Dreadfully Boring

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

"Invasion of the Star Creatures" is a low-budget spoof of equally low- budget science fiction films. Just to make sure everyone is in on the joke, the credits open with, "R.I. Diculous Presents An Impossible Picture." It is filled with silly situations and corny jokes, but it is rather amusing, if you are in the mood for this sort of thing.On an army missile base, Private Philbrick and Private Penn are normally in charge of such things as washing the garbage cans, but are assigned by Colonel Awol to be part of a team investigating a cave that opened up as the result of a nuclear test explosion. The team discovers seven-foot-tall plant-like extraterrestrials, sort of like the alien in "The Thing from Another World" (1951). However, these plant creatures are just slaves, their masters being two tall, beautiful women, reminiscent of movies like "Cat-Women of the Moon" (1953) and "Queen of Outer Space" (1958).The two privates are captured by the vegetable monsters and brought before the two women, Professor Tanga and Dr. Puna. Philbrick wonders aloud what Space Commander Connors would do, an allusion to such radio and television characters as Captain Video and Captain Midnight, or the television show "Space Patrol" (1950-55). The women tell Penn and Philbrick they plan to return to their planet, after which Earth will be invaded and conquered. Then they show the privates the room where they grow the plant men. We see flower pots, most of which have a hand sticking up out of them. When they prepare to leave the room, Philbrick says goodbye to the plant hands, one of which waves bye-bye.Although there are warrior men back on their planet, the women don't seem to know anything about love, so Philbrick teaches Dr. Puna what "kiss" means. She swoons, allowing Penn and Philbrick to escape. They return to base and tell Colonel Awol that he must stop the spaceship from blasting off. Awol does not believe them and orders them to be thrown into the guardhouse, assuming them to be drunk. But when Philbrick swears on his Space Commander Connors' secret ring, Awol asks to see the ring. When Philbrick shows it to him, Awol shows Philbrick his. They utter the secret code words and do the hand signal. Then they discover they both belong to the same stellar squadron, and it turns out that whereas that Awol is only a junior flight leader, Philbrick is a senior flight leader, which means Philbrick is now in command.The three of them head back to the cave. Penn says the three of them will not be enough to stop the space broads from taking off. Just then, a bunch of Indians come along, whereupon it turns out that they also are members of Space Commander Connors' flight squadron, only one of the Indians is General flight leader, and proves it with a badge pinned to his bare chest. So now, the Indian is in command.But they all have a pow wow, during which the Indians and the colonel get drunk. Penn and Philbrick go back to the cave and manage to blast the rocket ship off into space, marooning the two women. But Dr. Puna gets Penn to teach Professor Tanga what "kiss" means. They all get married and live happily ever after.I saw this movie a couple of times in the 1960s on the late show, and I liked it so much that I bought my own copy on DVD recently. I was looking forward to one of my favorite jokes in the movie, when Penn and Philbrick try to get telepathic control of one of the plant men. The way I remember it, Penn says, "Focus on his eye."But as the eyes of the plant men are spaced really far apart, Philbrick asks, "Which one?""The one next to the carrot," Penn replies.Imagine my disappointment when I found it was not on the DVD. Then I noticed that IMDb says that the television version is ten minutes longer than the theatrical version.I guess I'll have to wait for the director's cut.

"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.

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.

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.