Night of the Blood Beast is a 1958 American science-fiction horror film about a team of scientists who are stalked by an alien creature, which implants its embryos in an astronaut's body during a space flight.

Produced by exploitation filmmaker Roger Corman and his brother Gene, it was one of the first films directed by Bernard L. Kowalski and was written by first-time screenwriter Martin Varno, who was 21 years old.

It starred several actors who had regularly worked with Roger Corman, including Michael Emmet, Ed Nelson, Steve Dunlap, Georgianna Carter and Tyler McVey.

With a budget of about $68,000, it was shot over seven days at the Charlie Chaplin Studios, Bronson Canyon and a television station on Mount Lee in Hollywood.

Art director Daniel Haller, who built the rocket ship and other props, slept at the sound stage between work sessions.

Dave Randall and Donna Bixby, two technicians from a nearby space agency tracking station, locate the crashed ship and recover Corcoran's body.

Randall and Bixby are joined by lead scientist Dr. Alex Wyman, technician Steve Dunlap and physician Julie Benson, who was also Corcoran's fiancé.

Randall and Dunlap are initially suspicious that Corcoran was involved in the death, which he denies, but it appears he has some sort of telepathic connection with the creature.

The others then throw their explosives and kill the creature, which in its dying breath warns that others from his species are waiting in space and will return one day to conquer humanity.

The two also partnered together in making Hot Car Girl (1958), Beast from Haunted Cave (1959), Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959) and The Premature Burial (1962).

[8] It was written under the working title Creature from Galaxy 27, which was conceived by Varno, but the Corman brothers later changed it to Night of the Blood Beast.

[8] Gene Corman said another major inspiration was The Thing from Another World (1951), a Howard Hawks-directed science fiction film about a group of soldiers and scientists threatened by an alien creature in a remote Arctic research outpost.

"[12] Varno said he received uncredited assistance from his friends and fellow screenwriters Jerome Bixby and Harold Jacob Smith, the latter of whom won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film The Defiant Ones (1958).

Smith in particular inspired lines for the speech made by the monster at the end of the film, in which the creature discusses how the human characters consider him the embodiment of evil simply because he is different from them.

[9] One of the primary themes of the film, as embodied in John Corcoran's attempts to defend the alien creature, was that simply because someone or something is ugly or different does not necessarily make it evil.

[7] However, the script also followed a common trait of most horror films of the 1950s that even somewhat understandable monsters are not entirely sympathetic and the Blood Beast creature proves itself evil by impregnating Corcoran against his will and pursuing world domination.

Night of the Blood Beast was one of Kowalski's first directorial credits and his first science fiction film, although he later went on to direct Attack of the Giant Leeches.

Ed Nelson also worked on several Roger Corman films, including Swamp Women (1955), Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957), Teenage Doll (1957) and She Gods of Shark Reef (1958).

[18] Most of the station night scenes there were shot during the day, and the film crew often had to find shadows to shoot in or block out the sun to give the impression of nighttime.

[17] Among the props he built was the rocket ship, the frame of which was made of plywood that had been cut into circles, then covered with a plastic sheet and spray-painted to look metallic.

Although Varno was not a member of the Writers Guild of America when he wrote the Blood Beast script, he was encouraged by actor Jay Jostyn to discuss the matter with them.

[22] Roger Corman was in the process of editing the film when he received the arbitration notice, and he became so angry he started screaming and throwing things in the cutting room.

"[26] John L. Flynn, a Towson University English professor who has written extensively about science-fiction film, unfavorably compared Night of the Blood Beast to The Creeping Terror (1964), which was also about an astronaut returning from space with a stowaway alien creature.

[25] The Washington Post writer Tom Shales said "it would be hard to find a worse movie" and that the monster "looks like the San Diego Chicken after having been tarred and feathered".

[29] Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide gave the film one-and-a-half out of four stars with the entry: "Well directed, but too low budget to succeed.

[10] John Stanley, who hosted the San Francisco television show Creature Features about science fiction films, said Night of the Blood Beast deliberately imitated the best scenes from The Thing from Another World.

[31] Chris Eggerston of Bloody Disgusting wrote that the alien in the film "looks like a human-sized parrot covered in feces" and ranked it as the fifth worst movie monster of all time.

Night of the Blood Beast was one of several Roger Corman-produced or -directed films that were featured on the show, along with It Conquered the World (1956), The Viking Women and the Sea Serpent (1957), Teenage Caveman (1958) and Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959).

"[34] Recurring gags during the movie segments include referring to the parasites implanted in Corcoran by the alien as shrimp and mocking the feebleness of the government's response to a rocket crash, sending only a handful of scientists and a flatbed truck to investigate.

Vorel also is baffled by the short, unable to understand how an angel helping newlyweds compose for a musical was supposed to convince viewers to buy phones.