The Outer Limits Corpus Earthling (1963–1965) Online

At first, when two rubbery rocks on a shelf start talking to each other like Pinky and The Brain, I thought this was going to be the wooden spoon episode of the season. But once the alien possession plot begins in earnest, this episode quickly improves. In fact the last act is quite frighteningly intense and comes to a bravely downbeat conclusion.

Salome Jens gives a terrific performance. The alien creatures true form may be an obvious puppet but thanks to its scuttling quick movement, its appearances are good shock moments. The film noir look is perfectly achieved and helps make this low budget TV series look a lot more cinematic and scary. Far from the weakest, this has become one of my favourites of the first season.

It is very easy to laugh off this episode. After all, there are talking rocks! But, I recommend you give this one a chance--the acting is good and the writers did a lot with this one--making it one of the better episodes of "The Outer Limits".

"Corpus Earthling" begins with some strange rocks being brought in for some geologists to study. However, the structure of the stones is very odd--almost alien. Soon, an innocent guy (Robert Culp) comes by the lab and he HEARS the rocks talking to each other! And, they soon realize that there is something different about him--something that enables Culp to hear what they are saying--and it turns out to be a metal plate in his skull. So, they use their evil powers to try to get him to commit suicide--and when this doesn't work, they are able to control people to make them liquidate Culp! As I said, this all sounds rather silly. But, the show was masterful at taking silly ideas or low budgets and making them special. Truly this is an interesting and very exciting show--one you should see.

This episode was the last televised episode of the series prior to the assassination of President Kennedy; so we are talking about something that was televised quite a long time ago- in November 1963. A previous episode of this then new series had as a plot the removal of the President of the United States; which fortunately was broadcast BEFORE the terrible events in Dallas a few weeks later.

Anyway, it is interesting to see in this particular episode interior settings that were typical of that time (early to mid 1960s). Not a cell phone or PC in sight yet still quite livable and workable!

Salome Jens is quite lovely in this episode though she is billed as a "guest star"- which is somewhat odd considering the nature of this series. Anyway, she is quite attractive and even does the "slip" act where she undresses down to her slip; which is about as close to anything erotic they would allow actresses to do in movies and TV back then. She was quite a "peach" then and utterly believable as a newly wed (which I think she actually was then).

Robert Culp is also quite believable as a doctor with a metal plate in his head (which he actually was not nor did not have). The acting chemistry between Salome Jens and Robert Culp was quite good; so much so that one wonders if there was not actually something else going on behind the scenes. One would have to ask Salome Jens if that was, in fact, the case.

The plot is of interest- can rocks actually be intelligent? And, if so, could and would we know? And, if the rocks were intelligent, would they be benevolent or malevolent? The look at the historical lifestyles in this episode is a treat in its own right, but it also brings to mind the fact that even fifty years later ...well, no spoilers here, go ahead and watch the episode and see for yourself!!

Take the premise on paper—insidious, intelligent, parasitic creatures masquerading as rocks with a plan to take over the human species by infiltrating their bodies as host organisms—and it might be laughed right out of a room. But with the brilliant B&W noirish photography setting the ominous mood quite nicely (thanks to the master Conrad Hall), some eerie make-up effects on the humans "possessed" (Barry Atwater's make-up once the creature takes over his body is eerily similar to the ghouls in Herk Harvey's masterpiece, "Carnival of Souls"), and the unsettling nature for how the rocks turn into these ectoplasmic blob parasites that attach to hands before aiming for the faces of their victims, "Corpus Earthling" really transcends the potential silliness of the plot. Because the series "The Outer Limits" was so damned good and so well made, story lines that might seem ludicrous on their face are instead intellectually sound, strongly acted (in this episode's case, Outer Limits regular Robert Culp knocks it out of the ballpark as the tormented hero, a surgeon with a metal plate in his head who has the ability to hear the voices of those rock parasites and their sinister plans to rule the earth), and could really become quite intense, extremely suspenseful, and often quite thought-provoking due to the skilled cast and crew involved. I simply don't believe, anymore, that this show is overshadowed by "The Twilight Zone"…I think both shows stand equal to each other. Time, I think, has only helped this series become a more recognized sci-fi show, its storytelling and presentation of the material top-notch, mainly because, I think, those involved took strides to tell a disturbing story well, with a complete dedicated seriousness needed to get their point across by asking "What if…?"

The plot might seem like another rip from the "Body Snatchers" formula, I can't explain away such similarities because the bodies of those close to Culp are invaded and the hero, like Kevin McCarthy, seems to be on his own because who would believe his story? But it is all in the way this film is shot and acted that sets it apart from simply imitating the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Salome Jens deserves mention for a fine, subtle performance as Lab Assistant to Atwater's geologist, Laurie, Culp's loyal, loving wife, who carefully acknowledges that worry of her husband's possible fractured psyche, but faithful enough to follow him as he decides to go on the lam. Her fate offers a looming melancholy that perhaps Culp's life will never recover from what he has witnessed and must endure for the sake of all mankind. The ending doesn't offer a definite conclusion that we will remain safe from terror…

After a laboratory mishap leaves him with a concussion, rock scientist Robert Culp (as Paul Cameron) begins hearing the voices of two rocks, positioned on a shelf in the lab. They wobble for the camera, but go unnoticed by Mr. Culp, assistant wife Salome Jens (as Laurie) and geologist colleague Barry Atwater (as Jonas Temple). Culp thinks they may be diabolical life-forms from another planet, seeking to parasitically take over the bodies of humans, or a paranoiac reaction to his concussion and the upper metal plate in his head (holding him "together" after a brain injury). This is a typically excellent "Outer Limits" episode, featuring great direction by Gerd Oswald and wonderful photography by Conrad Hall, who give lovers of the female figure an arousing look at Ms. Jens in her slip.

******** Corpus Earthling (11/18/63) Gerd Oswald ~ Robert Culp, Salome Jens, Barry Atwater, Ken Renard

The geologist Dr. Jonas Temple keeps two rocks in his laboratory without knowing that they are indeed alien invaders that plan to slave the human race. When Dr. Paul Cameron, who has a metal plate implanted in his skull, arrives at Temple´s laboratory, he overhears the conversation of the alien rocks. They try to force Cameron to commit suicide, but he is saved by his wife Laurie. Cameron believes he is deranged and travels to rest with Laurie to Tijuana in a second honeymoon. But the rocks sends D. Temple to hunt them down.

"Corpus Earthling" is so far the silliest episode of "The Outer Limits". The idea of alien beings that resemble rocks does not work. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Corpus Terreno" ("Corpus Earthling")

A doctor played by Robert Culp is injured when he is the only one present in a lab for the study of rock strata. Soon he realizes he is hearing messages from where he isn't sure. He already has a plate in his head and the uncertainty of what is real and imagined prompts his wife to arrange a "lost weekend" of sorts as a getaway.

The professor who runs the lab is attacked by one of two strange rocks he has been studying. He becomes a drone of the alien rocks whose mission is to hunt down and kill the doctor. The professor finds the doctor's wife and she is also attacked by one of the rocks. As the doctor returns from a short supply run he finds his wife is physically altered, not his wife at all anymore. The doctor flees only to decide to return to try to save his wife if that is possible. As he is left to attempt to aid his ailing wife the professor enters and shots him. The doctor doesn't die, but engages in a battle with the professor who as he is killed by the doctor morphs back into himself as the rock alien escapes the dead host. When his wife becomes conscious she attempts to kill the doctor forcing him to shot her. Again the rock flees the host body. The doctor decides he must save his wife and, hopefully, kill the alien by burning the hacienda. This in spite of the seemingly mind-control force of the alien rock. We're led to believe that the doctor and his wife may have survived...But, we can't be sure.

While not an outstanding episode "Corpus Earthling" explores the thin line between what is unimaginable and real fearlessly. The way the story is presented is with a shroud of mystery and heavy foreboding of fear. It works for the most part as Culp and company play it straight with constant mysteriousness. Well worth a look because, it would seem, The Outer Limits has no limit as to what humanity can be faced with. Something alien powering mind-control with that twist that is a trademark of this series.

The "OL" episode that I reacquainted myself with over the weekend is my personal favorite of the entire series, and one that producer Joseph Stefano once said he thought was so frightening that, after he initially watched it, he wished he could refuse to show it on TV. And it really IS the scariest "OL" of the bunch, for my money. The episode is "Corpus Earthling," in which Mr. Outer Limits himself, Robert Culp, stars in his second of three appearances. (Culp had already appeared in the Season 1 masterpiece "The Architects of Fear" and would go on to appear in what is perhaps the finest hour of Season 2, "Demon With a Glass Hand.") Here, he plays a doctor who has a metal plate in his head, the result of a war injury, which enables him to hear the sinister conversation that is taking place between two rock samples in his wife's geology workplace. These rocks soon take over geology lab worker Barry Atwater, who follows Culp and his wife (statuesque blonde Salome Jens) to Mexico, to which the couple has fled. In one of the scariest sequences in TV history, and one that is highly reminiscent of a similar scene in 1956's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," Culp discovers that his wife has been zombified by the rock creatures herself, and is now looking decidedly ghoulish. This episode features an amazingly high degree of paranoia and a downbeat ending that is fairly devastating. Culp is simply tremendous in the lead role, and the FX in the episode are of a fairly impressive order. Television surely has rarely been more chilling than this. I just love this episode to bits....

A bunch of talking rocks. I just can't get past it. Unfortunately, the creatures look a bit like lumps of tar flavored Jello. They are apparently set on taking over the world, one person at a time. They can transform themselves into silly looking spider like creatures. They have the ability to control minds which would lead one to believe that they could be more efficient. Robert Culp is the one that can make out their verbal offerings and starts to go bananas, running off with his wife to Tijuana. Unfortunately, they are able to follow him there. He must deal with paranoia and the deaths of a friend. The good part of this has to do with the atmosphere developed, particularly in the latter portion of the show. One thing that I couldn't put aside is that there is a sort of narration remindful of "The Attack of the Crab Monsters." For those of you who remember that classic film.

Talking rocks in 1963? Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea did talking rock monsters in 1967 with the episode: The Fossil Men. Which series did the idea the best?

Limits used a better voice artist for the talking rock but Voyage did the whole thing in a more easy going/childish way. Voyage wins to me but both shows are cool..however I think most others would like the Limits take on the theme the best.

We are now nine episodes into this series and all nine episodes have had something of interest. The series in nearly always good with only about six stinkers in the whole 49 episode run.

Robert Culp stars as Dr. Paul Cameron, who inadvertently learns of an alien invasion being planned by two sentient rocks(really polymorphic alien parasites with the ability to control minds and assault, then take over human bodies as hosts) when a lab explosion gives him a concussion. After leaving the hospital, Paul takes his wife(and lab assistant) Laurie to Mexico, where a colleague of theirs(played by Barry Atwater) has been possessed by one of the alien rocks, and wants to get them both, before taking on the world... Good acting and atmosphere just about mask the vague plot and silly premise, though this is still quite grim and serious.