from Beyond Space was released
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Before Ridley Scott's "Alien", this independent Sci-fi, Horror, Thriller was released in 1958. IT! The Terror from Beyond Space involves Earth's second mission to Mars to discover the fate of the Challenge 141 and its crew. Only a single survivor is found still alive from that crashed spaceship. The survivor, the expedition's former commander, claims that his crew were killed by a hostile Martian life form, a monster! No one from the rescue ship believes him until the creature, now a stowaway, begins hunting the crew on their return trip to Earth.
This film was produced by Robert Kent, directed by Edward L. Cahn, that stars Marshall Thompson, Shawn Smith (Shirley Patterson), and Kim Spalding. It was distributed by United Artists as a double feature with Curse of the Faceless Man.
It! The Terror from Beyond Space was financed by Edward Small and was originally known as It! The Vampire from Beyond Space.[3] Principal photography took place over a two-week period during mid-January 1958. Small kept changing his mind over whether or not he wanted plastic eyes installed in the creature's mask, causing a lot of aggravation for the film's makeup artist, Paul Blaisdell.[4][5]
It! was the last film of actor Ray "Crash" Corrigan. Corrigan was set to play the creature, but during pre-production, he did not want to travel over to Topanga Canyon in western Los Angeles County where Paul Blaisdell lived and operated his studio. Therefore, Blaisdell could not take exact measurements of Corrigan's head. Consequently, there were final fit problems with the creature's head prop: "[Corrigan's]...bulbous chin stuck out through the monster's mouth, so the make-up man painted his chin to look like a tongue". Blaisdell then added a bottom row of fangs that covered Corrigan's jutting chin.