What’s the cheapest monster for a low-budget movie? An invisible one, obviously. What’s the second cheapest monster for a low-budget movie? Zombies. The clever stroke of this otherwise by-the-numbers Atomic Age sci-fi job is that it combines ’em both for maximum dollar-stretching efficiency. It’s another one of those flicks in which aliens come to Earth to tell us that we’re on the wrong path with our cool new nuclear bomb.
These aliens though have seen The Day the Earth Stood Still and they know that we’re not going to listen to what they have to say, so they act like jerks right from the start. They’re not only INVISIBLE, but they can take over the bodies of dead people and make them walk around and start killing. WHY don’t they just stay invisible and fuck with us that way? I don’t know. That level of B-movie logic is over my head. Director Edward L. Cahn made SEVEN films released in 1959. So, we’re in the hands of professionals here.
What matters most is that this may be the first film to depict a world in panic over a zombie epidemic. Paranoia reigns, fear fills every small town street and Night of the Living Dead gets beaten to one of its best ideas. Not that this script does much with it. It’s a lot more interested in giving us lots and lots of science malarky talk. That stuff gets a little dull, but there are some cool scenes, such as the part where the alien zombie breaks into the announcer’s booth at a packed hockey game and takes over the microphone. Also, this runs only an hour and seven minutes long so there’s no reason not to give it a look if you’re doing serious digging into 1950s UFO flicks.