My dad (he’s 79) has been asking me to find a movie he saw in the theater back in the 1950’s, but I’ve never heard of it and have had no luck in finding it. He believes the name of the film was “No Man” or something to that affect. He said it was a low budget sci fi film about an android hunting down the last half dozen or so humans left alive on earth. He couldn’t remember any of the actors, only that the android just looked like a regular man, no makeup or special effects that he could remember. He also said he read somewhere that Stephen King claims the film scared him so much that he wanted to write his own horror stories.
It must be Robot Monster, but it is no classic.
Wow, how did I not know this?? I’ve probably seen this a dozen times as a kid and I never considered this as the movie my dad has been talking about for years. I just looked up the imdb, and lo and behold, the creature was called “ro-man”, which has to be where my dad got “no-man”. He did literally say he remembered it being a “cheesy” movie; at least it’s available on youtube so he can watch it through his roku. I really appreciate everyone who helps with the searches on this site. I’ve actually been trying in my spare time to answer some of the questions posted by others, but apparently I’m not nearly as knowledgeable about films as I’d like to think I am.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Monster
Yes, Stephen King said Robot Monster was one of his favorite ‘bad’ movies in his non- fiction book Danse Macabre.
Solved! Don’t feel bad, Robot Monster didn’t immediately occur to me from the description. “the android just looked like a regular man” is, uh, misleading… Ro-man’s bizarre appearance may be the film’s most memorable part! Plus I never would have guessed it scared a young Stephen King. Memory is a crazy thing.
No, it didn’t scare Mr. King, he just said he laughed his ass off after watching it while stoned!
My dad will be 80 in 3 months; his memory isn’t the greatest. We actually just finished watching it on youtube through Roku about 20 mins ago. My 27 year old son, just back 3 days ago from a 10 year stint in the marines, watched it with us while laughing and throwing out RiffTrax-type commentary. My dad said he “paid 25 cents to see this movie”, and that it probably didn’t cost $50,000 to make it, to which my son and I responded with our much MUCH lower budget estimates lol. Cheesy movie, but the short time we spent watching and ripping on it together is an experience we’ll cherish forever.