Grand Illusion's 5-Million-Year Trip, Just $8

Special to Seattlest by Tony Kay

When you talk great sci-fi movies of the 1960s, a few titles--Planet of the Apes, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Fantastic Voyage--spring immediately to mind. But the Grand Illusion plays host to one of the era's most overlooked gems for much of this week.

Released in 1967, Five Million Years to Earth (aka Quatermass and the Pit) still stands one of Britain's finest genre efforts. In it, a London construction crew stumbles on what appears to be an unexploded German World War II missile. The investigating scientists, Professor Quatermass (Scottish character actor Andrew Keir) and Dr. Roney (James Donald), quickly discover that the device in question is alien in origin, and its contents put earthly religious beliefs--and indeed, the entire development of the human race--into sharp and merciless focus.

Don't let the cerebral central plotline scare you, though. Five Million Years to Earth balances its intellectual ambitions with brisk pacing, telekinesis, spooky alien insects, and last-ditch heroics with a giant crane. It was originally distributed by Hammer Films, and the horror specialists' sense of pulp verve balances with the headiness immaculately. Plus, it's not currently available on DVD. Get thee to ye olde indie theater, post-haste.

Five Million Years to Earth plays at the Grand Illusion daily, 7 and 9 p.m., through Thursday, July 30.