And Monster Month continues to roll along...

After some outstanding opening credits that gives us an alien’s POV of approaching the Earth (and yes, I’m foreshadowing), we open in a town like any other town, U.S.A., and the Sherman Tank-sized cars with tailfins tells us we’re in the 1950s. We move into a bar where Bill Farrell's bachelor party is winding down. His buddies try to keep the party going by buying one more round, but Bill (Tom Tryon) promised to meet Marge, his bride to be, on the way home. After he leaves, the other confirmed bachelors say they would rather kill themselves then commit to marriage.

As Bill winds his way home, rounding a corner he spots a body lying on the road. He slams on the breaks and screeches to halt with a sickening thump. (Don’t worry, the mannequin survived.) He quickly gets out of the car to check on the human speed bump but the body is gone. Thinking he's had way too much to drink, Bill turns to leave until a monstrous (and very in-human) glowing hand grabs him from behind. Spinning to face his attacker, the man recoils in fright, then passed out and a black fog envelopes the prostrate form. After the smoke dissipates, Bill is gone!

The next day, Bill is late for the wedding and Marge (Gloria Talbott) grills the groomsmen about what happened to her husband-to-be at the bachelor party. Just before their heads roll, Bill shows up and they passionately kiss. (All seems well. Too well, he said ominously.) Her mom says to save some for the honeymoon. (Alright mom!) After the ceremony, the newlyweds take off for their honeymoon. Bill almost causes a wreck by driving in the dark with his headlights off, and he becomes defensive when Marge asks how he managed to get so far in the dark. (She’d been sleeping and it’s our first clue that something’s not quite right with Bill) The new bride becomes more puzzled when Bill forgets her in the car, and doesn’t carry her over the threshold at their honeymoon hideaway.

Bill's behavior grows more bizarre. He acts like he’s never seen a thunderstorm before, and won’t touch the champagne. Believing it’s just marital jitters, Marge heads to bed (we assume to consummate the marriage), and a lightning flash reveals the horrible alien visage underneath Bill’s features (confirming our suspicions that Bill isn't Bill at all.) Marge, who doesn’t see this, calls Bill into the bedroom and we fade to black. (What? Do I have to draw you a picture?)

A year passes and Bill’s friends miss their old drinking buddy. While Sam (Alan Dexter), one of the diehard bachelors, stumbles home from the bar, he gets sick and heads into the alley to blow some chunks where an alien attacks and assimilates him. (I wonder what effect the alcohol will have on the transformation?)

Worried because it’s been a year and they still haven’t had a baby, Marge finishes an appointment with Dr. Wayne. (Read between the lines here people, they can’t spell it out, remember this is the '50s.) Wayne (Ken Lynch) says there’s nothing physically wrong with her, so he thinks Bill needs to come in for a check up. (The alien's shooting blanks?) Looking for Bill, she runs into Sam (and we know he’s been taken over because he’s sober) who announces his plans to marry Helen (Jean Carson). Marge returns home with a surprise for Bill. She bought them a little dog for their anniversary, but the dog wigs out when it meets Bill. (Strange, it was fine at the pet store.) Bill makes some excuses and tells Marge to keep the dog tied up in the basement until it gets used to him.

That night, Bill tries to make peace with the dog but the dog will have none of it. Bill picks up a hammer (nope to messy) and sets it back down. He closes in on the dog and we cut to Marge in the kitchen. Suddenly, the house is filled with the sound of the dog in terminal distress. (Actually, it sounds like a chicken in terminal distress.) She rushes to the basement but Bill stops her, claiming the dog strangled itself with it’s own leash. Later that night, Marge tells Bill about her doctor’s appointment. Since she’s fine, and they’ve been going at it like a couple of rabbits, but are still not pregnant, she wants to know why. Marge drops a Freudian slip when she accuses Bill of acting like an evil twin sometimes. (Duh.) Urging him to see the doctor, he really doesn’t like the idea but agrees to do it to appease her.

The doorbell rings and Sam drops by for a visit. Marge excuses herself while the two men talk men’s business. Alone, Sam reveals that he, too, is an alien. The alien Sam complains about the model of human that he got stuck with. (That’s why you should always kick the tires first.) They quiz each other on the mistakes made and how the master plan is proceeding. (Uh-oh.) And it's going pretty good as the aliens have managed to round up and take over the local police force. Sam tells Bill that his methane supply needs to be replenished and orders him to return to the ship for a refill. Later, thinking Marge is asleep, Bill sneaks off. But, she isn’t and follows him into the woods toward a heavily foliaged gully. He isn’t that hard to track; Marge just follows the trail of dead pets. (And no, I’m not kidding.) She sees a strange ship among the trees and Bill stops in front of it. The same black fog seeps from his body and forms a big, squishy alien. Once the alien is completely assembled, it shambles off into the ship leaving Bill standing outside. Marge calls out and runs to him, but he doesn’t respond. She touches Bill and he falls over, stiff as a board. Horrified, she stares at him as a large bug crawls across Bill’s unflinching face and it slowly sinks in what has happened. Marge screams and runs away (and we’re treated to a nice Dramamine sequence) as haunting images of the monster and her husband torment her.

Making her way into town, Marge tells a few locals at the bar what she saw -- but no one believes her. She finds a policeman and demands to see Chief Collins (John Eldredge). (He’s her godfather, so he’ll believe her.) He listens to her story, and assures her she’s not insane but maybe a little hysterical. Collins gives her the standard UFO rigmarole but promises to check it out. He then tells her to go home because if Bill is an alien, he won’t suspect anything. Marge reluctantly agrees. After she leaves, a lightning flash reveals Collins has been taken over, too. She returns home and makes an excuse for where she’s been. Bill buys it and they head off to bed.

Time passes. Marge and Bill attend Sam and Helen’s wedding rehearsal. Marge takes Helen aside and encourages her to postpone the wedding but won’t tell her why. She suspects Sam is one of them, but Bill interrupts before Marge can confide the alien invasion conspiracy.

That night, Marge plays twenty questions with Bill: Why doesn’t he drink anymore (etc. etc.). Bill turns the tables and accuses her of changing, too, the past couple of weeks. The reverse psychology appears to work. Marge claims it’s because she’s tired and leaves the room. Frustrated, Bill breaks the glass in his hand. He spots someone spying on him from the outside and sends out a psychic SOS to his alien buddies. The alien cops stop the man, and we recognize him as the guy in the bar Marge confessed to earlier -- he didn't buy the alien stuff, but thinks the Farrel's marriage is about to crack and wants to catch Marge on the rebound. (What a creep.) But he believes those alien theories now, too late, and draws a gun and fires. The bullets have no effect at all, and the aliens beat the crap out of him. Then Bill watches as they shoot him dead. Back in the bedroom, he assures Marge all she heard was an engine back-firing. He tries to apologize, but she's too upset, and offers to sleep in the guest room until she calms down.

More time passes, and Bill joins several alien doppelgangers at the bar. As they quietly discuss the plan’s progression, we finally find out just what exactly that sinister plan is. (Yep, they’re here for seedy breeding purposes with our womenfolk.) They talk about how their scientists are trying to match chromosomes, and until then, they’ll just have to mark time. When the bartender reads them the riot act for wasting his time and liquor, they leave. Later, the town floozy (Valerie Allen) makes her way home from the same bar. Spotting a possible john across the street, looking in a department window, she freshens her makeup and saunters over and puts the moves on him. (Sharp ears will pick up the alien’s natural occurring drone, so methinks she’s in trouble.) Ignoring her completely, she gets mad and pushes him. And when the hooded figure turns, revealing the alien’s visage underneath, the hooker runs away, screaming. The alien raises a weapon, fires a disintegrator beam, and in a fiery flash, the town’s population decreases by one. Turning back to the window, its distorted visage ominously reflects off the glass by the toy baby dolls. (Git your hands off’n our womenfolk you dirty alien smoochers!)

The next day, the Farrels join Ted and Carolyn for a nice picnic in the park. They spot Sam and Helen in a rowboat off shore. Sam falls into the water, and Ted (we know he’s normal because his wife is pregnant) jumps in the water when he doesn’t surface. (Strange, Sam was a strong swimmer. So is Bill, but he just sits there.) Ted pulls him to shore as the paramedics arrive, and Sam appears to recover -- until they give him oxygen, and then he up and dies. If he didn't know any better, the paramedic swears that the oxygen appears to have killed him. The normal people are dumbfounded while the alien doppelgangers sit in concerned silence.

Marge talks to Collins again since he's done precisely diddly and squat since their last meeting. He advises her to drop it or she’ll wind up in the loony bin. Sensing the conspiracy is growing, she tries to call the federal authorities but can’t get through (They’ve got the phones too!), and when she tries to send a telegram, as she leaves, Marge notices the clerk tearing her message up and throwing it away. Marge even tries to leave town but the police have the roads blocked, claiming they’ve been washed out. 

Marge, dejectedly, returns home where she sits and stews in the dark. Bill offers to turn on the lights but she says, Why bother, you don’t need the light. Bill waits a beat and then asks what she knows. She claims to know everything, so Bill decides to spill it all and tells her the plight of his people. They come from the Andromeda Galaxy, escaping their planet on space-arks when their sun went supernova. They weren't fast enough, and the resulting radiation killed off all of their women. So their race is doomed unless they can find a suitable replacement. That’s why they’re on Earth, trying to assimilate their way in. But something’s gone wrong with their great plan: Human emotions are starting to assert themselves in the alien hosts. (Ah, the horrors of Ro-Man’s Syndrome.) When Marge asks if they know what love is. He says no, they have no concept of it, but he is starting to learn. He then drops the bomb that, eventually, they will get over the genetic hump and have children with the Earth women.

Trapped, Marge turns to Doctor Wayne again. (Luckily, they haven’t gotten to him yet.) He believes her after putting her story together with what happened to Sam. Unable to go to the police, they don’t know where to turn for help. Ted breaks in, announcing that Carolyn just gave birth to twins. Wayne now knows where to get help. He tells Marge to head home, to not raise suspicion with Bill, then grabs Ted and heads to the waiting room for expectant fathers.

Well ahead of them, Wayne managed to round up a sizable posse and has reached the spot where Marge says the spaceship is hidden. The hatch opens and two glowing aliens emerge, armed with disintegrators. A man with a pair of German Shepherds leads the charge of armed men, and a firefight erupts but the human’s bullets have no effect. While one of the alien blasts a human into oblivion, the dogs attack the other, savaging it. The alien screams as the dogs tear through the exposed arteries causing it to quickly bleed to death. (That one was for Sparky who died in the basement.) The second alien disintegrates one dog, not realizing that the other canine was getting the drop on him. And Fido makes quick work of the alien by biting the large arteries in two. (That was for Mittens the cat who died in the alley.)

Both alien bodies dissolve (rather messily), and the Earthmen cautiously make their way toward the opened saucer. (You’d think they’d shut the door. I guess the aliens were born in a barn. Go figure.) Inside, they find several humans suspended in some kind of force field. (Including Bill, Sam and all the policemen.) Wayne isn’t sure what to make of the alien technology but concludes that they have no choice and starts pulling the plugs on the machines (crossing his fingers and hoping he doesn’t kill anybody.) Outside, as Bill and the patrolmen run toward the ship, one of the cops screams as his Earth counterpart is unplugged. The alien then falls and violently dissolves into a translucent goo. The other two press on.

Back at the ship, when Chief Collins is unplugged, the alien Collins radios the fleet and tells them that all is lost. As he collapses on his desk, he orders them to destroy the scout ship and abort the mission, and then disintegrates. (In several disgusting blorps.) The rescuers start moving the recovered humans outside the ship, about a dozen in all. Wayne keeps freeing the others still trapped. 

As they close in, the alien cop doubles over, falls, and screams in agony. Bill disintegrates him before he dissolves. This allows Marge to catch up. Bill pleads his case to her one last time. He wishes Marge never found out. When the real Bill is unplugged, the alien Bill tells Marge to get away. He writhes in agony and she looks away (but we, being the Sick-Os that we are, morbidly watch) as alien Bill spreads out all over the ground. (Blorp-blorp-blorp.)

I mentioned this earlier, in my review of The Monolith Monsters, that the '50s churned out some rather excellent, intelligent science fiction films. Eventually, though, they changed demographics and fell into formula -- aimed at teenagers that was more concerned with giant bugs, irradiated lizards, and bubble-headed alien invaders. (I enjoy both genres with a slight nod to the hair-brained sci-fi) Coming out several years after the focus shifted, IMaMfOS played on a double bill with The Blob of all things and rounds out an invasion trilogy with Invaders From Mars and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. All deal with the same idea of aliens coming to Earth and assimilating their way to conquest; Invaders gave us the kids view, Snatchers the male and Married the female. An argument could also be made that we get the invaders POV, too, as a good portion of the film is dedicated to alien Bill and the alien's unfolding plans.

The film does follow the same red scare plot as most films of the '50s. (The commies were everywhere man.) A secret invasion, a growing conspiracy and rising paranoia of not knowing who to trust. Red scare or no, I think the films main thrust is an over all fear of commitment -- not communism, and an aversion to marriage. Much venom is spouted in the film by the bachelors against marriage (one says he’d rather commit suicide), and general bitching by those that have already taken the matrimonial plunge.

I kept thinking of an article I read about Ed Wood's Plan 9, where the author contested that Wood was hiding some kind of political subversion underneath the ineptitude. (The ineptitude, he alleges, was on purpose.) Is Vettes, here, trying to hide his mistrust of women in the guise of alien invaders? Or (glancing at the clock that reads 4:42 am) do I really need to go to bed? I also wonder if all the sexual innuendo and implied s-e-x between Marge and alien Bill was allowed by the censors only because Bill was an alien? (Paging Dr. Freud. Dr. Sigmund Freud.)

Gene Fowler, the film's director, started his career as an editor for Fritz Lang and his mentor's influence can be seen here -- as well as in his earlier work on I Was A Teenage Werewolf. The film has a cool, noirish look about it. Look at all the scenes where Bill is in the shadows, spying on Marge, who is always brightly lit, that are extremely effective. (See Illustration above.) There is excellent use of shadows and lighting (and lack thereof), and it always seems to be raining or on the verge of a thunderstorm, which produces the film’s big shock moments and adds strange shadows all over the place.

Aside from all the potshots I’ve taken at this film (real and imagined), I really do enjoy it. It’s a solid sci-fi potboiler that delivers the goods on all fronts, so track down a copy and enjoy.

Posted: 10/21/01. Copy and paste at your own legal risk.

Questions? Comments? Shoot me an e-mail. My dubbing policy.

How our Rating System works. Our Philosophy.