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"Earth Given 24 Hours to Surrender!" Invisible murderous moon maniacs invade, with invisible troops and invisible flying saucers! John Agar, Jean Byron and John Carradine do their best to keep this underfed sci-fi turnip on its feet --- and we diehard monster fans love it. Invisible Invaders Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1959 / B&W /1:66 widescreen / 67 min. / Street Date July 12, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring John Agar, Jean Byron, Philip Tonge, Robert Hutton, John Carradine, Paul Langton. Cinematography Maury Gertsman Film Editor Grant Whytock Original Music Paul Dunlap Written by Samuel Newman Produced by Robert E. Kent Directed by Edward L. Cahn

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

At the tail end of the '50s monster boom the pickings became lean indeed. For every killer matinee filler like The Blob or The Fly, cheap double bills encouraged by American-International's example became even cheaper. Producers at Columbia, Allied Artists and United Artists turned out...

Everybody sing!: An Italian boy from Napoli, got petrified by the scenery. Now his face is white and his arms are long. And he'd rather choke you than sing a song! Hey Ed Cahn! Do another cheapie for us Hey Ed Cahn! No more Volcano nonsense! --- A really stiff guy searches for the reincarnation of his Etruscan babe from 79 B.C.. This fave monster romp from '58 is no classic, but it's the spirit that counts. Curse of the Faceless Man Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1958 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 67 min. / Street Date February 16, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Richard Anderson, Elaine Edwards, Adele Mara, Luis Van Rooten, Gar Moore, Felix Locher, Jan Arvan, Bob Bryant. Cinematography Kenneth Peach Original Music Gerald Fried Written by Jerome Bixby Produced by Robert E. Kent Directed by Edward L. Cahn    

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Actually, 1958's Curse of the Faceless Man is...

We know the greats; movies like Metropolis (1927), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Star Wars (1977).

And there are those films which maybe didn’t achieve cinematic greatness, but through their inexhaustible watchability became genre touchstones, lesser classics but classics nonetheless, like The War of the Worlds (1953), Godzilla (1954), Them! (1954), The Time Machine (1960).

In the realm of science fiction cinema, those are the cream (and below that, maybe the half and half). But sci fi is one of those genres which has often too readily leant itself to – not to torture an analogy — producing nonfat dairy substitute.

During the first, great wave of sci fi movies in the 1950s, the target audience was kids and teens. There wasn’t a lot in the way of “serious” sci fi. Most of it was churned out quick and cheap; drive-in fodder, grist for the Saturday matinee mill.

By the early 1960s,...