Afouotos
Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.
SanEat
A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."
Ezmae Chang
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Chris Gaskin
I recently obtained a copy (part of the excellent Sci-Fi Gold series) of Invasion Of The Animal People off E-Bay and found it OK if a little slow moving in parts.A spacecraft crashes in a remote area of Sweden and the Army and a geologist are sent to investigate this. They discover dead Reindear and then a huge hairy Yeti type monster on the loose which has come from the spacecraft. It kills some people and more animals and, as often in these movies, the monster kidnaps a girl.You don't actually get to see the monster until later in the movie and then it is mostly in the shadows.The copy I have is the American version directed by Jerry Warren and starring John Carradine.Although far from the best 1950's monster movie, Invasion Of the Animal People was fairly enjoyable if a little slow moving at times. To sum up, fairly average.Rating: 2 and a half stars out of 5.
Michael_Elliott
Invasion of the Animal People (1962) * (out of 4) A brief introduction to director Jerry Warren who is the worst in my opinion. Warren would buy foreign movies, cut out the dialogue scenes and then add newly directed scenes so that he could then sell the movie off as his own. These added scenes usually have nothing to do with the "original" movie scenes surrounding them but that can sometimes add to the charm. This film was originally a Swedish production called Terror in the Midnight Sun but Warren chopped it up, added a few scenes with John Carradine and had him serve as the narrator. A spaceship crashes in the mountains and out gets a huge, hairy creature who stalks some scientists. The look of the creature is certainly dumb enough to get a few laughs but this doesn't happen until the final ten minutes and what follows that is pretty hard to get though. Slow, boring, stupid and simply badly made. The added scenes are equally poor. However, it must be said that this is still a lot better than Warren's Attack of the Mayan Mummy and Frankenstein Island.
Enchorde
** HERE BE SPOILERS ** Recap: An apparent meteor lands in the snow cowered wilderness in northern Sweden. Strangely enough it seems like it did a horizontal landing instead of a vertical strike with crater and all. A team of scientists are flown in from Stockholm and travels out to the site. There it is apparent that it is no meteor but an alien spacecraft. At the same time there are reports of a huge monster running about.Comment: This is a typical B-movie scifi horror kind of thing that were not uncommon in the fifties. What I didn't know that there was one produced and filmed in Sweden. Unfortunately the story could have been better, it contains far to little action, far too little events. The ending is open, no questions answered, and in all honesty, pretty lame. Otherwise, I got what I expected. Some shots of the monster, a little love story and a bunch of minor goofs (such as the usage of a plane that has already been destroyed, but I guess the producers had only one available (they could have changed registration numbers though), and that skiers seem to go downhill almost always.) I think the cast did good with the material at hand, and there are no major errors in the directing either. The story is too thin, that's all. But they got to show some of Swedens landmarks... And it was fun as I have been in the region where the film was shot.
preppy-3
This was a 1959 Swedish/American co-production. In the Lappland of Sweden a meteor crashes. Turns out it's not a meteor--it's a spaceship from another world. For no given reason--a huge, hairy monster comes from the spaceship, walks around, causes destruction and kidnaps a woman who has come with a team of scientists to explore the "meteor". Can anything stop this monster?And what does it want?There are lots of things wrong with this film--it has a romantic title song (for a SF feature!!!!); it opens with hysterically lousy special effects showing the spaceship landing; the monster doesn't show up until 50 minutes in (the film is only 70 minutes long); endless skiing footage; lousy acting (particularly Babara Wilson); laughable lapses in logic (note how conveniently Wilson's busted ankle is ignored). Also there's a pointless and fairly explicit nude shower scene which has no bearing whatsoever with the story! Still, it has an intelligent script; it's well-directed; takes place in a most unusual setting; has a very scary-looking monster and moves pretty quick. No classic but interesting.It came to American in 1962. For some reason producer Jerry Warren destroyed it. He changed the title to "Invasion of the Animal People" (?????) and added John Carradine to the cast (probably for marquee value). Carradine opens up the film with the most insipid speech I've ever heard (it makes next to no sense) and narrates portions of it. Warren added dreadful new footage (badly shot and acted) which added nothing to the story; gave it a really silly new opening (involving Wilson); says it takes place in Switzerland (????); rearranged footage and cut out huge chunks. What is left is a hysterically bad, incomprehensible mess! I believe Carradine later said this was one of his worst movies (he's not kidding). It's known as being a camp classic.But now BOTH versions are available on DVD. It's more than a little interesting to see how Warren totally destroyed a fairly good movie. It's a good thing the original is now available for people to view. "Invasion" gets a 1 (I wish I could give it a zero) but "Terror" gets a 7. Like I said, no classic but pretty well-done...and how many monster movies do you know that were made in Sweden?
