Kronos, de veroveraar van de ruimte

As an avid fan and collector of B-movie sci-fi from the golden era of the 1950s, I have an uneasy feeling with this celebrated piece. A brief outline of the plot: A flying saucer, which scientists believe to be an asteroid, approaches Earth. They shoot it down with three nuclear missiles, the saucer falls into the sea, and a device tens of meters in size comes out. It looks like two big boxes connected by four columns that can march and on the top there is a hemisphere with two antennas. The device, dubbed "Kronos" by scientists, mashes its way across the planet, attacking power plants from which it sucks energy and then destroys them. It shoots down attacking fighters with a beam, survives an atomic bomb attack just fine – in fact, it absorbs the energy the bomb. Yes, it sounds promising, but unfortunately the film fails in its bland and boring direction, the first 45 minutes are entirely conversational without any excitement and with zero acting performances (which doesn't hurt, given the genre), and once things kicks it up a notch, it's hard to talk about any exciting spectacle given the sparse visual effects. Oh, by the way, the effects are pretty poor even for the budget and the time, the flying saucer reminded me of Ed Wood, and the Kronos model is nothing to be scared of, it certainly doesn't resemble a threat to humanity, more like a confused wandering box. As a kind of "study material" for those interested in 1950s sci-fi B-movies, it could be satisfying, but as an entertaining piece of work, hardly. (23.06.2005)

Kurt Neumann a year later somewhat showcased his talent more with the film The Fly, where he demonstrated in full measure that he is indeed familiar with this genre and capable of directing an intriguing story. Kronos isn't quite like that, and the only reason it stands out is the peculiar monster that simply looks different from what you're typically used to seeing. With monsters, you don't necessarily need geometric perfection. (02.02.2014)