Invasion of the Star Creatures (1962)

While digging thru my collection I found this movie in a pile of Midnite Movie DVDs. I wasn’t sure if I had ever watched it before but was interested because it was written by Jonathan Haze of Little Shop of Horrors fame. I figured why the heck not and popped it in right away. I did immediately remember watching it before but not much else.

Invasion of the Star Creatures is a comedy that pokes fun at the science fiction movies of the fifties and is an early attempt at parody. The story follows a pair of dense privates named Philbrick and Penn. They are assigned to a missile base and given the very important assignment of carrying supplies as a patrol goes out into the test range to investigate a cave that was exposed during a nuclear explosion. While they are loafing outside the patrol gets captured by the beautiful alien women and their plant monster slaves. Being the sort of soldiers they are Philbrick and Penn soon end up captured as well. Though they are lucky enough to discover the lady alien’s one weakness… kissing. With that they make a break for it and go for help. Some silliness and cultural insensitivity ensue until the pair return to stop the rocket ship from taking off with its report that Earth is primed for invasion.

For the most part this is an odd and utterly forgettable movie, which explains why I didn’t remember watching it. There isn’t much to this story, so it makes sense that it clocks in at around seventy minutes. Being a parody, this movie is a combination of silly sight gags that harken back to the bug-eyed alien movies mixed in with some vaudevillian type bits starring our two leads with mixed results.

Alien Babes!

As a parody Invasion of the Star Creatures does pretty well. They nail the household items repurposed into futuristic gizmos and dials for the control room of the alien base. I also thought the costumes on the female aliens as well as the adolescent fantasy of beautiful alien babes was captured and properly skewered here. They even managed to work the entrance of Bronson Cave into the movie. If you have watched low budget fifties flicks, I guarantee you have seen this before. But best of all were the plant men that were used as muscle for the aliens. The costumes are absurd and perfect if you are poking fun at the genre.

Plant Dudes!

The movie doubles down in its efforts to get some laughs. Philbrick and Pen come off as low rent versions of the Bowery Boys, specifically Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall. They do their best to pull this off and some of it is funny. But this isn’t the sort of thing that can sustain a movie, not even a short one. By the end some of the gags were already wearing thing. There is one particular bit where they are doing a “Scooby Doo” with people running in and out of tunnels and appearing out of order much like the hallway gag that the cartoon would use a few years later.

In the end I found Invasion of the Star Creatures to be a harmless movie that was worth an hour of my time. Will I remember it again in a couple of years? Probably not. I wouldn’t spend too much time trying to track down a copy. I know that Svengoolie plays this a lot on MeTV so if you have that network keep an eye out.

© Copyright 2019 John Shatzer

I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957)

It was only a matter of time that someone decided to use the most famous of mad scientists in a fifties movie. Considering that this is from the same studio that made I Was a Teenage Werewolf it makes total sense. Plus those loyal readers, I’m talking to both of you, you might remember the studio later reused both the mask from Werewolf and Frankenstein in another movie, How to Make a Monster (review here).

Dr. Frankenstein is researching organ transplants, or so he tells everyone that is what he is doing. Really, he is following in the footsteps of his famous ancestor and researching a way to create life out of spare body parts. When he and his assistant stumble on a car crash where one of the victims was thrown from the burning wreck, he takes the body and uses it as the basis for his monster. Repairing the damage, a leg and a couple of hands, from the remains of a high school athletes killed in another crash he finds himself with the perfect being.

Strong and fast the creature is brought to life after being assembled and learns to walk, talk, and becomes a typical rebellious teenager. Though here that ends in him “accidentally” strangling a lady! Dr. Frankenstein fixed everything but the monster’s face, which he uses to control it. Be good and get a nice new face. Things go wrong, people are tossed to the alligator in the basement, because that is a thing people had in the fifties? Nothing ends well for either the good doctor or his creation as the next generation of Frankenstein learns the lesson that you should never play God or leave a teenager unsupervised.

While I had seen I Was a Teenage Werewolf a lot over the years I’ve only seen this one a couple of times and I didn’t remember much about it. The story here is a bit thin, but the pacing is brisk and features some gruesome bits with arms and legs being removed. You even get to see some rubber appliances. For the fifties that is more explicit than you would normally expect to see. The design of the creature is goofy and not as fun as it could have been. They did a good job on the severed hands and leg, so by comparison the mask was disappointing. I did like the gag with them going shopping for a face at lover’s lane. They come back with a birdcage and when they pull back the cover you see a severed head! Really it was just the actor with his head sticking thru the table, but I liked it.

I also learned something from I Was a Teenage Frankenstein. The mad scientist/doctor Frankenstein is a jerk! When his fiancé learns too much about the experiment, he doesn’t send her away. Nope he has the creature strangle her and then tosses her to the alligator in his basement. Because again that is something that houses had in the fifties? When the monster insists on a new face does he go to the morgue for spare parts like he had in the past? Nope, they just go find one that he likes and murder the dude! This brings down the heat, so Frankenstein decides to sneak his creation out of the country, but passports are difficult to get and tickets for the Queen Mary are expensive. It is way easier to kill his creation, cut it up into pieces, and ship it to England for reanimation. Seriously Frankenstein is a dick!

This is a cheesy bit of fun that I’m going to recommend. It is certainly of the “B” movie variety but delivers the goods. The next time I just want to kick back with some silly monster action this will be on the list.

© Copyright 2019 John Shatzer