I was really, really dreading re-watching Strange Invaders, to the point where I put it off a couple of times after I decided to do it, as I remembered it being an excruciating viewing. Again, though, that was all I remembered, aside from some very vague recollections, so it was practically like seeing the movie for the first time when I finally did re-watch it. Truth be told, I didn't hate it nearly as much this time, but it's not a good movie, in my opinion. It has some notable actors, some good special effects, and some nice music, but it's often really boring, many of the characters do nothing for me, despite those playing them, and, craziest of all, it starts off as something as a spoof of 50's sci-fi flicks, only to completely drop all humor very early on and tell the story in a totally straightforward manner. Therefore, it's no surprise to me that it did nothing at the box-office and that writer/director Michael Laughlin has done virtually nothing since the 80's.
In 1958, the small town of Centerville, Illinois receives an unexpected visit from aliens, who completely take over. Twenty-five years later, New York entomologist Charles Bigelow is visited by his ex-wife, Margaret, who says she has to go back to Centerville, her home town, to attend her mother's funeral, and leaves their young daughter, Elizabeth, with him. When over a week goes by and they don't hear from Margaret, Bigelow leaves Elizabeth with his mother, while he heads to Centerville himself, along with his dog, Louie. Arriving there, he finds a rooming house, but when he questions the manager, Arthur Newman, he claims to know nothing of Margaret or her deceased mother, who were also of the Newman family. While searching the town, which doesn't seem to have progressed past the 1950's, Bigelow comes across some oddly standoffish residents and also sees an unusual blue glow in the back of the church. Before he can investigate, he's distracted by the sound of Louie letting out a spine-tingling howl, after which the dog disappears. Bigelow attempts to find Louie and leave, when his car inexplicably breaks down. While waiting for it to be repaired, he learns the townspeople aren't what they appear to be, as an energy beam blows up his car, forcing him to steal another one to escape. On the way out, he spots an alien creature on the side of the road, which fires another such energy beam at him, badly damaging the car. He's later arrested for driving in such a heap. Meanwhile, a group of the aliens arrives in New York in their human disguise, and when Bigelow returns, he finds his apartment has been ransacked. Meeting with his department head at Columbia University, he's given the number of Mrs. Benjamin, a government agent who specializes in reports of alien contact. After getting nowhere with her, Bigelow spots a photo of the very alien he saw on the cover of the National Informer, a tabloid magazine. He talks with Betty Walker, the reporter who wrote the article attached to the photo, and tries to learn where it came from. Initially, Betty doesn't believe his wild story, but when she has a bizarre experience at her apartment, she starts looking into it herself. Together, the two of the uncover Margaret's link to the aliens, as well as Mrs. Benjamin's, and that their true target is little Elizabeth.
Michael Laughlin began as a producer in the 60's and 70's, producing films such as 1967's The Whisperers, 1968's Joanna, 1971's Two-Lane Blacktop and Chandler, the latter with Warren Oates, and 1977's Paperback. His first film as director was 1981's Strange Behavior, a slasher film made in New Zealand that starred Michael Murphy and Louise Fletcher, the latter of whom also has a role in this film. Laughlin had planned on making a sort of "Strange" trilogy, with Strange Invaders being the second entry, but when the movie failed at the box-office, he nixed that idea. His third film, 1985's Mesmerized, starring Jodie Foster and John Lithgow, proved to be his last and since then, he's only written two screenplays: 1991's Shanghai 1920, starring John Lone, and Town & Country, the notorious bomb with Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton. But, while Laughlin's writing and directing career didn't go anywhere, the same cannot be said of his co-writer on both this and Strange Behavior: Bill Condon, who went on to win Oscars for writing and directing Gods and Monsters and Showgirls and was nominated for his screenplay for Chicago.
Wallace Shawn also appears briefly as Earl, Betty's kind of geeky superintendent who shows up at her apartment to fix her garbage disposal. Instead, Betty sends him into the bathroom to check on the "Avon lady" when she locks herself in there, only for him to get blasted by her when he does. Betty then finds him lying on the floor, apparently dead, and calls the police, but there's no sign of him or the woman when the cops arrive. Like the rest of the aliens' victims, Earl is restored to human form at the end of the movie. And finally, another familiar face to genre fans, June Lockhart, appears as Charles Bigelow's mother, who watches over Elizabeth for the majority of the movie, only to become distraught when she's taken by the aliens while the two of them are sleeping.
A personal turnoff for me is the look of the movie, which is that very soft type of visual aesthetic, with lots of flare onscreen, often emitting brightly from various light sources. It was a common look during the 70's and early-to-mid 80's and there are movies that managed to pull it off very well, but for a low budget film like this, I feel it accentuates the cheapness (it's one of the reasons why the look of a lot of slasher movies made during this time aren't something I like, even if I do enjoy the movies themselves). I will, however, admit that a big issue in my case is that I saw the movie on a fairly crappy DVD transfer and it does look better in HD, which is the quality of the images you're seeing here, and I'm still not a big fan of that look, typically. Also, it's mainly in the closeup shots with the actors where I have this issue with film's look, as a lot of the wide, exterior shots of New York and especially the town of Centerville do look quite nice, the latter definitely having a classic Norman Rockwell, Andrew Wyatt feeling to them. Because of the budget ($5.5 million), they had to shoot almost the whole movie on location, including the actual town of Centreville, Illinois, with the only real sets likely being the alien installation beneath the town church and the interior of the spaceship you see at the end. Those are definitely the most memorable locations in the film, with the former made up of long tunnels and enormous corridors, while the latter has a lot of factory-like machinery and controls used to operate the craft and a number of raised walkways, namely a large, circular platform the occupants stand on while the surrounding wall rotates, with opening and closing panels, when the craft takes off. And, as brief as it is, the film's opening in 1958 does manage to capture a bit of the flavor of small town life during that time.
This movie serves as a prime example of something that John Landis once mentioned about how, during this period, you had movies that weren't that good in and of themselves but had really good effects work to make up for it. The look of the aliens themselves is simple but pretty good, coming off as something of a spin on the stereotypical image of aliens as creatures with large heads, gray skin, and big, black eyes. The animatronics, masks, and suit work for the aliens, the prosthetics and bladder effects used for the scenes where they're seen removing their human disguises, and the rather disturbing shots of their victims shriveling up before they're turned into balls of energy, were all courtesy of James Cummins, who'd been part of Rob Bottin's team for John Carpenter's The Thing, and, as you'd expect from that pedigree, are boffo. The visual effects team, Private Stock Effects, have a connection to Carpenter as well, as they worked on Escape from New York, and the work they did looks pretty good, too. One of the best effects in the whole movie is the alien spaceship, which you see at the beginning and end, and is intentionally designed to look like a classic flying saucer, rather akin to the one from The Day The Earth Stood Still (which you see a clip of on TV) when it lands on the ground. You also see a large, cylindrical-shaped mothership, which the filmmakers manage to create a surprisingly atmospheric shot of when it appears from behind a cloud and hovers in the sky upon returning to Earth. The effects of the energy beams the aliens fire are, predictably, a bit dated by today's standards, but the floating, glowing orbs they convert their victims into, on the other hand, look really good and feel tangible, as does the large hologram of the alien leader you see near the end, and there's a very nice miniature of the town that's used in an overhead shot at the end to show the orbs dispersing throughout town before they regain human form.
I can sum up Strange Invaders' major failings in three categories. One, as mentioned, is that the lead character isn't memorable or charismatic at all and so, by extension, the story doesn't gel. Two, there's never a big sense of fun or excitement with it. Given the low budget, you shouldn't expect big action sequences or chase scenes (although, they did manage get in some small-scale examples, as well as impressive explosions here and there), but there's nothing that will have you on the edge of your seat or tied up in what's happening and eager to see what comes next. In fact, after the first act when Charles Bigelow returns from Centerville, the movie really drags, as you're mainly watching him go around, trying to get someone to listen to him, leading into his developing relationship with Betty Walker and the eventual revelation of his ex-wife's tie to the aliens. You get one or two scenes dealing with the aliens' having followed Bigelow back to New York and Betty realizing that he knows what he's talking about, but they're so short, as well as few and far between, that it does little to liven things up. Also, you could remove Mrs. Benjamin and her department's pursuit of Bigelow and Betty altogether because it doesn't amount to much, nor does the reveal that the government is cooperating with the aliens. After they manage to get past the roadblock she and her department set up, you could forget they were part of the story, as they have no part in the climax. (Michael Laughlin chalked these problems up to script changes demanded by Orion Pictures and EMI and has said that he does admit that the movie's middle section is a major weak point.) And there's no real urgency or excitement to the third act either, as I'm just waiting for the movie to be over by that point.
Third and final, the movie seems to have some sort of identity crisis. While it's obviously meant as a tribute to 50's sci-fi flicks, it can't decide if it wants to be a send-up or play it straight while using all those familiar tropes and cliches. Initially, it seems like it's meant to be a sci-fi/comedy, as the taglines are, "Of all the worlds in all the galaxies... why did they pick this one?", and, "25 years ago, they arrived from another galaxy. Surprise... they're still here," and the movie itself starts out with a crawl that reads, "IT WAS A SIMPLE TIME, OF EISENHOWER, AND ELVIS FROM THE WAIST UP-- A SAFE, QUIET MOMENT IN HISTORY. AS A MATTER OF FACT, EXCEPT FOR THE COMMUNISTS AND ROCK-AND-ROLL, THERE WAS NOT MUCH TO FEAR. NOT MUCH AT ALL... UNTIL THAT NIGHT." The opening feels like it's really playing up the image of teenagers in the 50's, with this parked couple where the guy is wearing your typical, James Dean-style red jacket, while the girl is wearing an old-fashioned sort of prom dress and chewing bubble gum, which she sticks on the back of the truck's steering wheel when she's done with it, only to chew on it again later. The movie still has a feeling of playfulness after the opening credits, when you see a little bit of the time Bigelow and Elizabeth had during the week she stayed with him, but then, once he goes looking for Margaret, the humor drains away for the most part. You still have instances, like the photo of Steven Spielberg Mrs. Benjamin puts amid the sketches of frequently reported aliens (which, again, look silly in and of themselves), Betty Walker's initial, snarky attitude towards the idea of aliens, and Mrs. Benjamin figuring Bigelow and Betty won't use a train to flee to Centerville, when that's exactly what they do and has to eat her words, but it feels out of place in a movie that now involves aliens literally ripping apart their human disguises, shriveling their victims' bodies ip and converting their life-force into balls of energy, and a man trying to save his abducted daughter, while another man is out for revenge for what the aliens did to his own family (seriously, the flashback of what happened to Willie's family is pretty disturbing). Admittedly, this kind of balance of tone is hard to do even for really good screenwriters, and the studio mandated rewrites may have sucked out a balance that might have been there before, but the whole time I was watching this movie, I couldn't help but think how much more successful it would have been had Joe Dante been at the helm.
Sadly, the opening does show some promise, as it establishes the small town life of Centerville, Illinois in 1958, with people going through their daily routine: families sitting down to dinner and watching TV, a young teen couple driving to and parking on the side of a country road in the guy's truck, etc. Also, the visuals of the town and the gradual transition from midday to early evening and finally to twilight look very lovely. I'm sure this notion of quaint, carefree normalcy invaded by something otherworldly was meant to evoke not just the false sense of security of the 50's in general but, more specifically, that same notion of it you get in The Blob, right down to the year, which was when that film was released. While the teen couple makes out in the truck, an enormous spaceship appears in the sky above them and deploys a smaller ship that flies right over them, though they don't notice it. The ship lands nearby and several, human-like figures disembark, as an unearthly presence quickly invades every corner of the town. At this point, the couple heads home. The guy drops his girl off at her house, but when she enters through the front door, she realizes something is wrong, as no one appears to be home and there's an eerie, blue glow enveloping the room. Her boyfriend finds the same scene at his house, seeing no sign of his parents, as well as the strange glow. He gets on the phone and tries to make a call, when the shadow of an inhuman hand appears on the wall behind him. He swings around and sees something that makes him scream, only for his scream to be cut off, as an exterior shot of the house shows a bright, white light emitting from the windows.
Following the opening credits, you're introduced to Charles Bigelow, as he spends a day giving a lecture at Columbia University before heading back to his New York apartment, where he lives with his dog, Louie. You also get a moment where a strange, older man calls a number and speaks to a young girl named Elizabeth. Though he claims to want to speak with her mother, whom she says is out at the moment, a shot shows him writing Elizabeth's name below a drawing of a little girl. That night, Bigelow is about to go out on a date with a woman (whom you never see again, I might add), when his ex-wife, Margaret Newman, drops by to tell him he's going to have to keep Elizabeth, their young daughter, while she heads to Centerville to attend her mother's funeral. When a week passes with no word from her, and Bigelow can't get a call through to Centerville itself, he takes Elizabeth over to his mother's home while he heads to Centerville himself. Following an Indiana Jones-style travel montage, where we a panning shot of a map superimposed over an image of Bigelow driving, as well as a moment where he finds a turnoff sign for the town that's been knocked over, he reaches Centerville after driving down a remote, country road. Finding a rooming house, he walks in with Louie, and is greeted by the manager, Arthur Newman, who claims to have no knowledge of Margaret or her family. He also seems a bit leery of Louie, who himself has been tense and uneasy from the moment they got into town, advising Bigelow to keep him behind closed doors. Bigelow takes Louie to the room they're assigned, in the back of the place, and locks him inside, while he has a look around town.
As Bigelow explores Centerville, which is eerily quiet, with nary a soul around, save for a group of 50's style teenagers who also deny any knowledge of Margaret's family (one of them makes a crack about Paul Newman), Louie becomes more and more anxious, as he can sense Arthur Newman nosing around outside. Bigelow finds his way to the town church and walks inside. Seeing a blue glow emitting from a corner in the back and hearing a low, humming sound, he heads towards it, when somebody opens the front door and stares at him for a few seconds before ducking out. At the rooming house, Newman tries to open the door to Bigelow's room and looks through the screen at Louie, who's trying to get out through the window. Suddenly, Bigelow hears Louie letting out a pained howl from all the way down the street and rushes outside. Some sort of presence passes by him and he hears Louie growling and barking, but in a distorted-sounding manner. Finding no sign of Louie back at the room, Bigelow promptly packs up and gets in his car, while Newman watches from nearby, commenting that he shouldn't have brought Louie to begin with (the implication is that dogs can sense the aliens' true nature, which is why Newman was leery of Louie, and yet, when Bigelow is first searching the streets, you can see a dog wandering around nearby). Bigelow drives through town, calling for Louie, when his car suddenly breaks down near a street corner, all while a menacing-looking man dressed in mechanics' clothes watches from nearby. With no choice, Bigelow has him inspect the car. He says it's the fuel pump and that it could take two hours to fix. Bigelow, however, tells him he's only going to wait half an hour and walks over to a nearby cafe to do so.
Inside, Bigelow sits down and orders a cup of coffee. There are three other people sitting in there, and Bigelow mentions his missing dog. Each time he brings it up, one of the men gets up and leaves randomly. When they're gone, he looks out the window and sees them gathered around his car with the mechanic and several other people. Suddenly, the jukebox in the cafe that's been playing music dies and the waitress vanishes; when he looks out the window again, there are more people standing out there now. He hears the sound of glass breaking, as well as a pinball machine going off, and this time, when he looks out the window, everyone's gone. A bolt of energy comes out of nowhere and hits the car, causing it to burst into flames and explode. Bigelow runs to the back and crawls through a window. He runs to a parked car, only to find no keys inside it, so he runs to another and is able to commandeer it. He peels down the street, when he passes by a strange creature dressed in human clothes on the street corner. The creature fires several jagged, arching energy beams from its eyes, one of which hits the car and blows its doors and trunk off. Bigelow is still able to keep going and drives until he's far away from Centerville. After parking on the side of the road, he can only laugh when he sees he got the attention of a police officer. Noting the car's condition, the officer asks Bigelow to explain himself but Bigelow is in no condition to even start. The officer figures he'll probably think of an explanation on the way to the station.
Back in New York, a charter bus arrives the following morning and a group of the disguised aliens disembarks. They proceed to rent various rooms at the New York Hilton. One of the aliens, who happens to be the waitress from the diner, uses her telekinetic powers to open her door, but another one shows her how to use the key in order to keep from attracting attention. He then goes to his own room and orders some room service, before attempting to watch some TV (specifically, an episode of Let's Make A Deal). However, he appears to be uncomfortable, as he undoes his necktie and opens a couple of the buttons on his shirt. He begins to sweat and, removing his jacket, goes into the next room. Looking at himself in a mirror, he removes a ring from his hand, pours some ice water into a glass, and sticks his finger into it (this notion of the aliens apparently being unable to withstand raised temperatures is never expounded upon beyond this and another scene later). That's when he takes off the dark sunglasses he's been wearing and begins removing his disguise, first by popping off the top of his head, revealing his large, pulsating, true cranium beneath, and then removing the human face. Room service comes up and the man leaves the sandwich he ordered on the table in front of the TV. Thinking he's alone, the fully exposed alien emerges from the room, only to be spotted by a maid who stayed behind to add some finishing touches. Horrified, the maid lets out a scream, but no one in the streets below hears her.
Bigelow arrives back in New York on a plane where he's the only passenger, and is woken up by one of the stewardesses. He goes straight to his apartment, only to find that it's been ransacked. His feeling that he's been followed is all but confirmed when the phone rings, only for the caller to hang up as soon as he answers. After calling his mother to check on Elizabeth and to find out if she's heard from Margaret, Bigelow goes to the university and talks with his department head, Dr. Hollister. Hollister, naturally, doesn't believe Bigelow's crazy story, but gives him the number of a woman who works for the government and listens to such claims for a living. He calls the number and is set up to meet with Mrs. Benjamin. Following their meeting, which leads to nothing, as Mrs. Benjamin is also completely skeptical of Bigelow's claims and tells him that nearly every supposed encounter with aliens has a rational explanation, Bigelow heads to a newsstand. Buying a paper, he's shocked to see a photo of one of the aliens on the cover of an issue of the National Informer. Buying that as well, he walks away, although it's revealed he's not the only one who has an interest in the cover photo, as a man wearing dark glasses and smoking a cigarette picks it up and looks at it closely. Bigelow goes to see the accompanying article's writer, Betty Walker, at her office, telling her of his experience and asking where the photo came from. Aside from a lot of jeering, all he's told is that it came from a file with some old letters, and leaves in frustration (writer Bill Condon has a cameo in this scene as a guy who eavesdrops on the conversation from right outside of the office). Betty follows him to the elevator, both to apologize and return his glasses, which he left in the office, but Bigelow is in no mood for her continued snarkiness. Regardless, she offers to take him out for a drink and asks him to come back the next day, saying they'll try to find the photo.
After work, Betty heads back to her own apartment building and, on the way up, asks Earl, the superintendent (who's attempting to walk his four dogs at once), to stop by and have a look at her garbage disposal. Once she's up in her apartment, Betty answers the door to the alien lady, who claims to be from Avon. Not interested, Betty attempts to shut the door in her face and tell her to get lost, but the woman is insistent. Regardless, Betty does manage to close the door on her, only to then hear a thud from outside. Opening the door again, she finds the woman slumped against the wall, grabbing at her chest, and telling her it's due to the heat. She asks Betty if she could use her bathroom and she allows the woman in and directs her to the bathroom. A moment later, while she blends up some dinner, Betty knocks on the bathroom door and asks the woman if she's alright and if there's someone she could call. She gets no response from the woman, who stands in front of the mirror, looking at herself. That's when Earl shows up, startling Betty when he walks in through the open door, and she tells him what's going on. Earl unlocks the bathroom and walks inside. Turning the light on, he finds no sign of the woman, but does find evidence that she made use of the sink. He's about to walk out, when he hears a clatter and sees the shower curtain ruffle. He cautiously approaches the shower, only to get blasted by a beam of energy that shoots out from behind it. Betty then walks to the bathroom, telling Earl that they may want to call the cops, but gets no response from him. Opening the door, she drops the glass she's carrying when she sees Earl lying on the floor, apparently dead. She calls the cops, only for the lead detective to inform and then show her that there's no sign of Earl's body. Freaked out by this, after the cops have left, Betty attempts to calm herself by watching TV, only to see a clip from The Day The Earth Stood Still. She promptly switches it back off and puts her face in her hands, shaking her head in frustration.
Back at her office the following night, Betty is pouring over the article she wrote for the photograph of the alien, when she remembers a letter that came with it and has her coworker, Tim, search for it. Bigelow then stops by to take her up on her offer of a drink and, with that, the two of them are at a bar, where Betty tells Bigelow of her encounter, making him realize they followed him home. He then treats her to dinner and takes her back to his apartment, but when they hail a cab, they're unknowingly spotted by one of the aliens, who was killing time by playing a Space Invaders type arcade game really well. He's joined by several others, including the woman who was in Betty's apartment. At Bigelow's apartment, his and Betty's relationship starts to heat up, but they're interrupted by an unexpected visit from Margaret. Betty is not at all happy when she learns who Margaret is and storms out of the apartment and the building. While Margaret confesses everything to Bigelow, Betty heads back home, passing by a small park. She becomes uncomfortable when she sees a man watching her from a nearby bench, and that feeling increases when she looks away briefly and looks back to see another man sitting on the bench, staring at her. When the woman from before appears, Betty, feeling threatened, rushes back to the apartment building, the woman in pursuit. She's chased back inside and runs to the elevator, which, of course, takes forever to come down and pick her up. She's very nearly caught by the woman, who walks rather than runs after her, but manages to duck inside the elevator and head on up. But, the woman uses her powers to stop the elevator and bring it back down, with Betty unable to do anything to stop it. Desperate, she pulls out a gun and shoots the woman as soon as the elevator door opens up. Green blood spews out of her torso and she collapses to the floor in a large puddle of it. Betty heads back up to Bigelow's apartment and tells him what happened, as well as that more of them are probably on their way up. Margaret tells the two of them to get out via the fire escape, while she detains the aliens. As soon as they climb out the window, the aliens blow open the apartment door, and Margaret confronts them.
Bigelow and Betty make their way down to the street (it's now gone from totally dark nighttime to early morning), while the aliens exit the apartment building, searching for them. The two of them run across the road, when a taxi cab drives towards them, honking its horn, before stopping next to them. The back door opens and Mrs. Benjamin, who's sitting back there, tells them to get in. They do so and the cab drives away, just barely avoiding being stopped by the aliens. As they drive down the street, Mrs. Benjamin comes clean about their arrangement with the aliens and tells Betty her article has really stirred up a lot of trouble, as have Bigelow's actions. Bigelow tells the cab driver to go to East 63rd Street, where his mother lives, but the aliens get there first and sneak into Mrs. Bigelow's apartment and take Elizabeth out from under her while they're sleeping. By the time Bigelow, Betty, and Mrs. Benjamin arrive, the aliens and Elizabeth are long gone. Bigelow and Betty take the cab for themselves, but Mrs. Benjamin isn't far behind, as she gets a government agent to pursue them. The chase doesn't last long, as they get stuck in heavy traffic, and Mrs. Benjamin tells the agent to put an APB out on the bridges and airports. When he suggests they may also take the train, she scoffs that no one does that anymore. Predictably, they do just that, and as they board, Betty tells Bigelow that a man named Willie Collins was the one who sent the photograph. Since he's in Illinois, she suggests they go see him, and Bigelow, whose mind is more preoccupied with finding his daughter, agrees, given that Margaret said the aliens aren't planning to leave for another day and a half. Back in New York, Mrs. Benjamin is forced to eat her words about them not taking the train and boards a seaplane at the harbor.
Upon departing the train and renting a car, Bigelow and Betty track down Willie Collins, only to find he's at Illinois Union Memorial, which happens to be an asylum. Arriving there, they also learn he's a permanent patient there. A nurse leads them to where Willie stays in the back and Betty introduces herself, showing him the letter he sent her magazine. Sending the nurse away, Willie is, initially, reluctant to talk, but when Bigelow tells him the aliens took his daughter, he leads them to the next room, where there's a small table. He tell them the aliens killed his family, before sitting them down and telling his story. It cuts to a flashback, showing Willie driving across country with his wife and two kids, and he tells Bigelow and Betty how they come upon Centerville and decided to spend the night there. Stopping at a rooming house (the same one Bigelow visited), he put his family to bed but went for a walk around town, explaining that, for whatever reason, he felt a need to do so. He came upon the church and heard a high-pitched droning emitting from inside. Going in to investigate, he followed the sound to the back of the church and found a door that led underground. Heading down the stairs, he found a large installation and, after ducking to avoid being a spotted by a person who passed by, he went down the hall the person came from. He followed it until it led him to a spot where he could look over the railing of a walkway to see several people in lab coats examining a floating, glowing energy orb, which was emitting the sound of a crying child. Willie was then spotted and ran for it, heading back up to the church and out to the street. He rushed to the rooming house to gather up his family, but when he ran to the bedroom his wife and daughter were sleeping in, he found nothing. He then heard his son yell for him, and rushed into his room in time to see an alien make a gesture over his body, leading to him suddenly shriveling up into a steaming husk, until his life force was converted into the same kind of energy orb. It was only then that the alien noticed Willie, who grabbed a floor lamp and bashed its head in. The three energy orbs that were once his family floated in front of him, calling for him in distorted voices, and when he tried to touch one, he got a shock that caused him to fall to the floor. The orbs, still calling for him, floated out the window and disappeared into the night (again, this whole sequence is more than a little unsettling).
Switching back to the present, Willie goes on to tell them about the aftermath, how he couldn't get anyone to help him but that, when he took the photograph, he found himself followed by the aliens. This led him to having himself committed as a way of telling them he gave up. The nurse announces that visiting hours are nearly over and leads Willie away... but, he peeks his head back out through the doorway, telling Bigelow and Betty that he'll be with them. After the two of them argue about whether or not Betty should go on to Centerville with Bigelow, they leave. They get far down the road when Willie pops up in the backseat, revealing he's escaped and has come to help them. They head on down the road, spotting a helicopter circling one spot nearby, but when they reach the final leg of the drive, they hit a roadblock, made up of several cars and a grounded helicopter. An officer tells them there's been some trouble up ahead, when Mrs. Benjamin shows herself. She suggests they just wait there for an hour until the aliens leave, but Bigelow pulls his loaded gun on her and takes her hostage, threatening to shoot her if the cops and agents try anything. He has Betty and Willie join him, taking the one cop's gun and giving his own to Willie, before forcing Mrs. Benjamin into the back of a parked car. They all climb in and speed down the road, maneuvering around the helicopter. Once they're far enough away, they toss Mrs. Benjamin out of the car and head on towards Centerville. The three of them separate up, with Willie taking the car and promising to be there once they've rescued Elizabeth, while Bigelow and Betty head out on foot.
Once in town, they head for the rooming house and make their way over to a window, beyond which Margaret pleads with Arthur Newman not to force Elizabeth to go with them, but to no avail. Hearing this, they creep over to the next window, where Elizabeth is being kept. Bigelow taps on the window, getting Elizabeth's attention, but have to duck out of sight when a man comes into the room to fetch her. They hide right underneath the window as the man looks out, and it appears they've eluded him, but they're then surrounded and disarmed by a large group of aliens. Newman has Margaret bring Elizabeth to the church and down to the underground installation, where they walk to a large hallway where all of the aliens are gathered. A large hologram of their leader appears at the end of the hallway, congratulating them on completing the project they've been working on for the past twenty-five years and that the information they've gathered will aid in their final decision in determining both their future and that of the Earth. While Bigelow and Betty are led down there as well, the leader also notes what a welcome addition Elizabeth is to the group and has her come forward so he can see her. Just then, Bigelow calls Elizabeth and she runs to his arms. The leader attempts to tell Bigelow that he'd best not make things more difficult for Elizabeth, when Betty grabs the girl and runs off with her. They run back through the facility and, instead of the church, exit out of the rooming house up above, heading into the street. Willie spots them through some binoculars from nearby and hops into the car, as the aliens pour of their houses in pursuit. Willie drives towards them, as the aliens are hot on their heels, but is forced to abandon the car when Newman fires an energy beam at him. He runs to Betty and Elizabeth and they take cover on the ground as the car explodes. Approaching with a large group backing him, Newman demands Betty give Elizabeth back to them. Willie gets to his feet and tries to hold them off, but he's grabbed and restrained by two of them, as Newman turns him into an energy orb and sends it towards the church. Betty is still unwilling to give Elizabeth up but is unable to do much about it. One of the aliens her away and Newman proceeds to convert her into an orb as well.
In a genuinely atmospheric and eerie moment, the clouds in the darkening sky part to reveal the alien mothership hovering behind them, almost totally silent, save for a low, rumbling hum. The aliens gather in the street and make their way through the woods, to the spot where the smaller, saucer-shaped ship has come down. They stop at one point, as many of them decide to dispense with their human disguises, ripping off their fake faces and heads, sections of their torsos, shoulders, and other body parts, and dropping them on the ground. The aliens, including Margaret, as well as Elizabeth and the captured Bigelow, reach the spaceship and walk inside. Most of the exposed aliens begin working on the various mechanisms for the takeoff, while the others gather on various walkways, notably a circular one in the center of the ship. Bigelow is told they're about to leave, as the wall behind him and Elizabeth starts to rotate. Elizabeth says she doesn't want to go and begs Margaret to help them, as does Bigelow. Initially seeming resigned to their fate, Margaret suddenly fires an energy beam from her finger, blasting an alien standing to Bigelow's left. Newman and another alien try to restrain her but she breaks free and blasts the alien on the other side of her family, yelling at Elizabeth to do what she told her to. Elizabeth then points her finger and fires her own energy beam, blasting the closing shutter on the wall across from them. The two of them run for the opening, as aliens try to intercept them from either side, but they manage to slip out and fall to the ground below. From inside the ship, Newman, unexpectedly, shoots out two energy beams that appear to blast the church, the inside of which fills up with a blue light, as the orbs float outside. They spread all throughout the town and then begin returning to their human forms in various spots. Not only are characters like Earl restored and families reunited, but even characters just as the 50's teen couple are reanimated. Most significantly, Willie is reunited with his long-lost family. At this point, Mrs. Benjamin and the authorities arrive in town, announcing that the crisis has passed, while Bigelow finds the restored Betty sitting in a tree and helps her down, before kissing her. Elizabeth watches as the mothership disappears into the sky, but when her father tries to comfort her, she tells him, "She'll be back," and hugs him, as Bigelow looks up into the now empty sky. The movie ends on the three of them walking down the street, as the revived Louie runs up to them, and with a series of dissolves showing the camera fading from a high, overhead shot of the country to a final shot the Earth.
The score was done by John Addison, a well-known British composer who won an Oscar for his work on 1963's Tom Jones, scored Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain after the director had a falling out with Bernard Herrmann, and would go on to do the main theme for Murder, She Wrote. His music for Strange Invaders is quite eclectic, as it runs the gambit from taking its cues from the sound of 50's sci-fi films, most notably with a theramin-sounding motif that's used at various points throughout (it's similar to an eerie piece Elmer Bernstein would put into Ghostbusters), to sounding big and grand, not unlike a score you'd hear from John Williams, sweeping and romantic for the scenes involving love and growing relationships, and genuinely sweet and moving for the ending when everyone is restored to human form and Willie is reunited with his family. It has a very old-fashioned, classic feel to it throughout that fits well with the notion that this is meant as a tribute to old movies and ultimately is one of the movie's real highlights.
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