Monster of the Day #532

Updated on August 6, 2012 By Ken Begg 13 Comments

Invisible Monster Week! We’ve already had this beastie as a visible monster, but really, you can’t go Invisible Week and leave him off. Kudos to the filmmakers, who managed to make the invisible monster nearly as scary as the really, really neat visible ones later. By counter-intuitively using stop-animation for the ‘invisible’ part, along with some really gruesome sound effects, they made this part of the film nearly as good as the climax. Of course, it helps when you have one of the greatest monsters of the era after you do your reveal.

(Having Kim Parker in a towel didn’t hurt things, either.)

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  • Beckoning Chasm

    I love this film.  I own it on tape, laserdisc and Criterion DVD.  (I didn’t buy them all at once, though.)

  • Flangepart

    Ah, hah hah! I like this one too.
    Had a ball riffing it. Including the serial number on the hero’s jeep.

  • KeithB

    Another one, if you run out would be the B5 keepers. (When sober of course)

  • Gamera977

    Hmm, hadn’t thought about it but yeah, the keepers would be. And the Shadows themselves could be considered invisible monsters too, at least in their camouflaged forms on the station.  

  • Terrific little movie. Made me a Marshall Thompson fan since childhood. Why isn’t this gem better known?

  • Ken_Begg

    It might be a lack TV play back in the day? I know Channel 32 showed it when I was a kid, and made a (surprisingly big) deal of it, pushing it several months before it actually played. Up until then it had never been on local TV, to my knowledge, and we were much more TV dependent back then.

  • I think this was one of the first films Pop bought on VHS during my formative years. (I’ve been quite blessed!)

  • Flangepart

     Ah yes! The shadows…just as Londo Molari tekks mr Morden to ‘Hold Still’.
    “I suppose I will have to have that painted over…’

  • Flangepart

     Yeah, he seemed a likable fella. An ‘average guy’ hero type.
    Anyone know why he dropped out of the biz?

  • Marsden

    The Soldier of Darkness was invisible for most of the episode, too.    Ken, you really should watch B5, it’s worth it.

  • Marsden

    I was thinking the Id monster is invisible, mostly.  But he’s been around already, I think.

  • Flangepart

    Hee hee hee…vent holes in the underarm!
    No, I don’t know why I find that amusing. Why do you ask?

  • A run by the database shows he worked, on and off, almost steadily until his passing in the early 90’s. Did a lot of TV work during and after the 60’s.