User reviews

A mentally ill prisoner, through some sort of yogic meditation, manages to make himself invisible and escapes. As a child, he'd been unwanted by his celebrity mother, who nevertheless kept him close to her and didn't let him create a life of his own. He had strangled her, and apparently other women, giving him the nickname of "the celebrity strangler."

Having escaped, he goes after celebrity women who had testified against him. The police, having learned he was into reading mystical books in prison, for some reason contracted a para-psychological institute. The institute thinks perhaps the strangler is killing women by astrally projecting himself. In reality, he's merely strangling them while he is invisible (and naked). He nearly gets caught when to reach one woman, he has to don a scuba suit to get out to her boat. It's more interesting when he manages to strangle a woman in front of many witnesses simply because they don't realize what is going on. Eventually, a trap is set for him.

I kind of wonder if this was originally done as a TV movie, perhaps as a pilot. There doesn't seem to have been any reason for introducing the lead cop's girlfriend/wife Candy and the psychics unless they were to return in subsequent episodes.

It's not very good, but it's not terrible.

Forget about the nonsensical other title "The Astral Factor"… In just two words, "Invisible Strangler" perfectly summarizes what this low-keyed 70's Sci-Fi horror movie is all about! There's a strangler on the loose and he happens to be invisible, which makes it all the more easier to practice his macabre hobby of killing beauty queens. The lamentable screenplay doesn't really bother to enlighten us about how exactly mommy-obsessed psychopath Roger Sands renders himself invisible or why he goes after five women specifically. All we know is that he spent more than enough time in prison to gain supernatural powers and, after his escape, he uses them against everyone who testified in his court trial. There's absolutely no mystery surrounding the serial killer's persona. For example, macho police lieutenant Barrett (Robert Foxworth) doesn't discover the connection between the strangled victims himself; he just hears that Roger Sands peculiarly escaped from his cell and automatically assumes he's the culprit. And since we're never informed about the crimes that put Roger in prison the first place, it remains unclear exactly how obsessive his quest for vengeance is. Most of all, nobody seems to be really astonished about the fact they're dealing with an invisible maniac! Like it's the most common thing in the world to witness a woman, surrounded by an army of police officers, getting strangled by invisible hands! The lack of background info and character drawings makes "Invisible Strangler" a suspenseless and often tedious film, and it's really no surprise it took another five years after finishing the film before it got released. However, it's a not a complete waste of time, since the murders – albeit gore-free – are sometimes imaginatively staged. The film is also (unintentionally) comical because the characters often say the craziest things at the most inappropriate times. Especially Candy, the luscious girlfriend of lieutenant Barett, appear to live in another universe, as she wishes her lover to have fun catching his maniac. She's also the world's absolute worst cook and doesn't like to wear pants. Candy hasn't got anything to do with the murder investigation, so it's rather awkward Stefanie Powers received top billing for her role. Then again, it certainly isn't the only awkward aspect about "Invisible Stranger". Why is Roger the killer so obsessed with his mother? How come becoming invisible is reminiscent to a bad-quality TV broadcasting? Why on earth does Roger not abuse his power to spy on them naked ladies before killing them? Why am I asking so much questions about a bottom-of-the-barrel 70's horror production?

The Astral Factor is about a psychopath, imprisoned for murdering his mother, who somehow learns how to make himself invisible by studying books while incarcerated in a hospital for the criminally insane. Needless to say, he escapes and goes on a killing spree.

This one begins quite well in all fairness but it soon gets somewhat tedious. The storyline is such a bad basic idea you have to wonder how the likes of it ever got as far as to be given the green light for an actual movie. Well, while it was made as film, it seemingly sat on a shelf for near enough ten years before actually being released. It's really not all that surprising to be perfectly honest. While the story is pretty terrible, it's not really that that is the chief problem. Sometimes bad stories make for good films after all. No the issue is probably that, with very few exceptions, movies about invisible men are almost always terrible. What can be more cinematically tedious than an invisible character? What it does mean though, is there are some very silly murder scenes which I guess could provide some laughs I suppose. But for me the best aspects about this one were the appearances of Elke Sommer and Stephanie Powers. Sommer starred in a few interesting cult films in the 70's and her presence is always welcome, while it was strange to see future 'Hart To Hart' TV star Powers cavorting about with her butt exposed. She played the detective's trophy wife! She does zero housework and spends all his hard earned cash. She and Sommer were at the very least interesting diversions in a film in need of them.

This budget "Boogie Man" film was just that.

I thought this movie was worth watching. Elke Sommer shows some nice cleavage and we get to see Stephanie Powers naked butt. That almost is worth it by itself.

This is definitely midnight movie fare, but I thought it told a story of an invisible stalker that was almost convincing. This movie embodies the flavor of 1970's budget movies. Stephanie Powers is fun as the cops playful girlfriend. Elke Sommer gets to be the drunk mean witch. The ending left something to be desired, as we really don't know what happened to the boogie man.

I think this was worth watching. 6/10

The Astral Factor contains dialogue that limps its way through the plot. The cast is full of actors I've enjoyed watching on screen for years but none of them managed to get past the wooden interaction of the characters. The dialogue is just that bad. This movie is so stilted in places that it competes with my all time really bad but fun favorite, "The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes."

This one in my opinion is a little bit to bad for casual weeknight watching. Elke Sommers character, however, has the correct idea by only appearing on screen with a drink in her hand. This is good advice for anyone interested in watching this gem on a Saturday night. Heck, with enough scotch and soda and the near nude scenes of Stephanie Powers to help it out; you might like it.

The guy has a mommy complex similar to Norman Bates, saying "hello mother" when he kills - invisibly kills that is. Yep this guy has found the key to invisibility somewhere.

It really is like a very cheap 1970s cop show - one of those that is easily forgotten about because no one cared enough to watch it or remember. It's that bad.

I got this dud in Mill Creek's Sci-Fi Classics 50-Pack. I was hoping that this would be a hidden rough gem - but it's just a plain old rock. If you skip this one, you will not miss a thing. OK one thing maybe, I saw Powers' butt cheeks when she bent over in that pink shirt she was wearing... like I really cared to see that - but some of you might.

2/10

Incarcerated killer learns to transcend existential boundaries and temporarily abscond from his gaol cell, preying on a vast array of glamorous former Hollywood starlets. Detective Foxworth is baffled by the apparent lack of physical evidence, and begins to speculate on a supernatural cause. Aside from an original premise and a great cast of former 60's sexpots (Powers, Lyon, Hill, Sommer and Parrish), with names like 'Bambi' and 'Candy', there's not much right with this tepid mystery.

Mother fixated killer Ashmore does little other than look constipated, perspire and affect intense mind grips, while Foxworth's perplexed expression suggests he's struggling with the concept of the killer's meta-physical abilities. As an audience, it was also a struggle to remain engaged, as the movie laboured from one murder to the next seemingly without selection or purpose. Powers is entirely irrelevant to the plot, a vexatious waste of talent simply for the status her name brings to the dull production. Whatever value the original idea had, it quickly evaporates, the all too brief cameos being the only partially redeeming qualities.

Wasting an attractive cast, "Invisible Strangler" has invisible special effects, paltry production values and incoherent dialogue to match its laborious narrative approach. Female viewers will be less concerned with the bevy of babes on show, and more appalled by the blatant misogyny of the storyline. A disappointing revision of "The Invisible Man" borrows heavily from "Psychic Killer" released a year earlier in 1975, and should have been so much more entertaining.

This is just like most of the television of the 1970's. Boring. This is about revenge and invisibility. The invisible guy is after a group of stunning women (including Elke Sommer) because of issues with the opposite sex and some Freudian stuff. I don't think Robert Foxworth ever made anything worth watching and this is no exception. Another downer is his assistant, a gum chewing idiot who doesn't follow orders and tries to be cool. I kept waiting for Captain Kirk to be waiting for the invisible guy, because he used the same sparkly stuff to become invisible as the Star Trek guys did when they beamed down. The acting is so wooden and there is so little true give and take, it's like they were reading from a blurry script.

I don't understand how you can take some fairly decent actors and make a film that a film student would be ashamed of doing. It had lines through it, as perhaps it was taken from someone's shelf, turned into a DVD with no clean up, and sold. Luckily my copy was with a 6 disc box of "Blood Chillers". Apparently they forgot to preview it before they added it to the collection. Who knows? Perhaps someone's relative was in it!! They story line itself was promising, but Robert Foxworth spent the entire movie overacting, Mark Slade was typecast as the "college boy" with no police skills AND who chewed gum even while eating his hot dog. What kind of Lieutenant on the police force has a hot dog?

That sums up this film...Foxworth being the severely overacted hot dog.

A convicted strangler, studying the paranormal in his jail cell, learns to make himself invisible. As an invisible man, he escapes from prison to stalk and strangle the five women who testified against him at his trial.

This film is interesting in that it seems to be like "The Invisible Man" or "Hollow Man", as it follows a criminal who can become transparent. But the plot is quite different -- he can turn solid or clear through the power of his mind, and is actually already in prison when the film begins. This does not involve any sort of scientific experiment, but rather more of a spiritual ("astral") approach.

Although this is a low-budget crime mystery thriller, it is certainly entertaining and better than I would have expected. I actually found it pretty clever, and really enjoyed the unique angle. Does the killer leave fingerprints? How does he turn his clothes invisible?

Although I saw the movie on Netflix, it is readily available for anyone who wants to track it down. The DVD has been released into cheap box sets and I think you might even be able to watch it for free online. Whether or not it deserves a new DVD or BD release with features is debatable, and if it is in the public domain, it would probably be hard to convince anyone to do that.

Bonus: Genre fans might be happy to see Elke Sommer ("Lisa and the Devil") and Marianna Hill ("The Baby").

... have a character (Detective Holt played by Mark Slade) repeat an annoying habit (retractable pen clicking) throughout the movie without reason, reproach, or comedy payoff (eg killer jams it into Holt's ear).

Though it reeks of schlock, it did have semi-interesting story and effects, but, not enough to overcome Holt (Slade).

----------------- 1 Deliberately bad 2 I don't want to see it 3 I didn't finish and or FF'd through it 4 Bad 5 I don't get it 6 Good 7 Great but with a major flaw 8 Great 9 Noir with moral 10 Inspiring with moral.

This movie is kind of like the more famous 70's cult horror film "Psychic Killer" in that it deals with a prisoner who develops psychic powers which he uses to escape and take revenge on his enemies. But while in that movie the convict was an innocent man taking well-deserved revenge, the psychic killer here is a grade-A lunatic out to finish the job. In an interesting back-story he is revealed to be the disturbed illegitimate son of a famous actress/sex symbol who kept him isolated from her social circle to avoid scandal, and ended up being strangled by him. (This might have been inspired by the real-life Hollywood murder of B-movie actress Susan Cabot in the 1960's, allegedly by her troubled, illegitimate dwarf son). It's never really made clear whether his psychic "powers" actually involve astral projection(thus the alternate title "The Astral Factor") or if he is simply able to appear invisible somehow (thus "The Invisible Strangler"). The inept cops are powerless to stop him regardless, even when he is obviously in non-"astral" form and has rendered himself decidedly visible by putting on a scuba suit.

What really makes this movie though is the all-star cast(or, as some wag might say, the "all has-been and never-would-be cast"). The lead detective is played by Robert Foxworth, who appeared most memorably in the ridiculous 70's mutant bear/environmental horror flick "Prophecy". German actress Elke Sommers appears as a "special guest star" (as opposed to the other actors who were apparently "regulars"). She plays a sexy former "Miss Galaxy" who the cops try to protect while she lounges around her mansion in skimpy bikinis. Sue "Lolita" Lyon has a five minute role as an early victim without uttering a word of dialogue (which is probably for the best as acting was never her strong suit). Mariana Hill ("Mrs. Fredo Corleone" in "The Godfather Part II") appears also, in accordance with an apparent law that she had to appear in every low-budget exploitation/horror movie made in the 70's and early 80's. The best though is Stefanie "Hart to Hart" Powers, who is VERY sexy as Foxworth's bimbo girlfriend "Candy". She routinely refers to herself in the third person, and buys herself an expensive fur coat on HIS birthday (which he doesn't object to since she's obviously wearing absolutely nothing underneath it). Some will probably tune in for Powers' "nude scene" (if you don't blink you might get to see the top part of her bare butt), but frankly her whole performance is downright wood-inducing (even if, like me, you don't usually go for the whole Marilyn Monroesque dumb bimbo thing). So what, if her entire character is completely superfluous. . .

This actually seems kind of like a 70's TV movie or series episode--it would not have been out of place as an episode of "Kolchack, the Night Stalker" actually. But since I like "Kolchack" and 70's TV movies I found it pretty satisfying overall if, admittedly, not all that great.

This movie concerns itself with a young man named "Roger Sands" (Frank Ashmore) who has special mental powers which he uses for his own deranged purposes. For example, at the beginning of the film he happens to see a beautiful young woman and proceeds to follow her into her apartment while he is invisible. He then walks into her bathroom while she is bathing and strangles her to death. Naturally, when her body is discovered this draws the attention of the police chief who assigns a detective named "Lt. Charles Barrett" (Robert Foxworth) and "Sergeant Holt" (Mark Slade) to investigate. Even though they have no idea how the murderer managed to get into the apartment they find a fingerprint belonging to Roger Sands and realize that they have a serial killer on their hands who has unique abilities which they don't quite fully comprehend as of yet. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this movie definitely had some potential but due to a couple of lackluster scenes here and there didn't quite achieve it. It also had several notable actresses to include Stefanie Powers (as "Candy Barrett"), Elke Sommer ("Chris Hartman"), and Leslie Parrish ("Colleen Hudson") but except for Stefanie Powers their performances were rather weak as well. In short, this film should have been much better and because of that I have rated it accordingly. Average.

Roger Sands, a mentally disturbed murderer jailed in an asylum for the murder of his overbearing mother, has developed the psychic ability to become invisible. Walking out of his jail cell, he begins strangling those who helped convict him. Police officers attempt to stop him but find themselves outclassed by his powers.

The Astral Factor was originally made in 1976 but sat on a shelf for years before being released in 1984. There are currently two different versions of the film – the original & the re-edited version known as Invisible Strangler, which has a completely reshot beginning & different characters & effects. Both are available on DVD or on YouTube.

But regardless of which version you watch, The Astral Factor is a very poor film. The story is interesting enough but the execution of it is mind-numbingly dull. The pace is slow & the very few action scenes featured are boring as heck. The visual effects are cheaply done & there are boom mikes present in many shots.

Yes, that pen-clicking detective was annoying. But when Barret took the pen away from him, HE started clicking it. Personally I would have taken the pen away from him and thrown it away. The only humorous part was when Barrett tried to eat the birthday cake Candy made for him. Apparently it was a sponge cake made from a real sponge.

I got my copy from the same 20 Blood Chilling Classics set that someone else mentioned. So far, the black and white movies are looking better than the color movies (except maybe for The Terror featuring an early appearance by Jack Nicholson).

I think this movie ranks at about the same level as The Galaxy Invader (also from the same set) about drunken rednecks chasing a space alien.

That way everyone knows you are coming.

Formula movie as part of the 50 Movie Pack Sci-Fi Classics DVD collections. Yes, I know it is just another invisible strangler movie (title: The Astral Factor).

The story is of a deranged killer that has to kill anyone the looks like his mother. To look like his mother all you have to do is look female and be in the tabloids. He was well pinned in a maximum-security nut house until he discovered astral projection and another Para-psychic phenomenon. On the loose and invisible (do not we wish we all were) he is free to do the deed with impunity. However hot on his trail is Lt. Charles Barrett who suspects he is up against something more than your standard nutters.

The only redeeming value of this movie is the many actors that were not quite over the hill at the time this movie was made yet were persuaded to take part:

Robert Foxworth as Lt. Charles Barrett (The Questor Tapes (TV movie) - Questor) Stefanie Powers as Candy Barrett (Paper Man (TV movie) - Karen McMillan) Elke Sommer as Chris Hartman (A Shot in the Dark - Maria Gambrelli)

Starts out well enough and then goes into complete foolishness. Sue Lyon's drowning scene is the only interesting part. We get introduced to characters only for them to die, unknowingly by an insane murderer who practised how to be invisible in his jail cell, complete with "how to" books!! This is really enough to avoid this film!

First things first, no one should watch mid-70s supernatural police procedurals for their aesthetic rigor. No, you won't find that in these films. Instead, you'll find Stephanie Powers in a mink coat with Farrah hair, while Robert Foxworth rocks the Jewfro (he's probably not even Jewish) and everyone drives around in cars the size of a small house.

Elke Sommers has a strange bowl haircut that makes her look like either the Fourth Stooge or perhaps the sole Swedish Stooge. She drinks poolside, throwing herself at Robert, who refuses her. (We forgive him. Stephanie's at home, after all.) Oh, the killer? The plot? Those details hardly matter in this film. Suffice it to say, there is a killer. He kills woman by strangling them, either invisibly or telekinetically. This is all upfront and revealed, for me, by the title THE INVISIBLE STRANGLER, which is the name of this movie on Netflix.

Ultimately, murder is just an excuse for Robert Foxworth and his sidekick and hot babes to drive around and eat meals and say things to each other. I loved this movie. I heartily recommend it, unless you're a filmic artiste or a heavily aesthetic voyeur of existential-revelation masterworks. In that case, you probably want something more substantial.

Low rent almost TV movie starring Robert Foxworth, Elke Summer, Stephanie Powers and others from TV about a man who can kill people by astrally projecting himself. He escapes from prison and the continues his evil ways. Foxworth is the cop on his trail.

Its bad 1970's low budget film making where everyone no doubt did it for the pay check.(Hey back in the 70's there were lots of tax lop holes that got some ghastly films like this made. The regrettable thing is that films were then set loose on the unsuspecting public.) Not worth your time. For insomniacs only-even if it is in the 99 cent bin-or even if you get it for free.