Invisible Invaders


There’s one truly great scene in Invisible Invaders. The camera catches an old clock whose hands tell us it’s 11 o’clock. It then cuts to a long shot of a newspaper; as it zooms in, the headline informs us that Dr. Karol Noymann was buried today. As the clock ceases to chime, a hand knocks on the door, leaving a long shadow hanging in the moonlight. Dr. Adam Penner, obviously awakened by the knocking, heads across the room toward the door. As he opens it, he’s aghast to see his dead friend and colleague Noymann at the door! It takes a few seconds for this to register through the shock and drowse, which are finally broken as Penner exclaims, “Karol!” in astonishment.


This scene is so powerful to me because every time I think of it, I wonder just what I would do in such a situation. With just a few stark shots, edited to maximize the force of the scene, director Edward L. Cahn puts his audience in a creepy situation that begs the question above. Unfortunately, this is the only quality scene in the entire movie.


As the conversation between the two continues, Noymann informs his old friend that he’s an alien inhabiting the dead doctor’s body. He has come to warn Penner that mankind is playing with nuclear power and space travel, and that his kind is preparing to destroy Earth as punishment for humanity’s follies. He then spouts out what should have been the film’s tagline: “THE DEAD WILL KILL THE LIVING...” and tells Penner that the doctor can only save humanity by getting its leaders to surrender to the alien forces.


From such a promising beginning comes one of the most hokey films I’ve ever seen. The dead rise and, to promote their message, they attack—get this—the announcers of a hockey game. This brings forth worldwide chaos, which plays out in stock footage of real upheaval and rioting, accompanied by a voiceover artist who seems, from his intensity, to think he’s working on a breakfast cereal commercial . Dr. Penner, accompanied by his daughter, his protégé, and Major Jay travel 27 miles to an underground base, where he will try to find a way to vanquish the alien-driven zombies. Elsewhere in the world, 27 other scientists are in hiding, working toward the same cause.


Once Penner and co. reach the bunker, the film stalls. In place of action, there’s a lot of talky scientific mumbo jumbo that grinds the movie to a halt. Setting more than one half hour of a film that runs a mere hour and seven minutes in a static location will only work if the film provides compelling characters that generate tension among themselves, which Invisible Invaders does not. The only diversions are the occasional, ridiculous trips into the outside world, in which one of the protagonists dresses in a beekeeper outfit and sprays the undead with a contraption that resembles a leaf blower. Even when Major Jay and the boyfriend, Dr. Lamont, battle each other and destroy much of the lab, it does nothing to thrill. By that point, it’s too late to save the movie.


Boredom is Invisible Invaders’ biggest sin, but far from its only one. Several gaffes plague the film, such as when a character is shot and takes about five seconds to react; and when another character deflects the radiation not with a beekeeper suit, but by rolling up a car window. Even the end credits suffer sloppiness, as Noymann’s first name is listed as “carl.” The acting is another problem. John Agar, of Tarantula fame, gets top billing. His Major Jay is a pushy, unsympathetic. Jean Byron does nothing to distinguish herself in the tired role of the doctor’s daughter, a staple of these films (didn’t scientists in the 1950s ever have sons?) As Lamont, Robert Hutton fulfills the protégé role with a blandness. The only two standouts in the film are John Carradine as Noymann and Philip Tonge as Dr. Penner. As many times as I’ve seen Carradine slumming in absurd fare such as this, he always carries with him a serious dignity, and his voice is second to none. Tonge also plays it straight as a man with the plight of the world on his shoulders. Unfortunately, he’s at the cynosure of some really dreadful material here, that languishes as it forces him to give longwinded speeches. And all his dignity is lost when he picks up the huge ray gun at the film’s climax.


One more way it fails is in promoting the message: nuclear war is bad. Shoehorned in during the encounter between Noymann and Penner, it’s quickly forgotten until the brief resolution at the end. For social commentary to work, it takes more than just dropping a few lines into a film. The work needs to develop the message, and support it with action and dialogue that isn’t silly to the point of absurdity. I’m sure Cahn and his screenwriter, Samuel Newman, had no intent to make a serious movie here. It’s more likely this was just one more piece of hackwork designed to pull in money. As it stands, its ending just gives us a reason to wave our flags as proud Americans. A shame none of the rest of the film gives us reason to be proud of cinema.


The one reason this movie is still of note is that many claim it’s a direct inspiration to George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. Certainly, shots of the dead approaching the camera en masse play out similarly in Romero’s film, which came out nine years later. I suppose one could also make a case that people arguing in an enclosed location and zombies with origins in space all carried over to Night, and the look of the corpses is pretty much the same. But let’s face it: Frankenstein was walking dead with his arms outstretched in the 1930s, and the characters’ squabbles here lack the verisimilitude of those taking place in a farmhouse outside of Pittsburgh. Night is a serious work of art; Invaders is anything but. Any claim that Invisible Invaders greatly influenced Night is as ludicrous as Invaders itself.


Other than Journey to the Seventh Planet on the disc’s B-side, there are no extras.


Invisible Invaders has that one great scene with Noymann and Penner, but does nothing to build on it. Instead of a seminal horror/sci-fi movie, it’s a barely competent, talky waste of time that will satisfy neither alien nor zombie fans.


--Phil Fasso