Invasion of the Star Creatures (1962)

Invasion of the Star Creatures (1962) is another of those films I first encountered as a still in a book, many, many years ago.  The book, about horror and science fiction movie monsters, simply featured a picture of a guy apparently being menaced by a ropey-looking monster, with the caption only naming the source movie.  No other information, plot synopsis, cast, etc, was offered.  Several years and reference books later (these were pre-internet days), I learned that the film was actually some kind of comedy, with the monster deliberately ropey-looking, rather than simply being the result of an ultra low budget.  I also gathered that the film had a very poor reputation.  Subsequently, I barely gave the film a thought until, the other day, I got an opportunity to watch it.  What the Hell, I thought, it surely can't be that bad, can it?  Actually, yes, it could be, as it turned out.  Invasion of the Star Creatures was independently produced, directed by Bruno ve Sota from a script by Jonathan Haze and was picked up for distribution by AIP.  You can, sort of, see why AIP picked it up - as an actor, Haze had appeared in a number of Roger Corman movies, including the horror comedy, Little Shop of Horrors (1960), so it was possible that they were hoping for a science fiction parody, along similar lines.

Unfortunately, as a comedy, Invasion of the Star Creatures is woeful, never finding a consistent tone, let alone any worthwhile gags.  Indeed, most of the 'comedy' is aimed at the most basic level of pratfalls and slapstick, centering on two hapless soldiers, (along the lines of two particularly stupid and lazy member's of Sgt Bilko's platoon), whose antics are clearly meant to evoke memories of double acts like Abbot and Costello, except that they have no chemistry and completely underdeveloped characters, which makes them difficult to differentiate.  Most double acts have a clear delineation between the characters of 'straight man' and 'funny man', often reinforced by striking physical dissimilarities between the two, (fat and thin, tall and short, etc), but Bob Ball and Frank Ray Perilli not only look too similar to be able to tell the difference between the two characters but also both come over as idiots.  Neither brings any particular comic talent to the roles, either: Ball comes over as a mentally challenged simpleton too stupid to grasp what is going on most of the time, while Perilli clearly wants to be some kind of wisecracking club comic. but lacks the wisecracks and instead keeps falling back on a (bad) impression of Edward G Robinson.  To be fair, you can see where the film is meant to be funny, even satirical in its portrayal of the military hierarchy, but, thanks to a lifeless script and poor performances (which mistake loudness for comic delivery), it all falls flat.

Its tale of an alien spaceship crewed by a pair of statuesque women from a matriarchal planet, with an army of carrot-man monsters (grown like plants), on the look out for earthmen to take back home, might have had potential as a parody with a better script, cast and production values.  Sadly, though, it ends up as a predictable mess.  Of course, in spite of its 'zaniness' and 'irreverence' toward the establishment (as represented by the military), the film eventually cleaves to more traditional values, with the two alien women falling into the roles of traditional girl friends after they are stranded on earth, despite their technological and intellectual superiority, (mind you, holding a CSE Grade Three in wallpapering would have made them technologically and intellectually superior to any of the men in this film).  Apparently, there's a TV edit of Invasion of the Star Creatures which runs an extra ten minutes - thankfully, I only saw the regular seventy minute version, which still felt interminable.