With its obvious anti-war messages based around the atom bomb, first dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, woods experiences in World War 2 and his time spent enlisted in the marines, add dimension to the plot lacking in so many B-Movies of the same era, although this dimension is poorly delivered and sits uneasily in a monologue. Wood’s films are often identified by these face to camera monologues which adds wait to his depiction as an outsider and theorists essays charting his filming techniques as tools to depict outsider elements of society.

Woods films are elevated above the Sci-Fi B-movies of the 70’s to current day because his love for the genre’s he works in (i.e. the horror and sci-fi, not the B-Movie). His passion shines through the cracks left from his lack of technical ability. Woods love for film is outstanding, and is expressed subtlety unlike modern horror/zombie B-Movies.

Images such as the car hubcap/pie dish flying saucers have become icons of 50’s B-Movies and have become parodied in film such as Tim Burtons Mars Attacks! This among other filmic references through modern cinema history (from episodes of Sienfeld to its porn remake “plan 69 from outer space”) and its colourization and re-release in 2005, have helped to secure this film as an icon. Although this film is not an example of the Sci-Fi Genre at its best it is a monolith in the Sci-Fi B-Movie Genre.