Clayton Forrester Season's greetings, spacemen! Today's dive into the vaults turns up 1959's The Invisible Invaders. It seems aliens have wiped out the moon's denizens 20,000 years ago. Maybe they don't like fresh air and sunshine. Seeing how far man has progressed toward making himself extinct, they demand our surrender before we take the moon down with us!
Crow Oh sure. Like World War Two didn't spook them.
Tom No, they had to wait 'til we could put up a fight. It's only sporting.
Forrester Shall I continue? A scientist played by John Carradine dies in a mysterious atomic lab accident. Later, his animated corpse visits the wife of Dr Penner and lays out the program. Surrender or die!
Joel Where have we heard that before. But Carradine makes a great ghoul with that basso voice.
Crow Eh. I liked him better as Herman Munster's boss.
Forrester Ahem! The aliens force a plane crash so the dead pilot can repeat the threat at a soccer game. Then a car crash victim reads the riot act at a football game.
Crow Where else do you get that kind of stock crowd footage?
Forrester Speaking of stock footage, Ray Harryhausen pasted flying saucers over Air Force planes shooting up a firing range. But that's not the only way Earth vs The Flying Saucers tops the stop-motion hijinx of today's clunker. They even had saucers crashing into the capitol and the Washington Monument. Cheesy but satisfying!
Joel Can we get on with the story? I hate myself for wanting to know how it ends.
Forrester Anyway, the good guys capture an alien in a paint trap, which makes it go inert for some reason. Apparently there's a shortage of bodies, so he isn't giving this one up! In a pressure chamber, his ghostly reptilian form is forced out, but not for long. As hordes of zombies attack, the lab's alarm system makes them cringe like a German Shepherd to a dog whistle!
Tom Here we go.
Forrester The scientists build a sound gun that kills the captive. The invisible ship is jamming them, so they have to go find it and destroy it before they can broadcast how to defeat the aliens. Now that I've thoroughly spoiled if for you, let's hit the theater!
[Flashing lights and sirens drive the trio into the space station's theater]
Crow If there's anything worse than a zombie, it's one you can't see.
Joel I dunno; these guys don't even want to eat you. The ray guns are cool, though. As kids, we'd roll newspapers into long thin cones and make sound effects. There was no end of argument as to who missed and who scored hits.
Crow Like the old Greenie Stickem caps. And the roll caps! There was a Rifleman Winchester that popped 'em off just like 'ol Chuck Connors!
Forrester [Breaks in] You guys are supposed to riff on the film, not sashay down memory lane!
Tom Sashay? Can you say that on TV? It's not PC.
Forrester How'd you like to switch to Hallmark tear jerkers?
Crow Oh no, not that! Kill us now!
Tom What happened to caps anyway?
Joel Lawyers. One day I scratched at a cap out of curiosity. Zap! Got a blackened fingertip.
Crow I say all lawyers to the moon!
[Starts a chant that frustrates Forrester]
Forrester I was going to lump all the saucer films into a penetrating look at the cold-war hysteria over radiation and UFOs. You guys can just sit through this turkey to the end!
Joel While he's ranting, I'm going for popcorn.
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