Invisible Invaders

Invisible Invaders (1959)

A sci-fi shocker that'll keep you awake at night!

Aliens, contacting scientist Adam Penner, inform him that they have been on the moon for twenty thousand years, undetected due to their invisibility, and have now decided to annihilate humanity unless all the nations of earth surrender immediately. Sequestered in an impregnable laboratory trying to find the aliens' weakness, Penner, his daughter, a no-nonsense army major and a squeamish scientist are attacked from outside by the aliens, who have occupied the bodies of the recently deceased.

Date of release
1959-05-15
TMDB
5.0 / 10 (45)
Runtime
1h 7m
Genres
Science Fiction, Horror
Director
Edward L. Cahn

Casting

Interesting facts

Invisible Invaders is a 1959 American science fiction film starring John Agar, Jean Byron, John Carradine and Philip Tonge. It was produced by Robert E. Kent, directed by Edward L. Cahn and written by Samuel Newman. The film was released by United Artists on May 15, 1959, on a double bill with The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959).

Production

Production of Invisible Invaders began in December 1958.

The shooting schedule and budget are not known. Byron said in an interview that the "picture was filmed rather quickly. I remember the director moving from one set-up to the next very rapidly". Film critic Bill Warren called it a "cheap little picture", noting that it "couldn't possibly have had a shooting schedule longer than two weeks (probably one week)" and that the movie gives "every evidence of having been made in great haste".

Costs were held down, in part, by re-use of special effects artist Paul Blaisdell's monster costume from It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958) also directed by Cahn) during a sequence in which one of the invaders is encased in plastic so it can be seen.

Warren also commented on the film's extensive use of stock footage. "A great flurry of stock shots" were used "as the invaders smash things all over the world – fires, quakes, buildings collapsing, dams bursting". This is "dispiriting," but "the very cheap and shoddy effects match the overall tone" of the movie. The stock footage includes the fatal car wreck scene from Thunder Road (1958).

The movie ends with the narrator proudly saying that in the face of a planetary threat, all the people of Earth will unite against a common foe.

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