The Astral Factor

1978
PG
1h 25m

IMDb RATING

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A convicted strangler, studying the paranormal in his jail cell, learns to make himself invisible. As an invisible man, he escapes from prison to stalk and strangle the five women who testif... Read allA convicted strangler, studying the paranormal in his jail cell, learns to make himself invisible. As an invisible man, he escapes from prison to stalk and strangle the five women who testified against him at his trial. Robert Foxworth plays the police lieutenant assigned to prot... Read allA convicted strangler, studying the paranormal in his jail cell, learns to make himself invisible. As an invisible man, he escapes from prison to stalk and strangle the five women who testified against him at his trial. Robert Foxworth plays the police lieutenant assigned to protect them, and to catch the invisible strangler.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

3.7/10

887

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

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Storyline

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Trivia
Being a film of mostly former A-list guest stars like Sue Lyon and Elke Sommer, character-actor Frank Ashmore, who plays the central killer/antagonist, is far down in the credits. In fact, his name shows up in the middle of a "stack" of names. This could be because he was one of the few unknown actors in this film, or the fact he's invisible a lot of the time.

Goofs
Barrett tells the crew "Don't forget that telephone" and the following shot shows them with said telephone already in hand, dusting brush poised, so they were already not forgetting it before he told them not to.

Quotes
Candy Barrett: [jumping on Lt. Barret] Candy wanted to surprise you.
Lt. Charles Barrett: Candy did.

Alternate versions
The DVD version released as "Astral Factor" is a rather different movie from the DVD released as "The Invisible Strangler." The killer is not only seen throughout in "Astral," but talks frequently (as opposed to never in "Invisible Strangler," where he is also invisible after the first scene up until the end) Most of the scenes he is in, including the opening where he first becomes invisible, is completely reshot with a different cast, features different music (as does much else of the movie), has different action, and often strikes a different tone. "Astral Factor" also fills in many missing plot points from "Invisible Strangler" with the inclusion of material edited out from the other version, which are usually easy to spot by grease pencil marks on what is obviously a work print. The running time is about ten minutes longer for "Astral," despite the fact that the opening scene, in its completely different version, runs about that much shorter than the one in "Invisible."

Connections
Featured in Horror Hotel: The Astral Factor (2018)

User reviews41

Review

Featured review

3/10

The dialogue requires the viewer to seek chemical dependency

The Astral Factor contains dialogue that limps its way through the plot. The cast is full of actors I've enjoyed watching on screen for years but none of them managed to get past the wooden interaction of the characters. The dialogue is just that bad. This movie is so stilted in places that it competes with my all time really bad but fun favorite, "The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes."

This one in my opinion is a little bit to bad for casual weeknight watching. Elke Sommers character, however, has the correct idea by only appearing on screen with a drink in her hand. This is good advice for anyone interested in watching this gem on a Saturday night. Heck, with enough scotch and soda and the near nude scenes of Stephanie Powers to help it out; you might like it.