Customer Reviews

Invasion of the Animal People [VHS]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Well, I WOULDN'T say these are two different movies, but they may as well be. The original "Terror in the Midnight Sun" was filmed in English but made in Sweden - I don't understand the logistics that necessitated that move, but there you go. It runs about 70 minutes and is a pretty standard "B" flick - meteor/spaceship crashes, this time in Lapland instead of the more typical American Southwest desert. Crusty old scientist and young handsome co-worker goe to investigate - this time, crusty's lovely niece is already on the scene (please don't ask why - it's just a movie and you should really just relax...). 20-foot-tall hairy monster is a'stompin' the Lapps and their reindeer, etc etc. Happy ending for all (phew - had me going there for a minute!) Ok, so what? Heh heh - ever see "Wild World of Batwoman"? Guess what? Same guy, Jerry Warren, got his hands on the original and re-edited it into "Invasion of the Animal People", deleting a brief (and viewed through a frosted shower-curtain) nude scene and adding willowy John Carradine as a pencil-fiddling narrator. This version of the film is almost totally incoherent - edited into a mish-mash of incomprensible dialogue, voice-overs, and "what the heck was THAT?" moments. For whatever reason, he grafts on a scene with a "scientist" twiddling with a skull and explaining the sense of hearing that just goes on forEVER, and resets the location from Sweden to Switzerland (which makes all those reindeer and Lapps seem even MORE dislocated in time and spece!!) The opening scene of the crashing "meteor" doesn't show up in this version for almost 20 minutes, and believe me, you'll wonder what was going through Warren's mind. The re-write clocks in at 80 minutes, but you'll be checking your watch wondering if time itself has stopped or just what happened to your brain. Ouch! Do not watch under the influence of mind-altering substances because you will laugh yourself into a hernia.

This alone would be worthy of ANY film-school thesis on "how NOT to re-edit a movie", but wait! There's more! You get a heapin' helpin' of Swedish skin-oriented trailers. That's right, they DON'T have anything to do with the movie at hand, but I guess the Swedish connection was just too irresesitable. And to top it off - a real oddity of a 30-minute show titled "13 Demon Street", which looks like a made-in-Sweden "Twilight Zone", only with (poor and awful-looking) Lon Chaney Jr. doing the intro and close.

I don't know where the folks at "Something Weird" find these things, but bless them for rescuing them for posterity. This is certainly one of their tamer DVDs, but believe me, it's a real keeper.

This is a great double feature from the great folks at Something Weird. The premise here is that it is a double feature of essentially the same movie. The first film, "Terror in the Midnight Sun" was Sweden's first, and to date, last giant creature monster movie, and was originally titled "Rymd: Invasion i Lappland". It stars American skater Barbara Wilson as the love interest of a young scientist. It features one of the silliest giant furry creatures with tusks I have ever seen, who inexplicably is brought to Earth by two aliens in a purpose made meteor. After laying waste to half of a Lapp village, the creature has a run in with some primitive Lapp villagers who are none too amused. Their aggression causes the hasty retreat of the meteor (and proves that the director knows how to make the film run backwards.) It is a harmless and pleasant Swedish monster movie romance, and I thoroughly enjoyed it for the cheese value.

Cranking up the cheese-o-meter is the second feature, "Invasion of the Animal People" by famous (OK, infamous) director Jerry Warren ("Wild World of Batwoman", "Frankenstein Island") who, true to form, re-edits this fine Swedish horror film into a total mess that is virtually incomprehensible, and features new footage of always charismatic John Carradine and Katherine "Batwoman" Victor. This time Carradine is a narrator and gets to ramble on about scientific sounding things that have no basis in the real world (or in this film, for that matter.) I enjoyed comparing the two versions of the film, but must admit that I laughed more at the "Invasion of the Animal People" simply because it makes close to zero sense, which, of course, is why I love Jerry Warren. It is absolutely delightful to savor the ludicrousness of this work of genius.

Up to that point I was going to give the DVD five stars, but for once the extras take it down a notch. First there is an episode of "13 Demon Street" starring a depressed looking Lon Chaney, Jr. It is interesting only in that it has Swedish subtitles, but is otherwise snore inducing. There are several Swedish movie trailers that have some adult content that spoils an otherwise family suitable DVD. Their worst offense is being boring. And finally there is an absolutely terrifying and genuinely sick short called "Lapland Reindeer Ritual", which started off very normally as a documentary on reindeer herding, but ends up with the most horrifying and genuinely disturbing (not to mention disgusting) scene that I have ever witnessed. Next time someone offers to explain the customary method of fattening reindeer up for market, say "No!" as loud as you can, put your fingers in your ears, and leave the room rapidly, singing a you go, to positively insure you will not learn how this is done. Trust me.

Mike Vraney and Something Weird Video have turned out a set that has been sooooo neglected over the years. Jerry Warren took Terror In the Midnight Sun and re-edited it into a feature called Invasion Of The Animal People, which in itself isn;t a really bad flick. The high point of this disc is that you get to see the Original version Terror in The Midnight Sun. I enjoyed this a lot and the extras are something else again!! Check em out!! I fell in love with this double bill and I hope you will to.

The two movies listed here ,are in fact, two different films. The top title is the original Swedish creation.
The second is a recondition of the first. Apparently,there was a need for americans to endure a different version-w/ the addition of John Carradine. He does not have any part of "Terror in the Midnight Sun". If you love bad science fiction that is in glorious black and white,then you may really appreciate this DVD.
However, the "X" rated commercials certainly were not appreciated,nor related to two clean films. The DVD has extra outtakes of the making of the films,also , extra short Swedish stories.
Most of all,I have owned the vhs title of Invasion of the Animal People, for quite some time-I have a movie review I wrote for it on IMDB.com -written a couple of years ago. Now,with DVD-this picture quality has been saved. If you are thinking about buying this DVD-you should-you will like it.

another great dvd package from something weird. it was quite amazing to see the contrast between the two versions of this admittedly rather mundane lapland-ish monster film. mundane, but most defintely worth looking at as it's pretty unique. lots and lots of skiing. an epically bad "special effects" shot. great shower scene by the erstwhile heroine. as usual, SW throws in some nice extras including one of the most unsettling things i've ever seen - a unique method of lapland-ian reindeer neutering that defies description.

In this superb 1962 sci-fi classic,John Carradine stars as a geologist investigating a meteor which proves to be a downed spacecraft and then has a rude awakening!!John Carradine does a wonderful acting job in this film.He rules!!

Classic B-science fiction/horror movie about an alien ship that crashed into the mountains and a 40-foot yeti goes on a rampage after the villagers take back their kidnapped woman. In glorious black and white, cheesy english-dub, and of course; drinking on the set. It doesn't get any better than this for a friday night flick.

Whacky but kinda fun movies, although hard to recommend. However, in the extras, there is a kind of travelogue/documentary about the Laplanders and their caribou. The method used by the Lapp women to castrate the caribou is rather, shall we say, tasteless? This four seconds alone is worth the price of the DVD. Watch it with many friends and listen to the howls and groans!

In the whole corpus of Scandinavian monster movies, these don't rank very high. Obviously, you don't buy these movies unless you love bad cinema. Admittedly I fell asleep so many times during both that I can't write a very detailed review other than to say I've seen many, many better bad movies. (All the skiing and skating made me sleepy I think.) On the plus side, I loved the monster when he finally appeared. And at least they were both pretty short.

Actually a comet, Invasion of the Animal People May be one of the rarest horror movies I know about, not many people know about this film. But it wasn't a dissapointment, I was so intrigued with this monster that it never at a point got boring to watch. The story is strange and abit too hard to explain, lets just say some comets hit the earth and 2 very unlucky people have found themselves in a total mess in danger of their lives they once took advantage of, it all started with an argument that lead the "couple" going seperate ways but ended up in cabin that wasn't in such a safe area, that's when the monster attacks the cabin. Might I add the monster in this film is about 10 feet tall, well thats what they made it out to be, the actor had to go on standing-sticks to make him get a better effect and they obviously used small props such as tiny houses and tee-pees for him to destroy and make him look like a giant, in a nut shell, just get this movie for the fun of it. I am very sorry I did not see Terror in the Midnight Sun but it sounds very interesting.