The Terrornauts which looks like it was shot on a budget for a real and not Walt Disney high school musical, is one of the quirkiest science fiction films ever made. That's in fact part of its charm, a Star Wars type budget would have killed this film.
Three British scientists who are on a project trying to communicate with other intelligent life forms out in space are about to get the plug pulled from their funding. They've got three months to get some results from their radio telescope or the foundation that funds them will cut them off.
One night working late, the scientists, Zena Marshall, Simon Oates and Stanley Meadows actually achieve a breakthrough. It's while suffering the presence of auditor Charles Hawtrey from their benefactor foundation. Even the lunch lady Patricia Jones is around. But the scientists get more than they bargain for when they're teleported to an asteroid where some civilization has left quite a space station outpost to contemplate.
The space station was put there by some civilization long extinct like the Krells to guard against an invader whose got some space ships heading for earth right now. The premise is similar to the one for The Last Starfighter.
What makes The Terrornauts fun and not some total Ed Wood type disaster is the presence of Charles Hawtrey and Patricia Jones. They're of absolutely no help whatsoever to the scientists except both as witnesses to what transpired and for comic relief to the audience. Hawtrey was on hiatus from the British Carry on series and in his droll fey way keeps the proceedings hysterical. He's aided and abetted by Jones who even though she's bewildered by what's going on, keeps a nice even keel about everything. They play beautifully against the oh so serious scientists.
The Terrornauts is a real sleeper of a science fiction film, a camp delight something Ed Wood would have liked to have had credited to his name. But just imagine if the scientists had not been teleported and it was just Hawtrey and Jones. Where would the world be then?
