An alien (Dr. Kolos, Richard Kiel) is transported to Earth to prepare for an invasion by perfecting human duplication, with which an unlimited supply of obedient slaves and soldiers could be created. Written by the usually imaginative Alfred C. Pierce, the plot is a throwback to the numerous 'alien duplicate' films of the 50s and early 60s with a minor plot twist before the otherwise cheap and predictable ending. The towering Kiel is amusingly robotic as the alien who becomes infatuated with Lisa, Delores Faith's short and extremely unconvincing blind girl, 'Leave It to Beaver's Hugh Beaumont shows up as a cop while 'Robot Monster's George Nader is the stalwart secret-agent hero Glenn Martin, complete with a superfluous, brassy New Yawker girlfriend (Barbara Nichols). The story doesn't make a lot of sense, especially the inconsistent duplication process, which seems to result in super-strong, bullet-proof yet oddly fragile mannequins. Other than an early scene of Kolos being sent to Earth via "teletrasporter" (a process remarkably similar to the transporters in 'Star Trek', which debuted more than a year after this film came out), the special effects are cheap and laughable (especially the climatic "pulse laser beam"). Pierce's low-budget science-fiction films are usually better than they should be (such as 1966's 'Cyborg 2087') but this one isn't, and beyond an undeniable appeal to camp and/or genre fans (primarily due to the cast) has little to offer to justify sitting through 80 minutes of boring bargain-basement 'spy-fi'.
Review of The Human Duplicators
