The Gods Hate Lousy Sci-Fi!

They Came From Beyond Space is truly a bad movie, painfully illogical and woefully conceptualized it falls short on the big idea front and also on the level of simple movie fabrication. It's apparently widely considered a bad movie and I add my two cents in favor of that consensus.

Based on a story I've never read by Jospeh J. Millard titled The Gods Hate Kansas, this movie lacks even the evocative snap of that delightfully perverse title. They Came From Beyond Space means almost nothing and is dreary at the same time.

The story begins in a farmer's field in England when some meteoroids land in a recognizable "V" formation. This causes the authorities to tap Dr.Curtis Temple (Robert Hutton), an "expert" on alien life to come check it out. He can't because he's still recovering from a car accident which resulted in a silver plate being put into his skull. (And yes of course that's a key plot point.) Instead his combo lab assistant and love interest Lee Mason (Jennifer Jaye) goes to head up the research which goes off the rails almost immediately when disembodied aliens lurking inside the meteoroids latch onto the science team as hosts and take over their wills. Then things get really wonky. Temple doesn't hear anything and goes to investigate and is run off at gunpoint. Not taking any hint whatsoever he keeps driving his robustly loud antique car down to the farm and keeps getting sent off with his tail  between his legs.

Next while in the local town a plague breaks out which kills people and leaves a hideous red rash. The government then  seizes control sort of, but Temple keeps on keeping on trying to get into the now busy base established at the farm. He eventually sees a rocket launched to the Moon, the same location they'd established had been the source of the meteoroids. He eventually gets inside the base which resembles a vintage Irwin Allen set and in the face of all logic escapes with his girlfriend who is not out from under the influence. Then he gets his buddy (before now unseen and unmentioned) and the three of them safely ensconced with silver laden helmets go back to confront the aliens and end up headed for the Moon where they meet the Master of the Moon (Michael Gough) and show they that the alien plan really won't work. The aliens accept that and it ends.

Sigh.

See what I mean. There is endless running about and when the climax does finally arrive, it is fizzled away in barmy discussion which doesn't even really make sense on its own merits.

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Radiation Theater - Invisible Invaders!

Invisible Invaders from 1959 is a hilariously wild and funny science fiction flick which blends radiation with zombies and alien invaders to create a heady brew. It pretends to be a moralistic tale about the desperate nature of nuclear weapons but what it really is, is a booster film for war yahoos everywhere.

A respected scientist named Professor Noymann (John Carradine) is blown up by a beaker of atomic stuff and at his funeral his colleague Dr.Penner (Paul Tonge) has doubts about the use of nuclear energy for defense. His daughter Phyllis (Jean Byron) is by his side as well as his protege Dr. Lamont (Robert Hutton). When the reanimated corpse of Noymann shows up at Penner's door to tell him the Earth is doomed, he sends Lamont to Washington to pass the word and he is immediately ridiculed.

Then the Invaders start killing people in stock footage accidents and using the reanimated corpses to pass along additional warnings at hockey games (believe it or not) and sports stadiums. Eventually the world believes thee is a threat as stock footage fires break out all across the world. The three folks we've already met are shuttled to an undisclosed location by Major Bruce Jay (John Agar) to help develop a defense against the Invaders who are invisible when not animating the dead.

They putter about with Jay and Lamont getting into sundry pissing contests with Lamont coming across usually as a cowardly wimp. That leaves he-man Jay to win the evident affections of the largely useless Phyllis. Eventually of course they figure a counter to the threat, but not before they do a ton of stupid things in a myriad of stupid ways.

This is a stupid movie, made for a song but it is reasonably well cast. It is directed by Edward Cahn but it doesn't feel that far away really from the notorious Plan 9 From Outer Space by the exotic Edward Wood. In fact if both of them weren't from the same year, I'd suspect Wood had seen this one. This one has better acting and stronger set design, but the limited way they constrain the action to a few interior sets and some unconvincing countryside makes for a very static looking movie.

Agar plays his generally annoyed character while Hutton always looks like he's trying to think  of his next line. I think he's going for pensive, but it doesn't always work. There's countless oddities in this movie, but I'll let you discover those for yourself. This one should be seen by anyone who likes an entertaining bad movie.

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