The Terrornauts, or, Worst Contact

As a recent subscriber to Shudder, I assumed that everything in their catalog would be appropriate Spooktober viewing. When I got hit by the triple whammy of the title “The Terrornauts,” a fantastic logotype, and an evocative screenshot of a woman on a planet with two obviously-superimposed moons, I was hooked. This was going to be some charmingly old-school sci-fi horror. During the opening credits, I saw that it was from Amicus Productions, which got me even more excited. None of the Amicus movies I’ve seen so far have been what you’d call good, but they’ve all been fun and charming as hell. That streak ends with The Terrornauts, which is one of the dullest movies I’ve ever seen. The story involves a SETI-like project where a small group of extremely British scientists are borrowing time on a radio telescope to listen for signals from extraterrestrial life. When they finally do receive a strange signal, they try to transmit a message in response. That’s when aliens take them away,…