AIP were sufficiently impressed by the job Larry Buchanan did on Free, White and 21 to commission him to make a number of low-budget films for television. Made for very little money in Texas, they were often remakes of earlier AIP films and used AIP stars in lead roles. (This one has John Ashley.) It was followed by Zontar, The Thing from Venus, Creature of Destruction, Mars Needs Women, In the Year 2889, Curse of the Swamp Creature, Hell Raiders, and It's Alive!
This is fairly dreadful, not much fun to watch. An alien ship lands in the countryside, near a lot of necking teenagers (who are perved on by some military men in an awful “comic” scene). At first I thought the inspiration seems to be The Blob more than anything else – John Ashley as an overage teenager out with his girlfriend (Dad doesn’t approve of her going out with him – and you know I wouldn’t like my daughter going out with a 30-something man pretending to be a teenager either); they encounter aliens but no one believes them. The aliens go on a rampage but turn out to be killable by something seemingly innocuous. But after reading Mark McGee’s book on AIP, apparently this was based on Invasion of the Saucer Men – which had this plot, and was before The Blob, so there.
This has the hallmarks of many Buchanan films: lousy day for night photography, crappy special effect, poor acting, even worse comic relief, and a hilarious costume. Still, it’s a hard slog for the most part, lacking the delirious (if occasional) brilliance of Mars Needs Women. One or two quiet moments are actually spooky and indicate that Buchanan had some talent, even if a very well hidden one.
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