Alien Terror

Boris Karloff once again gives a performance that outclasses a shoddy production. The last of the four Mexican-American cheesy B's that the genre star made before his death, it stars Karloff as John Mayer, a scientist in 19th century Europe. He's perfected a ray machine; it attracts the attention of a rather harmless looking spaceman. Believing that Mayers' invention must be destroyed, the spaceman (Sergio Kleiner) forces lady killer Thomas (the hulking Yerye Beirute) to work for him, and the psycho infiltrates the Mayer household.

Also starring Enrique Guzman as young scientist Paul Rosten, Christa Linder as Mayers' lovely niece Laura, and an appealing Maura Monti as Mayers' disfigured assistant Isabel, "The Incredible Invasion" a.k.a. "Alien Terror" may be just the thing for some lovers of cinematic trash. Granted, it can be slow and dull at times, with uninspired direction and a silly script co-written by actor Karl Schanzer (whom you may remember as the sleazy lawyer in "Spider Baby"). It doesn't have any real atmosphere, and the score is hilariously ineffective. But it does offer some fun, provided you're partial to this sort of thing to begin with.

As with the other movies, this had Mexico-lensed scenes helmed by Juan Ibanez, and Jack Hill (the B movie great who gave us classics like "Coffy", "The Big Doll House", and "Switchblade Sisters") handling the L.A. studio scenes. (Jose Luis Gonzalez de Leon is credited as a co-director.) Sadly, Karloff's failing health is apparent; he couldn't move about very much, and required the use of a mobile oxygen unit, but he's still effortlessly delightful, giving as much as he can to a fairly standard kind of genre character.

It may be of some interest to people to compare these four movies and decide how best to rank them. This isn't the most entertaining, but neither is it the worst of the bunch.

Five out of 10.

The Sinister Invasion (1971)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

This here was one of the four Mexican films Boris Karloff filmed before his death and this is one that was released after the horror icon had passed. In the film he plays Professor John Mayer who in 1890 has created a ray machine, which he shoots into space. The ray just happens to cross paths with a flying saucer and the aliens decide to come and destroy it but to do so they take over the body of a serial killer. Also known as ALIEN TERROR, THE INCREDIBLE INVASION and about a dozen other titles, this film is probably the most entertaining out of the films Karloff did below the border but that's really not saying too much. This is a hard film to fully understand as the plot never makes too much sense but I'm going to guess this is due to two directors making the picture (Jose Luis Gonzalez the Mexican stuff, Jack Hill the Karloff material). It's also worth noting that the aliens here are so stupid that they have to be the children of those seen in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. OK, one understands why they want to destroy the ray but they've got the technology to do so without taking over the body of this killer. This killer just ends up causing so many problems and yet the aliens keep on using him. The entire subplot with the killer is quite strange to watch but it does add a rather surreal feel to the picture. As for Karloff, he's certainly showing signs of his health issues but he's pretty good here. Unlike the other three films where he's basically just an extended cameo, he actually gets a pretty big role here, which is nice to see. The rest of the supporting players aren't as memorable but we've all seen much worst. The production values are cheap and it's obvious you're not in the 1890s but this could have been much, much worse. With that said, this was released a couple years after Karloff's death and you really have to wonder who would want to see something like this other than those curious die-hard Karloff fans.

This movie likely won't be of much use to the bulk of humans infesting the surface of the planet Earth. But it may interest Boris Karloff fans and amateur theatrical detectives who like to dissect bad movies like lab specimens. What you get here is one of the most disjointed and bizarre films ever made, a combination of what appear to be two films edited to seem like a larger whole. The first movie consists of about thirty minutes of footage featuring Boris Karloff playing a white suited scientist who invents a disintegrator ray device. The were filmed on soundstages in southern California, with some ending up in this film and others in FEAR CHAMBER, THE SNAKE PEOPLE and HOUSE OF EVIL.

The second movie was filmed after his scenes were completed in Mexico and attempts to match the Hollywood scenes with actors -- some the same -- wearing similar costumes on similar sets, reciting more or less similar toned dialog & engaged in similar actions. Idea being that they are on one side of the room and Karloff on the other: Sometimes characters who were present for both sessions walk back and forth between the scenes, which is quite strange. Their hairstyles and lighting changes subtly, creating a disjointed viewing experience that overwhelms whatever the script was about.

If memory serves, a space alien in what can only be described as an Art Neveau flying saucer gets wind of the disintegrator ray and decides it is too great a threat for mankind to posses. The alien looks like Yahoo Serious and wears a silver lame space jump suit that reminded me of David Bowie from THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH. So did some of the flying saucer's design elements, consisting mostly of beakers with colored fluids bubbling through them. The spaceship is mostly shown from the inside too, requiring the viewer to sort of have to take the director's word for it's existence.

The alien takes possession of various cast members and compels them to sabotage the disintegrator ray, which is probably for the best after the local military gets wind of the situation and decides they want a portable version to serve as a weapon. This results in several conversation scenes where characters veer from the California shoot to the Mexican footage. It's a great lesson in how a film can be constructed, and we can only hope that we can learn from it or the seventy three minutes it runs is a waste.

Fans of Boris Karloff will likely be pleased, he's on screen a bit in this one and looks great in that white suit which sharp viewers will recognize as the same one from THE SNAKE PEOPLE, likely filmed earlier that day. Others are well warned to try something else.

Boris Karloff was an unusual actor in that as he aged, he didn't slow down making films even though he was a physical mess. He had advanced emphysema and could barely walk due to a crippling back injury and arthritis....but he kept plugging away...mostly in very cheap international productions. But here's the weirdest part of it. He knew he was dying and deliberately filmed parts of MANY films...Mexican and Spanish...with the assumption that the filmmakers would later make the rest of the movie after Karloff's death! I can only guess that he either wanted to leave some money to his family or perhaps he simply couldn't stand NOT acting! As a result, a couple years AFTER Karloff had assumed room temperature, his films continued to appear in theaters. I cannot think of another actor who did this....and it's a bit creepy. "The Incredible Invasion" (aka "Alien Terror") is one of these posthumous productions....and it's the last one to appear in theaters.

"The Incredible Invasion" is available in two forms....with Karloff dubbed into Spanish or the rest of the cast into English. I was only able to find the Spanish language version. My Spanish isn't great by any stretch, but I decided to watch this in order to see just how able Karloff was to make movies at this point life...as well as whether or not the film was any good.

At the end of the 19th century, Professor Mayer creates a weird ray beam that he shoots into space. Aliens aboard a UFO see it and realize that humans are too stupid to have such power, so they dispatch an alien to inhabit the bodies of folks to make them kill. Why they just don't kill Mayer and destroy his ray, I have no idea.

So is it any good? Well, it's not as bad as a few of these later films, such as "Cauldron of Blood" or "The Snake People"...though this is hardly a glowing endorsement!! The acting is occasionally bad but the sets and special effects could have been a lot worse! You also see only a little of Karloff because he was too ill to film more...so they had to film around him and piece it all together later! Sadly, in one scene they obviously had someone don a welding helmet-like hat to hide his face because he was unable to walk about the room. This is reminiscent of a dentist holding a cape over his face in "Plan 9 From Outer Space" in order to pretend to be Bela Lugosi...who had died before being able to film much of the story. Overall, a sad and silly film...one that does NOT beg to be seen today.

Most of Karloff's late career films are either exceptional ("Targets", "The Sorcerers", "The Crimson Cult") or godawful messes (pretty much every other 1968-1971 film). There really isn't anything in between, sadly.

Boris Karloff was a great actor, responsible for some of the most iconic performances in the horror genre and most effective in roles that showed menacing and sympathetic sides to his character's personality. Sadly, he was also an actor whose last few films didn't do justice to him or his career. The Incredible Invasion(or Alien Terror) is his last and while it is marginally better than House of Evil and especially Fear Chamber that's not saying much as it is still a mess, if there was a word that this movie is not it's incredible. Karloff of course is the best and only good thing about it, that the role is bigger here already makes it better than House of Evil and Fear Chamber and he performs with class and dignity, which is more than The Incredible Invasion deserved. Apart from Karloff the acting is just amateurish, Yerye Beirute brings unintentional humour in how bad especially he is. The Incredible Invasion is cheap-looking too, you get the feeling from the editing and photography that the movie was done in a matter of days(it mayn't have been but it honestly looks like it) while the sets are tacky and don't exude any atmosphere at all. The music is shrill and strident, while the dialogue sounds incredibly stilted and to even describe the direction is inept is insulting. The story has a cobbled together feel with no thrills, tension, scares or suspense despite having the elements that had the potential to make it so. Instead it was dull, often incoherent, thinly structured and far too strange for its own good. All in all, just a mess. Boris Karloff had a great career, but The Incredible Invasion was a very sad end to it, easily one of the absolute worst final films of any actor. 2/10 Bethany Cox