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Excellent but underrated film

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I'll never turn down the opportunity to watch an old sci-fi or horror B movie. They represent some of my favorite guilty pleasures. But this one didn't work for me at all.I have a feeling that the dubbed script didn't translate properly. I'm also sure the available version has been cut to shreds - at least I hope it was because I could make little sense from of any of it.The plot may potentially have been interesting but I was lost from the opening moments over the frenetic analyzing of the "spool" (or whatever it was). The casting went way overboard in trying to make the crew into a miniature League of Nations. I'm sure it was intended as a fine gesture but it was so contrived as to be irritating. The various creatures and situations encountered on the planet were all over the map (Venusian map that is). At some points I wondered if a different movie had been inadvertently spliced in during the editing process.I really don't like giving low scores to movies like this because I believe they need to be rated in an alternative manner but I'm stretching just to give it a 3.

"Der schweigende Stern" or "First Spaceship on Venus" 8and there are several other German and English titles for this one) is an East German movie from 1960. It had its 55th anniversary last year. The original film runs for 90 minutes, but the English dubbed version only goes on for 80 minutes. The English title is already a good indicator what this film is about, namely the exploration of space, especially of the planet Venus. The film is based on a novel and the director here is Kurt Maetzig and he is also one of the several writers who adapted the original work by Stanislaw Lem. Maetzig lived until 2012 and became over 100 years old. There are a handful of somewhat known science-fiction films from (East) Germany that are still known very well today despite being from the 1960s or 1970s. The most significant thing is maybe the cultural diversity of the cast. There's Caucasian actors, Asian actors, Black actors... as if this was Star Trek. I cannot say I am familiar with any of the cast members though.All in all, I found this a really generic science-fiction film. Mystery Science Theatre 3000 made this a lot more famous than it has any right to be with their unfunny and ignorant spoofing. Anyway, back to this one here. It's always surprising to see so many writers work on a film and then it becomes so mediocre and forgettable. Yes there was a trashy scene here and there and it felt pretty bizarre how the movie still took itself so seriously, but all in all I thought this was not a very interesting or even entertaining watch. Maybe it is worth checking out for the biggest SciFi fans who have seen almost everything else from the genre, but I cannot say that I would recommend checking this one out. Not even the visual side is really convincing, so four stars are still pretty generous. Better stay away.

The production values of a 7th grade Thanksgiving play. The international cast of actors (I use the word actors out of generosity) are stilted drama queens. The special effects suffer from being seen. The dialogue is delivered with the finesse of a drunk Stalin impersonator.The only way to watch this steaming pile is with the comments by the MST3K crew which spear this dead fish through the East German gills.It's hilarious to compare this movie with Kubrick unless you're talking about Kubrick the slinky salesman in the arcade.Unless you can watch this with the MST3K crew, avoid at all costs.

An artefact from Venus carrying a cryptic message prompts an eminent linguistics professor to travel with a team of experts to the nearby planet where they make a shocking discovery, making sacrifices to save the Earth from imminent catastrophe. It's reminiscent of any number of modern sci-fi tales that involve a group of astronauts defending the Earth, emerging as heroes ("Mission to Mars" or "Sunshine" being more recent exponents of this trend) and probably not as bad as it initially sounds.While the epic idea doesn't quite receive the epic treatment, this German-language sci-fi starring Eurasian leading lady Yoko Tani does manage a watchable level of sophistication in its production values, coupled with some attempts at character development. Tani is attractive if nothing else while Gunther Simon essentially occupies the leading man role, as a friend of her late husband and now neglected romantic interlude. The rest of the cast look professional, though not aided by the clumsy English dubbing.Intricate sets add colour and texture, while there's moments of genuine tension, action, melodrama and humour, even earnest attempts at pathos in the heroic conclusion. The 79 minute version I saw seemed to rush through the climax (though it still conveyed the essentials), although viewing the 93 minute version might possibly be a bit beyond the pale.