Invasion of the Star Creatures (1963)

It’s not very often that I come across a cult movie about which I can think of not a single positive thing to say. But Invasion of the Star Creatures is such a movie. This 1963 production aims to be a zany sci-fi spoof. It manages to be possibly the least funny movie ever made. It’s like watching the excruciatingly unfunny comic relief moments from 1930s/1940s American horror movies extended into an entire movie.

A nuclear test at a US rocket base uncovers a cave. The cave contains a spaceship from another world. The crew consists of two very tall scantily clad women scientists, and a horde of vegetable men. They are planning to invade the Earth, but are foiled by a couple of inept soldiers temporarily detached from their usual duties emptying garbage cans. The alien women realise they can no longer return to their own planet after their spaceship is sabotaged, but they don’t mind because they’ve discovered that what they really want is to be prisoners of Earth men. The two soldiers generously allow the alien women to become their slaves, and they get married and live happily ever after.

OK, the social attitudes of 1950s American sci-fi movies can at times provide amusement, but this film provides nothing but irritation. The most offensive thing about it is its total lack of entertainment value.

Movies like Plan 9 from Outer Space and Cat-Women of the Moon demonstrate that inept film-makers with zero budgets can still make highly enjoyable and thoroughly likeable movies. Invasion of the Star Creatures is a useful reminder that sometimes inept film-makers with zero budgets simply end up making tedious unwatchable junk.