Invisible Invaders/Journey to the Seventh Planet review by The Grim Ringler

For some reason I get the impression that there was some kind of contract made with the devil that made it so that actor John Agar was in almost every sci-fi movie from the fifties and early sixties. I have no proof, but I mean, how is it that this man, this stone-faced giant, ended up starring in so many movies. Which isn’t to say he is a bad actor, but just that, well, he isn’t good either. He just sorta is. And I love him for that fact. The funny thing was that over the course of a weekend during the summer I watched like six sci-fi movies from the fifties and Agar was in four of them. Good grief! Ahhh, Agar! Anyway, what we have here is yet another of the MGM Midnight Movie sets in which they release obscure but oft times fun gems from their vaults for about ten bucks and you, yes you, get to bask in their cathode ray warmth. This time around we have two Agar nail-biters strapped together for better or awesome. But, are they really worth the ten bucks?

Invisible Invaders is a pretty darned effective little shocker that has the earth under attack from invaders from space that are able to make themselves invisible in order to move around. To attack though the fiends possess the bodies of the dead and begin a deadly assault on the earth. As the world goes to war against these seemingly unstoppable enemies three people, a scientist, a military man, and the usual sultry dish must find a way to defeat these monstrous moon-men before it’s too late.

All in all this is easily the better of the two films. Well made and with a very creepy premise this one is an old school sci-fi classic waiting to get discovered. The use of the living dead is very well done as well, having them be the shambling, mindless things we have come to expect over the years. While we never quite get the sense that the world is in danger, being that this seems like a rather low budget film, the film still does raise some chills with the invaders themselves as all you are allowed to see are their footprints until the end, and eeesh, I can’t blame them for staying hidden. Sadly, like most old horror/sci-fi movies, they build up a lot of steam just to kinda putter out at the end, and this is no different. The ending is good, and is effective, but it’s like, as soon as the plot is closed, that’s it, everybody off the set, no denouement, no anything, just The End! Oh well, it’s still a heck of a good movie and one that I hope gets more notice now that it’s on DVD.

Journey to the Seventh Planet, sadly, is not so good. Set in the future, which, well, you know, you have to do once in a while as the present is so boring since we still don’t have personal jet-packs, this finds a crew of astronauts sent to the planet Uranus to see what the planet is like and to study what they can. Oddly enough what they find there is a weird Danish village complete with hot women that live there and are hungry for some man love. While the astronauts think it’s a bit odd that there should be a village here they all try to make the best of it, poor guys, and work on their research as they attempt to avoid these space sluts. It gets harder to avoid these women though as they are all from these men’s pasts, each one holding tightly to a piece of each man’s past, and suddenly they are uncertain what is going on, as if the village wasn’t enough to make them suspicious. What they don’t know is that there is a malevolent intelligence hiding deep in the planet that has created these phantom women and that can do far more, and is by using these men’s memories to lull them into a soft-bodied stupor so it can use them to get to earth and take over our planet, now that the old monster is bored with Uranus.

Like I said, of the two, this is the weaker. It’s so weird though that it does have a certain charm, and the idea that there are all these hotties on Uranus is a nice thought. Alas, the acting is really bad and the story has enough holes to make you think they landed on the moon. It’s filmed well though, and the monster is pretty interesting, and damn, for a silly movie, it has a pretty huge downer of an ending that really sold me on it. I wouldn’t buy it by itself but it makes for a nice Agar bonus to the other, better film, Invis. Invaders.

Like most of the MGM sets, this is another great disc, and heck, for ten dollars you get two fun movies with good transfers and ummm, trailers, and ya can’t beat that. Right on! Have an Agar-riffic day!

…c…




7 out of 10 Jackasses
blog comments powered by Disqus