It Came from Outer Space: The 1950s B-Movie That Scared the Pants Off a Young John Carpenter

It might be a little difficult to picture, but the man who permanently reinvented the face of horror with the likes of Halloween and The Thing was once a frightened child, scared out of his wits by the visual of a falling meteor in...EYE-POPPING 3-D!

The special effects of It Came from Outer Space (now streaming on Peacock) aren't exactly "eye-popping" by today's standards, but for a young John Carpenter, who grew up on a steady diet of Westerns, 1950s sci-fi, and B-movie schlock, it was a seminal moviegoing experience.

John Carpenter recalls how It Came from Outer Space made him leap out of his seat in terror

"The movie that scared me the most was probably It Came from Outer Space," the filmmaker confessed during a 1982 discussion about horror alongside John Landis and David Cronenberg. "It was in 3-D and I was 4-years-old. I was sitting near the front and the meteor came out of the screen and blew up in my face. I jumped up and ran to the back and I went, 'God! What was that?!' and ran back down again."

When asked by the host whether It Came from Outer Space "had an effect on your attitude in filmmaking," the eternally blunt Carpenter simply replied: "Nah." In hindsight, though, it's easy to see just how much of a subliminal influence the 1953 feature had on the boy who would one day carve out his own genre niche. Several of Outer Space's narrative elements — from a mysteriously vandalized hardware store, to the concept of extraterrestrial imitation, to themes of invasion and paranoia — all found their way into Carpenter's most iconic projects.

Based on a story from the late great Ray Bradbury, It Came from Outer Space remains a retro time capsule of a world taking its first steps into the Space Age and grappling with the intensification of the Cold War. It was a curious time when science fiction movies boasted hyperbolic titles, female characters were treated as nothing more than hair-raising scream machines, and a ululating theremin signified the presence of an entity not of this world.

And, of course, alien invaders in the 1950s were almost always intended to be not-so-subtle stand-ins for the looming threat communism and the USSR posed to American society. Interestingly, however, It Came from Outer Space feels less like anti-Soviet propaganda and more like an indictment of the McCarthy era witch hunts, with lead hero, stargazing writer John Putnam (Richard Carlson), becoming the only voice of reason amidst a raging sea of blind anger and distrust.

In the final act, he courageously stands up to an angry mob looking to kill the otherworldly visitors, who are only looking to fix their ship and leave our planet in peace. They're certainly repugnant-looking things (basically giant foreheads with eyeballs), but they mean us no harm. Humans are conditioned to instantly fear things they don't understand; to shoot first and ask questions later. But once the vessel is finally repaired and takes off for parts unknown, Putman leaves us with an optimistic message of hope and understanding: "It wasn't the right time for us to meet. But there will be other nights, other stars for us to watch. They'll be back..."

It Came from Outer Space is now streaming on Peacock!