User Reviews

This was one of those films that got a ton of play on the airwaves in the early 1970's, usually on the "4am Movie" or one time, on the 7:30 PM "Channel 6 Big Movie" and still another on Creature Double Feature.WHen local channels used to run movies as part of their local programming(mostly gone today in favor of infomercial time) It was of the time. A couple of low-rent Abbott and Costello wannabees(Frankie Ray and Robert Ball) are in a platoon of soldiers(half a dozen guys in Army Surplus remainders) who are sent on field maneuvers to look into some strange radiation, and wind up encountering extraterrestrials. They first go into Bronson Canyon to what would be later the famous Batcave on BATMAN, and encounter the remains of a dead "carrot monster". Later, in the cave they're chased by a living carrot creature-basically a guy in black suit and paper mache head, with sparkly things on it and ping-pong ball eyes. Two of them-complete geeks,Ray and Ball-are captured and wake up tied to tables and are being "examined" by space amazons-Dr Poona(nooo kidding!) and Professor Tanga who are stunningly beautiful and even moreso in their skimpy bikini "uniforms". We were too young at the time,to realize what later bondage and fetish scenarios this "examination" scene would more than suggest. Turns out that the two gals and their carrot monster, are stranded on earth with a ship that's well hidden and are trying to return to their world.

The film was made as a total comedy with varying degrees of taste but remember this was of the time when Eric Von Zipper and his crew from Frankie and Annette's films, were the height of B-film, drive-in comedy.So it only seemed a natural to jump on the bandwagon for some quick bucks.

For some reason I only thought I'd imagined seeing this film to start with. No, I really saw it. And when it was released on "restored" DVD I was assured in my memory. The comedy goes from mildly funny to just plain stupid, but whatever.The budget is non-existent, which, is a minor miracle when you think about it, that it even got made and we can talk about a "restored" version here and now-over 40 years later. The payoff is the girls who want to learn about "love" and "kissing" and, the upshot is the geeks-which all of us were- get the girls and love wins out. It's just goofy and silly and for the locations, has nostalgic significance.

Some things need to be clarified. The picture of Mark Ferris is not the Mark Ferris who starred in this movie. I know that because he was my dad. Please remove that picture. Also, Mark Ferris was the writer, at least one of them. I have been trying to find a copy or a way to see this movie again. It has been years and if someone can point me in the direction of obtaining a copy, that would be great. The movie wasn't all that bad, and trying to compare it to todays world of Star Wars and other high tech sci fi's it futile. If you watch it, just enjoy it for the rediculousness and humor it possesses. Lighten up on being movie snobs and enjoy some less creative and innovated films.

Gloria Victor and Dolores Reed in space girl costumes.

I love 50 sci fi, I even love cheesy 50s sci fi, but this film is really, really bad. And not in a MST3K kinda way.

Virtually unwatchable as a couple of bozos do their best "hip cat" impression of Abott & Costello.

Chessecake can usually save cheesy sci fi, such as in "Cat Women On The Moon" but it can't in this case. This film requires a mute button and fast forward feature.

That said, I could watch Gloria and Dolores walk around the space ship for about an hour or so.

Most bad comedies are hard to take, this four sheets to wind, jaw dropping, "I-must-be-dreaming" Stupidfest is, for some of us, a kind of movie heaven.

"Invasion" is still kind of hard to find (I went ten bucks for a bootlegged copy on ebay), it's never been issued on video, it was a bottom feeder even for A.I.P. Interestingly, a lot of mint condition poster and promotional stuff also turns up on ebay, suggesting the was pulled out of release(understandable) and sent to the T.V. showers early on.

I think Director Bruno Ve Sota, who does a cameo, really was the poor man's Orson Welles, his interesting career included staring in, and perhaps co-directing, the cult film "Dementia" (aka "Daughter Of Horror). Bob Ball, the even sillier half of Invasion's comic duo, ended up in the mime troupe in "Easy Rider." Anyway, "Invasion" like the hard to find "Ghost Of Dragstrip Hollow", is worth the hunt. Space Commander Conners wants you!

Basically this film is a ridiculously silly spoof of 50s style sci-fi film cheapies. It stars Robert Ball & Frankie Ray, a poor man's imitation of Abbott and Costello, as incompetent army privates sent to investigate a mysterious radioactive cave in which they discover 7 foot plant men (yeah just guys in ridiculous costumes--there's some unintentionally funny moments later when they toss around boulders!) and 2 7-foot Space babes named Dr. Tanga (Gloria Victor) & Professor Puna (Dolores Reed) , who rather resemble some meaty lady pro wrestlers, bent on taking over the Earth and who seem to be well under way to doing so until our hero Pvt. Philbrick (Robert Ball) messes up Professor Puna's reactions by kissing her giving our heroes the chance to escape with the plant men in pursuit...actually this was fun, incredibly silly mindless stupid fun but fun nonetheless. This was actually written by Jonathan Haze and directed by Bruno Ve Sota...two old Corman/AIP mainstays.

"Invasion of the Star Creatures" is simply one of the dumbest films I have ever seen. Despite the star creatures looking completely ridiculous and about as scary as a bowl of tapioca, the film is NOT dumb because of this but due to the two lame stars of this travesty, Robert Ball and Frankie Ray. They are among the worst comedy teams in film history--even edging out Allen and Rossi (from "Last of the Secret Agents?"). To put it bluntly, they are the perfect comedy duo for anyone who finds the Three Stooges or Ritz Brothers too mentally taxing. Perhaps the only comedian(??) who could equal the badness of Ball and Ray is Cash Flagg (from such classics as "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies"). Yes, they are THAT bad!

The film's plot is a lot like a traditional space monster invasion film combined with "Abbott and Costello Go To Mars". Ball and Ray stumble upon an alien invasion (though there are only two actual aliens--two very tall and hot space ladies). The ladies use star creatures (you have to see them to believe them) to do their bidding and it's up to the boys to escape and get help. Unfortunately, being subhuman idiots, they have a hard time convincing anyone that the planet is about to become enslaved. Fortunately, their commanding office has the intelligence of a gopher--so perhaps they stand a chance!

To sum it up, the film is horribly written, acted and is just plain stupid and cheap. However, it's so bad and makes no pretense about it and never takes itself seriously. So, while I'd normally give such an annoying and stupid film a 1, I give it 2 for at least realizing it was a bad film as they made it! Because of this, it could be a good party film--one for you and your friends to watch and make cracks at--sort of like your very own episode of "Mystery Science Theater". You've gotta see this one to see just how bad it could be.

I love unintentional bad movies, especially science fiction. This was intentionally bad. Not funny at all. This movie makes the three stooges look like Citizen Kane.

First of all, to call this movie a satire, or even a parody, is giving it waaaaay too much credit.

This is a comedy which happens to have a military/science fiction setting. And it is meant to be a comedy, and a bad one. Broad, campy, silly, Vaudvillian, over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek, filled with ineffective slapstick, labored puns, cardboard thin stereotyped characters, a roller rink organ soundtrack score probably plucked from a library album of "comedic" music cues (there are also some theremin based music bits probably taken from the "Science Fiction" library album), throwaway bad jokes, and topical pop culture references that were probably already stale when this movie first came out of the developing tank.

This is all utterly ON PURPOSE.

The leads, Ball and Ray, make the forced antics of Gilligan and The Skipper seem like the graceful moves of Laurel and Hardy, and would make the goofball capering of the Bowery Boys seem like Shakespeare. In other words, they fail even at reaching the lowest common denominator.

Our two working class heroes (the dumbest man in the entire world, and his stooge, as was once coined by Michael McKean in describing Lenny and Squiggy), are two no-hoper privates on a missile base. Their brain damaged Colonel, who keeps forgetting what he's talking about (HA!) sends them and a few other extras in army surplus uniforms on a special trek to explore a papier-mache cave in search of atomic deposits, or something. It doesn't matter really, as it is just an excuse for more inexpertly performed slapstick routines.

In this cave, they encounter the usual 1950's low budget science fiction movie cliché, the underground civilization of aliens composed of beauty pageant winners in high heels, perfect hair-dos, and low neckline leotards ("Hey baby, you're really out of this world!").

Usually, in a movie like this, you would have to at least fake a journey to another planet before you could run into these leggy lovelies. But this movie is so low budget, they don't even waste money on stock footage of a rocket being launched and traveling to Venus (spaceship set would have been too expensive for these geniuses) so instead they get the bright idea to simply have the big-busted alien queens have already invaded Earth and hiding in a nearby convenient cave (Bronson Canyon, my old friend, I've missed you!). That is some awe inspiring American ingenuity when faced with a microscopic budget, let me tell you.

The large hootered aliens also have an "army" (I think I saw two of them) of carrot-headed minions (extras wearing burlap sacks over their heads and what look like surplus costumes from the local Renaissance Faire), who kidnap our "heroes," take them aboard the alien spaceship (okay, I admit it, I guess they did have enough of a budget for ONE spaceship set), and try to suck all the knowledge out of their brains. Gee, that shouldn't take too long.

As soon as our idiots try to hit on the babelicious aliens, one of them snarls, "Don't flatter yourself. We are not interested in your primitive emotions, we are scientists." To which one of the man boobs replies, "Oh yeah? All I can say baby, is you got some mighty good looking equipment." That will give you a good idea of the type of comedy in use here.

Can our heroes escape from the spaceship's force field and save the planet? Do you really care about a plot in a movie like this? Wouldn't you like to watch the alien women bend over in front of the camera again?

This is the type of film where watching it while under the thrall of mind altering substances would not only be recommended, it is practically required. I suggest inhaling the entire contents of a pharmacy delivery van. Only then will you be able to make your way through this film with your brain intact.

I stopped short of giving "Invasion of the Star Creatures" 10/10 due to some cringe-inducing scenes involving Indians. Other than that, it's pure corny sci-fi fun. In this case, a pair of loopy soldiers find a cave housing two sexy women sent from another planet to colonize earth. Naturally, the soldiers try to stop the colonization.

Personally, if those two babes were going to take over the world, I would immediately submit! And moreover, this movie was clearly intended more as a comedy, with the sorts of lines that one expects in a Laurel and Hardy movie. As long as we understand the stereotyping of Native Americans here, we can enjoy the rest of the movie.

Tanga and Puna! Hubba hubba...

I have fond memories of seeing this several times in the early 1970s. As of 1999, it's still unavailable on video. Most of it was shot at the Bronson Caves, which was used as a location for dozens of sci-fi movies in the '50s, and is still used today. The plot is derivative of all sci-fi from the 50s, but more amusing than many of it's predecessors. If you can enjoy "Fire Maidens From Outer Space" or "Missile to the Moon" you'll get a kick out of this.

Invasion of the Star Creatures would definitely be in the "so bad it's good" category if the film wasn't quite so sexist or racist. That it is such just makes it plain bad.

It has the same kind of hardline stereotypical sexism that you saw in Queen of Outer Space, and the kind of racist stereotypes (in this instance, Native Americans) that you would normally find in thirties & forties b-westerns. In terms of being non-funny, the same walking-through-the-cave gag is repeated well over ten times during the course of this fairly short movie. Ray does do one good impression of Jimmy Cagney (but can't make it work for two impressions of Cagney in a row, nor handle a Peter Lorre when he tries it). There really aren't any production values to speak of, as the "Star Creatures" make the Ro-Man from Robot Monster or Tor Johnson in Plan 9 from Outer Space look like creations of Industrial Light and Magic.

This film was definitely one of a vanguard of what you would have to call early independent cinema...not artsy enough for those theaters and not good enough for anything but the last feature of an all-night drive-in.

I must have been about eight years old when I saw this on TV in the sixties. I was hesitant to watch it because I was home alone and the title seemed kind of scary. I watched it anyway and my initial reaction was that it seemed really odd. When I saw it again (and again and again)as an adult, I came to realize that a good deal of that oddness can be attributed to the low budget of the film(minimal cast,cheap sets,crude monsters and tacky - but distinctive - music). The box office appeal of the two voluptuous "galaxy gals" who were spearheading the invasion was also lost on me as a kid, as were the references to early television and the then-fledgling space program. Still, the overall kookiness of the whole thing really appealed to me at that tender age and it still does(I have a VHS copy my friend "The Alien" recorded off TV). Since, as I type this there is only one other comment for this film, there must be an awful lot of people out there who haven't seen it. The story involves a pair of dimwit army privates who discover that Dr. Poona and Proffessor Tanga(really!), two amazonian women from another world are in the early stages of planning an attack on the earth, aided by their army of "vege-men." Because their story is so fantastic(and they're so stupid)our two G.I. Jokers can't get their superiors to take action, so it's up to them to save the day. Sub-Three Stooges slapstick and brain-damaged dialogue can be found throughout,and it can't be over-emphasized that this is a very cheaply made movie. That said, I really enjoyed this film as a kid and I like it now.

This is the worst brain damaged, ultra cheap, super stupid, silly, pointless piece of trash I've ever seen, an unbelievable garbage of instant cult status among fans of the bizarre. If you think that Ed Wood's "Plan 9" is bad, well... let me tell you, looks like "Citizen Kane" compared to that one. ¿Special effects?...again, "Plan 9" is "Star Wars". ¿Acting?...Thor Johnson is Al Pacino... so it's beyond bad, really. But if you are looking for that kind of incredible movies, it's for you! I'm a fan of American International for so many glorious horror movies, the Price-Corman-Poe saga and some great blaxploitation stuff, but with "Star Creatures" they descend right down to the Z level. Of course, my 1 out of 10 works in reverse if you like to watch bad movies for fun (the guy playing an Indian chief is great) so have fun and enjoy... if you can.

It feels weird saying that "Invasion of the Star Creatures" is one of the worst movies ever, since after watching I can't believe it actually is one. I'll just say it's one of the worst excuses for a movie I've seen.

Making you appreciate Ed Wood for the genius he truly was, "Invasion" is painfully unfunny from beginning to end, which can't come soon enough.

A script this bad could only be fixed with a cup of gasoline, a match, and a little wide-open space.

There are two breathtaking alien women who will make any man's heart sing with joy to see them in their space-alien costumes, which seem amazingly similar to matching swimsuits and high heels. Cutting the movie down to their scenes only would leave about 7 minutes, but it would be worth it, in my opinion.

I suppose it's a satire, but like everything else this is handled so ineptly it's impossible to tune your brain waves into the low frequency this operates on. Persons in captivity who are shown this could make a successful lawsuit for inhumane treatment.

I didn't like it.

Nope. I am not going to do it. I refuse to get into the spirit of this awful little movie, which revealed itself very quickly as an homage to The Three Stooges when one of the characters has a bit of trouble with a high pressure water hose. In Curly's capable hands such physical comedy passes beyond just being funny into some sort of sublime expression of how futile & stupid life can be, and that the best advice anyone can offer another is to save string. Here it's just funny and provided me with the film's sole laugh.

The rest of it was puzzling. At two times I "gave up" and went on to do something else with the precious time our grand creator has granted me here on earth. Life is short. The girls in the movie are tall, however, and I dig tall chicks. It can be like making love to a suspension bridge, so I went back both times to see what the film could come up with them to do, other than to look great in their space leotards. Trust me when I say that could be a whole movie just right there, though sadly they were not granted enough screen time to carry the day & the movie sucks.

I kept wondering whom it was allegedly made for, what audience was in mind while it was being constructed from script to final edit. Children *might* be entertained by it. Lovers of campy overtly corny movies will need their own hard copy so they can plan theme parties where screening it is the focus of the evening. Anyone else should just stick with "Plan 9" which was intended to be a serious movie made by a filmmaker who demonstrated far more finesse with the form than anyone here shy of the ladies' costume designer. At least they got that right.

How to put it ... I love "bad" movies, but they have to end up being bad with the best of intentions to make something meaningful. When you go out of your way to purposefully make a bad movie you are treading on thin ice. What makes the film so curious is that it was made in 1962 when such filmmaking was regarded with a certain amount of seriousness. It's pre-Elvira, suggesting that the film's creators were actually sort of ahead of their time in creating the same kind of crap that Elvira helped make fashionable.

Which I despise, rooting for the underdogs that actually made their little movies for a few thousand dollars in spite of universal indifference & critical ridicule. Going right for the jugular of critical ridicule is nothing short of cheating and this movie left me annoyed enough to come here and crab about it. Sorry.

2/10

When rating a movie the first thing I always do is check out what year it was made and released and then try to keep things in perspective of similar films of that general time period. (I.O.T.) Star Creatures is a comedy first and a sci-fi flick second which may be disappointing to some who don't believe the two genres should be mixed, which as a general rule includes myself.

However, if you are a big Stooges fan, you will notice many gags and some dialog lifted straight out of Moe, Larry and Curly's playbook. This movie basically warns the viewer up front that it is not to be taken seriously so with that it mind most fans of the 50s-60s sci-fi era should be able to sit through the entire film.

Again if your a Stooges/Marx Brothers fan you will be on an Easter egg hunt from start to finish. Some nice out of this world eye candy helps to get things past the slow parts. Be forewarned that the low budget cheap and cheesy costumes and a rather silly plot make the film best served with beer.

2 stars would be generous. Enjoy!

AIP's alleged science fiction comedy "Invasion of the Star Creatures" was the one and only screenplay delivered by Roger Corman regular Jonathan Haze ("The Little Shop of Horrors"), from his own story "Monsters from Nicholson Mesa" (either a jab at AIP founder James H. Nicholson or an affectionate nod to fellow actor Jack). Fort Nicholson is where two bird brained privates are stationed, Philbrick and Penn (Bob Ball and Frankie Ray), assigned a top secret mission to examine a large cavern (Bronson Canyon again) created by a recent nuclear explosion. To their surprise, the rest of the platoon are captured by leotard clad 'Vege-Men' who serve a pair of statuesque alien scientists, Puna and Tanga (blonde Gloria Victor and brunette Dolores Reed), in a plot to conquer the earth. What might have worked as a satire of Corman-style 50s filmmaking (1976's "Hollywood Boulevard" did as much the next decade) becomes a very painful slog through subpar Leo Gorcey/Huntz Hall shenanigans under the leaden direction of actor Bruno Ve Sota, whose previous works totaled three features, John Carradine's "Female Jungle," 1955's "Dementia" (seen in the movie theater in "The Blob"), and Ed Nelson's "The Brain Eaters" (unsurprisingly, he never directed again). The gags just aren't there, the slapstick fairly obvious, and only an occasional line produces something approaching a giggle ("man, if that's a peace pipe I'd hate to go to war!"). Bob Ball continued working in television for several decades, while Frankie Ray did little acting afterwards, scripting several notable early efforts from producer Charles Band (as Frank Ray Perilli), such as "Mansion of the Doomed," "Cinderella" (both directed by actor Michael Pataki), "Dracula's Dog," "Laserblast" "End of the World" (Christopher Lee), and the John Carradine video "The Best of Sex and Violence." Ray's impersonations of James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Peter Lorre and Bela Lugosi are not the best but they come off as classic in this item. The bountiful babes aren't on screen as much as one would like but their presence, and subsequent seduction, almost guarantees cult status, bottom billed theatrically in 1962 with "The Brain That Wouldn't Die." The longer you stay with it, the more you wish it had been Jonathan Haze as Philbrick and Dick Miller as Penn, undoubtedly a more interesting view if not a better one.

Robert Ball and Frank Ray Perilli, a comedy duo not likely to be well-remembered by many people, headline this low-budget sci-fi comedy from screenwriter Jonathan Haze (star of "The Little Shop of Horrors") and director Bruno Ve Sota (usually an actor in this type of thing). Ball and Perilli play Philbrook and Penn, two dumb Army privates who learn of an alien invasion plot and try to save the world. Naturally, they won't let their lack of wits deter them. The two main aliens are tall, Amazonian babes with names like Tanga (Dolores Reed (Wow! Wow!)) and Puna (Gloria Victor (Wow!)). Their henchmen are "Veggie-Men" made out of stockings, burlap bags, and ping pong ball eyes.

You know what you're in for immediately with credits like "R.I. Diculous presents an Impossible Picture". This is going to be a walk on the wild & wacky side, an irreverent goof on typical movies like this. To that end, there are some pretty funny gags and lines, although the fun sort of wears off after a while. Sometimes it's *just* silly and not that funny. But Ve Sota and his stars give it some energy, Reed and Victor are effective eye candy, and it's hard to knock any low-budget sci-fi flick that uses that reliable Bronson Canyon locale. Perilli, who went on to be a screenwriter of things like "The Doberman Gang", "Little Cigars", and "Zoltan: Hound of Dracula" in the 70s, is an amiable tough lug, while Ball is obliged to play the *really* dumb one of the two of them. The voice that Ball affects could annoy some viewers. Still, it's a hoot how he is able to use his membership in some Space Commander club to achieve desired ends. Fine support is provided by Trustin Howard as a hip-talking sergeant, and Mark Ferris as a dim-witted colonel. The "Veggie-Men" are a hoot in all of their tacky glory.

If you're prepared for low-aiming genre hijinks, you might find this one to be reasonably amusing. Interestingly, Haze originally intended for Dick Miller and himself to play the lead roles, and the original title for his story was "Monsters from Nicholson Mesa", a friendly jab at A.I.P. head honcho James H. Nicholson.

Five out of 10.

If the budget for this movie was more than $5, and that's adjusted for inflation, then I'd be surprised.

Don't watch this, even if you're in a coma and the nurse turned it on and walked out of the room.

A pair of comical soldiers (Robert Ball and Frankie Ray) investigate a mysterious crater in an atomic detonation area and discover some beautiful alien vixens (Dolores Reed and Gloria Victor) who plan to conquer the world using an army of vegetable monsters.

When I looked this film up on IMDb, I see that it sits below a 3 for some reason. I have no idea how this is possible, as already within the first five or ten minutes the humor makes it so much better than the other science fiction films of its day that are coming in around 4 or 5. Not saying this is a great film, but gee, what a pleasant surprise it was after seeing how terrible everyone else thought it was.

Another reviewer called it a poor man's Abbott and Costello, and I think that is spot on. My first thought was the same thing, and I might even go so far as to say I like these guys more.

Even at age 10 I felt like a complete idiot for staying up late to watch this witless little cheesecake-girl sci-fi parody. The goofy, though not especially funny story has two bumbling male leads falling all over themselves in lustful pursuit of some comely moon-cuties. Meanwhile, a couple of lumbering fellows in Danskin tights with potato sacks on their heads(the so-called "Star Creatures" of the title) are wreaking very minor havoc.

For even aspiring to be as little as lowbrow camp, this is actually a pretty rough ride. If I had seen this at a drive-in in 1963, I surely would have driven my vehicle full-speed through the movie screen in a fit of consternation(or at least demanded my sixty cents back). Perhaps today, as an adult, I'd have a better time with "Invasion of the Star Creatures"(Bacardi 151 in hand, of course...)

**UPDATE, May 2010** I did indeed revisit this sub-B movie, and as I suspected, it actually IS a more worthy watch today as a tragically dated cultural artifact of sorts. One particular line of dialog is exemplary of this - "...wow...that's the first time a salad ever tossed *ME* !". That one probably brought forth a few weak chuckles in '63...presently, some folks might fall on the floor in hysterics...

3/10