INVASION OF THE ANIMAL PEOPLE (1959)
Tagline: Giants of the ages run amuck in icy death attack controlled by alien brains!
(Sci-Fi, Horror, Alien Bigfoot) [PG]
Note: The MPAA did not give a rating for this movie, but I am guessing it would have been a [PG]. There are some dead animals that some kids these days might freak out about.
Are all American girls as crazy as you?
In this one, a meteor crashes with hardly anyone noticing until an entire herd of reindeer are found dead. Swedish soldiers and geologists are asked to check it out when they discover the meteor is metallic in appearance and it’s probably jam-packed with aliens. It doesn’t take long before they also discover that the terrain is being terrorized by a 20-foot boar-husked Sasquatch that kills. Meanwhile, geologist and heartbreaker Erik is trying to earn the affection of Dr. Wilson’s niece Diane. Can this overgrown Chewbacca and the alien forces controlling it be stopped?
First off, ignore all the other reviews for this thing. This movie is freakin glorious. Yes, it does move slow to start and there is a lot of skiing and planes flying over the snow, but we see the creature soon enough and this might be the movie that gave the writers at Saturday Night Live the idea for the “Coneheads”. The scale is actually pretty awesome because even in movies like GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN we don’t see an antagonist this large that isn’t a dinosaur in many sci-fi B-movies. For a low-budget cut-to-death poorly edited movie, I thought they did a great job with proportion in this thing.
Acting-wise we get Barbara Wilson who plays Diane Wilson. Barbara does a good job with the character, but Diane falls on the ice about every 10 minutes in this movie. It’s almost to the point of being laughable. On top of that, if any dude tells Diane something, she is not going to do it. She will just blow you off and do whatever she wants. It’s actually pretty awesome. Barbara Wilson is known for THE MAN WHO TURNED TO STONE and THE FLESH EATERS. Sten Gester plays Erik and does a pretty good job with this role, but it seems like his accent comes and goes as the movie moves along. Gester wasn’t in any other films that I am familiar with. I also liked Robert Burton as Dr. Frederick Wilson in this. He adds a lot of credibility to the cast outside of the two leads. Burton is best known for THE SLIME PEOPLE and I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN. The version I watched was narrated by John Carradine. Carradine was in over 350 projects appearing in everything from THE MONSTER CLUB to PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED.
What I love about this movie is that once we see the creature, they are just not hiding him at all. We get some pretty fun close-ups of his face and it’s fantastically campy. The aliens look just totally human but with cone-shaped heads. I also really liked the characters. I was pretty much rooting for everyone in this movie.
What is off, is the editing, this movie is chopped up like it was given to Edward Scissorhands after he’d had 15 cups of coffee. The issue is the second title. The original movie was called “TERROR IN THE MIDNIGHT SUN” which made a ton of sense because we have a killer alien sasquatch and it happens in the “Midnight Sun” which is a natural phenomenon that occurs in the north of the Arctic Circle or south of the Antarctic Circle when the Sun remains visible at midnight local time. The US title "INVASION OF THE ANIMAL PEOPLE" indicates we are getting some “animal people” which we really don’t get. It also indicates there is an invasion which we really don’t get. The aliens are more just trespassing and letting their pet loose on the area. None of my complaints were enough to ruin this movie for me. I actually almost skipped it because I didn’t want to be subjected to another ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU which I couldn’t stand.
This is a solid cheese-fest with no explanations or wrap-up given and I loved it. I have to give this one a 6 out of 7. Some people are going to hate it, but I plan on watching this flick multiple times.
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