Night Fright (1967)

Night Fright (1967)
A government space experiment into the effects of cosmic rays on animal life goes horribly wrong, creating a mutant monster that terrorizes a rural community.
John Agar was introduced to the movies once by John Ford. Yet in the mid-sixties the star of TARANTULA and THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AUROS were paying his bills by starring in ZONTAR: THE THING FROM VENUS and this one originally called NIGHT FRIGHT. Here teenagers (and I use that term very loosely) are killed when partying in the forest by a monster, that turns out to be a monkey that had been send into outer space, exposed to "cosmic radiation" and returned to earth as a hideous mutant! Agar is the local sheriff who tries to put an end to the menace. The plot takes forever to get moving and when we finally see the monster it still leaves much to be desired. Mainly because we never actually see it kill and destroy! The film features an at times dynamic editing, and one Dorothy Davis actually shines with her devoted performance, but overall there isn't much to praise about NIGHT FRIGHT. However, in the gold rush that was the early home-video market it was actually rediscovered in some way. Probably inspired by a tagline of XTRO (the one "Not all ET's are friendly") someone got the brilliant idea to release NIGHT FRIGHT on video under the title THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL NASTY and with a cover that was a very obvious spoof of you-know-what blockbuster from the early eighties! It probably made someone look, but sometimes it is just for the best to let a sleeping corpse lie.