Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (January 30, 2024)
In the 1980s, filmmakers raised on 1950s “B” movies came to prominence in Hollywood, and this led to a spate of flicks that demonstrated the genre’s influence. For one of the more self-conscious stabs in this vein, we go to 1983’s Strange Invaders.
The mother of Margaret Bigelow (Diana Scarwid) dies so she goes back to her hometown of Centreville, Illinois for the funeral. However, when Margaret doesn’t return, her ex-husband Charles (Paul Le Mat) becomes concerned.
This sends him to Centreville to find her. He stumbles upon a setting in which he gradually realizes aliens control the town.
With Invaders, we encounter a film that I should’ve known about in 1983 – and maybe I did. After all, I was a teen back then, really the target audience for flick like this.
However, if I was aware of Invaders 40 years ago, I long ago forgot it. Actually, given that the movie received a fairly limited theatrical release that maxed out at 274 screens and flopped at the box office, it seems entirely possible the flick never registered on my radar.
Did I miss anything four decades ago? Not really, as Invaders provides a pretty mediocre mix of sci-fi, horror and parody.
Make no mistake: Invaders leans toward the spoof side of the street. It doesn’t turn into broad Airplane!-style mockery, but it also doesn’t take its subject seriously.
Invaders comes set in 1983 but it uses the general style and vibe of the 1950s sci-fi/horror flicks it takes as inspiration. This doesn’t feel like slavish imitation, but it clearly wants to remind us of those earlier movies.
Which it does to a degree, but because Invaders walks a line between spoof, homage and “real” sci-fi, it fails to gel. We get an awkward melange of influences and styles that don’t connect well.
Like too many movies, Invaders gives away its plot twist too early. A prologue from 1958 reveals the beginnings of an alien invasion in Centreville, so we lose the chance to experience revelations along with Charles.
Instead, the movie leaves the audience a few steps ahead of our lead the whole way, and this doesn’t change. Even after Charles arrives in Centreville, the film continues to deliver information that means the audience knows much more than the protagonist.
Some flicks can make that work. Invaders doesn’t, as it needs to come almost wholly from Charles’ POV to grab the viewer.
Instead, we find ourselves stuck in neutral as we wait for Charles to catch up with us. This doesn’t occur until well into the story, so a lot of the narrative becomes tedious.
It doesn’t help that Invaders fails to tell an especially coherent story. To be frank, it lacks internal consistency and posits various conceits that just don’t make a lot of sense.
Invaders can feel edited at random, so events pop up in ways that make one wonder if entire scenes got chopped out by accident. Not that the movie turns into a total mess, but the story can evolve in such a clumsy manner that it doesn’t coalesce as well as it should.
The messiness of the screenplay surprises because future Oscar-winner Bill Condon co-wrote the script. Only his second film, I guess Condon needed time to work on his craft, as the clunky text lacks anything that hints at talent.
Co-writer Michael Laughlin directed Invaders, so he clearly deserves more of the blame for the film’s failings. Also his second flick – he and Condon collaborated on 1981’s Strange Behavior previously – Laughlin would make 1985’s Mesmerized and then retire from the director’s chair.
Given what I see with Invaders, I won’t bemoan his departure from this job. Laughlin manages nothing creative or intriguing in the manner he relates this tale.
On the positive side, Invaders comes with an abnormally strong cast. In addition to Le Mat and Scarwid, we find folks like Nancy Allen, Wallace Shawn, and Michael Lerner.
In a nod to influences, we also get 1950s-1960s sci-fi veterans June Lockhart and Kenneth Tobey in small roles. They add a little fun for observant viewers.
Invaders does get to boast that it offered the first-ever use of an REM song in a movie, however. “1,000,000” comes from their 1982 debut EP Chronic Town and shows the film’s music supervisor had his finger on a then brand-new band’s work.
Outside of good actors as the prescient use of a band that eventually became legendary, I find little to like about Invaders. With a scattered story and not much drama or entertainment value, this winds up as a lackluster film.
