Strange Invaders
Sci fi alien invasion movies of The 1950s were elegant parables of such things as a possible nuclear holocaust and the dangers of Communism, often carried to ridiculous extents with the help of cheesy special effects and even cheesier acting, mildly entertaining most people of that time but with the exception of a couple of true hardcore classics, really contributing next to nothing to the cinematic landscapes both then and now. In 1983, this shameless tribute to those types of films was produced with very heavy inspiration being taken from Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (one of those aforementioned hardcore classics) as well as I Married A Monster From Outer Space (which was not). The lead starring role here would be taken on by one Paul LeMat, widely considered the most singularly coolest component of American Graffiti (along with his drag racing rival played by Harrison Ford) in a cast that was chock full of future big name stars and then sadly unlike most of them, it would have to be conceded that his John Milner from Graffiti was indeed the acting highlight of his career as he watched the quality of his roles go sharply downhill in the years to come, finally landing himself in this cornball effort (although afterwards he would go still further down by starring in Charles Bandâs first Puppetmaster movie) where he tries playing it straight no matter how moronic the plot gets. The movie starts in 1958 in your typical clichĂ© Americana 50s small town (that probably barely even existed in real life if at all) and while the simple folk of that era tool around trying to find things to do with themselves, an alien spacecraft arrives and APPEARS to do something horrible to the townspeople before settling in there en masse. Flash forward to 25 years later in New York City where LeMat is a Professor at Columbia University living the simple life teaching his students about bugs and insects when suddenly his ex wife (Diana Scarwid, fresh off a Razzie Award win as Christina Crawford in Mommie Dearest) shows up and tells him that sheâs leaving their young daughter with him since she has to head back to her hometown for her motherâs funeral. Immediately, LeMatâs own live in girlfriend leaves and disappears from the movie entirely (guess she doesnât like kids) and LeMat dedicates himself to spending quality time with his little girl until after about three days both of them start thinking that the ex wife is NOT coming back. Now while some men would go celebrating at the thought, LeMat instead decides to dump the child off with his mother (June Lockhart, one of many sci fi legends on board here) and along with his dog head out to the small town where his ex wife had said she was heading which happens to be the same town that we saw getting invaded at the beginning of the movie. LeMat gets a room to rent from the local innkeeper (Kenneth Tobey, normally a good guy in oldschool 50s sci fi here turning on the creepiness factor to 100) and upon learning that Tobey has no knowledge of either his wife or her family, decides to start snooping around only to have his dog disappear (after hearing it make screaming and howling noises like itâs being tortured or something) and his car laserblasted into oblivion before being chased out of town. He gets on a plane back to New York still looking for answers, actually getting a sitdown meeting with a shady government agent (Louise Fletcher) who kindly listens to his story before lying to his face and then he heads over to the office of a Weekly World News type tabloid that actually published a picture of one of the aliens whom LeMat saw and gets a little more traction with the reporter (Nancy Allen still in the prime of her career) who wrote the story on the alien even though she admits that she made the whole thing up. The movie turns into a teamup (and romance) between LeMat and Allen which is complicated when the ex wife turns up begging him to hide their daughter. Long story short, after wiping out the original townspeople in 1958, the aliens took on human form using some kind of synthetic skin (kind of like in V) before negotiating with the government (including Fletcher) to be allowed to use the town to conduct âexperimentsâ. Scarwidâs ex wife character was an alien who had apparently broken away from them into the real world of humans where she had met and married LeMat (who admits never noticing anything unusual about her) and they had their daughter. And it is this half human / half alien daughter who is apparently VERY important to the aliens (another idea taken from V) since obviously she is the first of her kind and represents a valuable connection between the aliens and the humans. But once the daughter disappears (and has to be rescued) the film centers on LeMat and Allen and their casual romance before they track down another alien survivor (and the one who took the photo that the tabloid published) played by Michael Lerner, another top character actor who comes into the movie late and nearly takes it over, detailing in great depth how the aliens took his family away from him (but never actually explaining where and how he was able to take the photograph of one of them) before escaping from the mental institution that he was confined to to join LeMat and Allen in the final siege on the small town that has harbored the aliens for all these years with Fletcher and her government goons doing their best to stop the heroes from going in there and evidently rescue the daughter (although Lerner it seems would rather kill as many of them as possible in order to avenge his family). The films suffers from some extremely wonky editing to put it mildly with bits such as Allen telling LeMat how much she âdoesnât like surprisesâ to IMMEDIATELY cutting to them in the bedroom making out and getting ready to get it on and several other moments where something is apparently getting explained (usually to LeMat) and then it fades or cuts out immediately to another scene without even telling us what plot point we were going to learn about! The most interesting (new) idea on display here is the idea that when the aliens (while looking for LeMat, his ex wife and daughter) board a chartered bus and head to New York themselves, their actions actually closely resemble that of any kind of government / CIA / Men In Black type agents, shadowing our heroes (and other characters) and able to deftly pull off the act of killing certain people by always making the bodies disappear right after even as they maintain their cover in different ways like hanging out in arcades and racking up record scores in alien / outer space based video games like Asteroids and Space Invaders! The makeup FX showing the aliensâ appearance (as well as them ripping off their synthetic skin to show their true appearance) is pretty impressive in the day and age of onset physical FX in such a way that CGI could never replicate (one wonders why many of these techniques were abandoned in favor of the computer graphics since with the right kind of lighting it still looks amazingly realistic). But the story itself (and the laughably stiff look of many of the actors playing aliens in human form) is pretty weak in many ways, with Fletcher playing her government agent who eventually claims to know everything that is going on for laughs and Allen (a great looking girl in that era who was never unpleasant to look at) turning up her Bimbo Meter to about 11 especially with the forced romance between her and LeMat, an aspect that winds up slowing down whole portions of the film during what should have been several key points. The aliens appear to have what can best be described as literal superpowers, able to shoot lightning bolts from their fingers without the use of ray guns and can also telepathically control any electrical device to do their bidding. None of it matters during the drawn out climax as Lerner doesnât prove to be nearly as much help as advertised once he’s back inside the town with LeMat and Allen and Allen herself seems to break from the gameplan without even LeMat appearing to know what she was going to do. The film does offer up some out of left field supporting roles from the likes of Wallace Shawn, Fiona Lewis (badly hiding her British accent), Charles Lane, Jack (Inventor Of Scrabble / Dudeâs Landlord) Kehler and even Bobby âBorisâ Pickett, but the novelty of doing a homage to the 50s alien movies complete with the bad writing wears off after getting just about through the first half of this oneâŠ
7/10