EDITOR’S NOTE: War of the Satellites was on Chiller Theater on Sunday, May 3, 1964 at 11:10 p.m., Saturday, September 7, 1968 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, July 5, 1969 at 1:00 a.m.

My mom was nine when Sputnik went up into space and she said that people were so afraid of what it was and yet it was the size of a basketball. Roger Corman took those fears and made this movie in which a space barrier from the Spiral Nebula Ghana is destroying the satellites of the United National space program. They plan on quarantining humanity to Earth and not letting us into space, which seriously is a good idea because we tend to destroy everything we touch.

Dr. Pol Van Ponder (Richard Devon) plans on leading a mission into space but a ball of light destroys his car. The crew still goes, including Dave (Dick Miller) and Sybil (Susan Cabot). Yes, Dick Miller is the hero.

Well, Van Ponder comes back to life but he’s really an alien and he can make multiple versions of himself. He even tries to shut down the rocket going into space but Dave gives a speech that gets the world back into going into the unknown, even if the aliens are making natural disasters happen everywhere.

As you can imagine, the only way that we can realize our manifest destiny in space is to murder aliens. Good news. Human beings are awesome at killing. Dick Miller rises to the challenge and beats one of the Van Ponders into oblivion, then we go to space and leave litter all over Saturn.

The spaceship in this is two lounge chairs and a background. The future does not look all that forward. The always happy Miller told Fangoria, “We had two of the best lounge chairs money could buy to take off for the moon in. The type where you hit the sides and the chair slides down into a lying-down position.”

This played double features with Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.

You can watch this on Tubi.