- Directed by Bruno VeSota
- Written by Gordon Urquart, Robert A. Heinlein
- Stars Ed Nelson, Alan J Factor, Cornelius Keefe, Leonard Nimoy
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 1 Minute
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osCtjx0-d0A
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s heavily dated, but otherwise good. It was clearly influenced by Invasion of the Body Snatchers which came out a few years prior as well as Invaders From Mars before that. It’s a little more science-fictiony, but it’s pretty good.
Synopsis
Riverdale, Illinois, used to be a quiet town. We see two men fighting. It’s not so quiet anymore. Credits roll.
Glenn and his fiancé were on the way to town when they hear a big explosion. They find a dead dog; all the animals they find are dead. Then they find what looks like a crashed spaceship.
Washington calls in Senator Powers to run the UFO committee. They have already erected a scaffold around the mysterious cone. Several of the town’s leading citizens have mysteriously died or vanished.
Powers arrives, and he’s told the mayor is missing. He meets Dr. Kettering and Dr. Wyler, the two scientists who are investigating the spaceship. They can’t penetrate the hull at all, so Kettering decides to go inside, armed, to investigate. Clearly, the Senator thinks this is all some kind of hoax, but the scientists think it’s real. After a long time, Kettering comes back out; it’s nothing but one long, spiraling tunnel inside.
They get a phone call. The mayor has come back. He puts a gun to his own head, but fights the urge down before they all come in. There’s something on the back of his neck. The mayor points the gun at them, and the deputies shoot him to death. The doctors do an autopsy, and the thing on his neck was attached to his nervous system. When the device is removed, the victim would have died within a few hours anyway. The victim is under their control in the meantime.
A pair of young men attack the sheriff on the road, overpower him, and attach one of the things to his neck. The sheriff then gets up and joins them.
Kettering cuts up a piece of the mayor’s brain, and he is attacked by one of the parasites on his arm. He burns it off with fire. Dr. Wyler calls; he’s found something on the ship. He thinks this cone is just a fuel segment of the ship; the control piece is somewhere else. They call the sheriff to organize a better search, but the sheriff is already under their control. Everyone splits up to search the town, and they all have mini-misadventures.
Senator Powers calls Washington for reinforcements, but the phone operator has already been controlled. The young people are dropping parasites into people’s bedrooms as they sleep. They get Alice, Kettering’s assistant.
They find the body of Dr. Kelsington inside the ship; he disappeared five years ago. He’s not dead, but the parasite gave his body up; he has a bad heart and the thing abandoned him. Kensington wakes up and says they came from the carboniferous age, and they have survived all this time. It’s not a spaceship; it’s from below.
The police guards at the spaceship start shooting at the scientists, but the scientists shoot back. Kettering and Glenn go inside the ship. They find Dr. Cole, who has also been missing for five years. Now he is part of the parasitic intelligence. He explains that they bring Utopia and a perfect, peaceful world. They have a shootout with the sheriff, and Cole disappears in the smoke. They leave the ship, but there’s plenty of activity inside.
Kettering thinks up a plan to electrify the ship with high-power lines. Just as he’s about to zap them, Alice comes out of the ship and tries to convince Kettering that he’s wrong. She shoots him, and Glenn fires the gun, electrifying everything. Everything in the ship is killed, but they still have to round up the controlled people in town. “No problem,” says Powers.
Commentary
It’s pretty good. I was expecting something from space that literally ate brains, but that’s not what it’s about. Mind control body snatchers had been done before, but this is well done. Little parasites from outer space. It seems clearly influenced by Invasion of the Body Snatchers in 1956. And it borrowed an idea from Invaders From Mars which came out in 1953.
Yes, that’s Leonard Nimoy under that beard as Dr. Cole in the spaceship. He was shrouded in smoke, but the voice was unmistakable.
It’s pretty good, easily the best of the AIP films we covered this week.