Some cinemagoers enjoy watching Swedish films. High on their list of favorite films, no doubt, is Invasion of the Animal People (1959), a Swedish/American film about a small alien invasion directed by American actor/director Virgil W. Vogel (editor of This Island Earth and Touch of Evil and director of The Mole People), then partially reshot and reedited for American release by Jerry Warren. The result is a harrowing film about mysterious aliens transporting a large creature to Earth for unknown reasons.
Of course, some of your universe's critics are unfair to Invasion of the Animal People. For example, reviewer robertguttman writes, "A lot of people consider Ed Wood's 'Plan 9 from Outer Space' to be the worst movie ever made, but clearly those people have never seen 'Invasion of the Animal People'." Reviewer Aaron1375 writes, "The film is not good as it is such a mishmash of different things." And reviewer soulexpress calls the film an "hour-long cinematic suppository."
Obviously, these reviewers are completely incorrect. Read on for an appreciation of Invasion of the Animal People...
The film opens with John Carradine sitting in a futuristic science control center and speaking to the audience. “The main functions of science can be termed as primarily comprehension and control. The comprehension is sometimes merely that of the physical, but more often it deals with the universal forces that affects the lives of each one of us. We know that the vast spaces surrounding our planet are teeming with micro-meteors and radiation that originate in the stars and the distance galaxies. Strange, little-understood phenomena have been observed in the depths of our oceans and deep within the mass that underlies the crust of this globe upon which we live. With the help of instruments and accepted natural mathematical laws, we have been able to expand our comprehension but to a small degree. Man has learned that life is everywhere, and although we are part of it, it seems the thing we understand the least.”
After some similar sentences, he continues: “Actually, our quest for comprehension is perhaps most complicated by the failure to discover reality within ourselves.”
After some more narration about the limitless potential of science, the film proper begins as a bright light floats in the sky above a young woman’s house. Disturbed by the noise the light makes, she runs out of her house and down a busy highway. She is soon found by a policeman and dragged to a police station while John Carradine’s narration explains she is “Diane Wilson, average American girl living in a suburban community. She has never been known to be mentally ill or behave in the erratic manner in which the police patrol found her.”
Of course, Diane’s predicament is headline news, even more important than such headlines as “Delegates Here to Attend Meeting,” “Board Head to Speak” — and even “More Rigid Rules Sought in Fight to Clean City Parks”!
The newspaper article informs viewers that Diane will leave the hospital for a pre-planned trip to Switzerland. She (and we in the audience) are fortunate to ski in the beautiful mountains of Switzerland — for several minutes we watch Diane ride a ski lift comprising a metal bucket and rope for holding on to one’s skis.
Unfortunately, and coincidentally, the nearby Laplanders witness a fireball in the sky not unlike the one Diane encountered. It crash-lands in the Swiss snow, so a brave skier braves the mountains to bravely ski to a telegraph shack and relay the news to the entire world. (All of this is helpfully narrated by John Carradine, as this part of the film, like many parts, has no distracting synchronized sound.)
In Zurich, Dr. Frederick Wilson, who happens to be Diane’s uncle, not to mention one of the world’s many world-famous geologists, rushes to a committee meeting. He is joined by another world-famous geologist, Dr. Erik Engstrom, whose speciality is “dangerous glacier penetrations.” The scientists are sent to a Lapland village near the impact of the fireball/meteor, which is also coincidentally near the city where Diane is skiing (which might be in Switzerland, and might in fact be in Finland). As soon as they arrive on their crucial mission to find the meteorite, Erik flirts with Diane, who is now ice skating, and then rushes away to get some skiing in. (Diane, incidentally, is an Olympic ice skater, something her local newspaper failed to mention, probably because it wasn’t nearly as important as her upcoming trip to Switzerland. Personally, I would find "OLYMPIC CHAMPION SEIZED BY MYSTERY FORCE" to be a more enticing headline than "GIRL SEIZED BY MYSTERY FORCE," but that is just me.)
After her uncle informs her about Erik’s reputation as a ladies’ man, Diane runs into him on the ski slopes. “Are all American girls as crazy as you?” he asks.
“Worse,” she replies. “Some of us even like wolves.”
“Perhaps you’ll give this wolf the pleasure of walking back with you.”
She agrees, but then she steals his skis and skis by herself down the hill, forcing him for no apparent reason to walk down to the ski lodge.
After a romantic dinner accompanied by even more romantic glockenspiel music, Diane and Erik dance to a traditional Swedish song about the midnight sun played by a live band. The party is interrupted by Dr. Wilson, who summons Erik to a snowmobile expedition. They try to leave Diane behind, but she refuses and they take her with them. However, they force her to stay with their giant snowmobile as they investigate what has been found — a snowfield full of dead reindeer.
“What kind of animals could have done this?” asks a researcher.
“I’m not sure it’s any animal that we’ve ever seen,” concludes Dr. Wilson.
Diane wanders off and sees what appears to be a footprint in the snow. She screams and the others gather around her. Erik makes an even more startling conclusion than his colleague: “Whatever creature made this has to be at least 20 feet tall.”
The filmmakers cut to a shot of an airplane taking off the next day, as the researchers (without Diane) fly to the fireball’s landing area. They find the massive meteorite, but instead of landing they take photos, then return to town to look at the photos. Moments later, the filmmakers cut to a shot of the same airplane taking off the next day with the exact same passengers — except this time Diane has stowed away on the tiny plane, hiding behind a bench seat. This time, they land the plane on the snow.
Diane insists on hiking with the others to the fallen meteorite. “You know I’m an expert skier. I can handle myself as well as any of you.”
“Well,” Erik says, “she’s your niece, Doctor.”
“Well,” Dr. Wilson replies, “it’s your expedition.”
Frustrated, Erik replies huffily, “It WAS my expedition.”
They wake up through the snow (without skis, incidentally) until they see the meteorite — which is clearly an alien ship.
The filmmakers cut to the inside of the ship, where aliens watch the humans on a video screen.
Outside, the researchers conclude it must be an alien ship, but they are startled to hear the pilot, a few miles away, firing a rifle. They run back to the plane but the pilot is dead, buried in snow. They also find massive footprints in the snow. Dr. Wilson develops a plan: Erik and Diane will ski to the Laplander village before dark to get help while the others stay with the plane, which nobody can fly.
After several minutes of skiing down and climbing up mountains, Diane slips and falls, nearly hitting a tree. Her knee is injured. “Do you feel a sharp pain?” Erik asks as he squeezes her knee.
“Oh yes!” she cries out.
Back at the meteor landing site, after one man falls into the crevice made by the meteorite, events transpire so quickly that John Carradine’s voice is needed to explain them. Some of the Laplanders evacuating from the area due to avalanches encounter Dr. Wilson and the surviving airman, so they all return to the a nearby village — though they fail to see the giant furry thing pursuing them. At the village, the building with the radio transmitter inside is attacked by the giant.
Out in the wilderness, Erik and the injured Diane find a rescue cabin in a valley, so they enter and start a fire. After some flirting, Erik leaves to get help and Diane remains in the cabin. In a suspenseful sequence, she hears something outside, then opens a window to see what it is — only to see the giant alien monster!
Understandably, she screams loudly, and Erik hears her, though he is a few mountains away. He skis back to her, but by the time he arrives the alien is leaving the cabin. Unfortunately for the humans inside, however, the alien’s footsteps create an avalanche that buries the cabin.
Erik is hit by falling rafters, but Diane manages to run away through the snow.
Later, however, Erik is revealed to be alive, nursed by Dr. Wilson, who is now wearing a nice ski sweater. He tells Erik they found Diane’s trail leading away from the cabin but lost the trail due to wind.
Diane, meanwhile, pushes through a terrible storm, finding shelter only in the form of a small fallen log.
After the wind dies down, the giant alien monster finds Diane lying in the snow. He picks her up and carries her to the meteorite site. When he goes to the fallen UFO, the alien crew of the ship, cloaked white-faced men, surround Diane. They frighten her so much that she faints and falls into the snow, again.
Back at the Lap village, the giant alien approaches the houses and the researchers, of course, shoot at it. In defending itself, the alien causes a fire, forcing everyone to flee. Erik, however, notices the giant has Diane’s scarf wrapped around its arm. After it destroys some buildings, the alien simply turns around and leaves, so Erik and Dr. Wilson join some of the Lap villagers to follow it — they intend to rescue Diane. When they reach the creature, he has picked her up again. The Laps, furious about the descrutction of their village, attack the creature with fire, even though Diane is in danger in his arms. In the end, the creature puts Diane down (possibly because he is in love with her) and allows himself to be pushed over a cliff.
Back at the meteorite site, the other aliens push some buttons in their ship, which causes it to turn back into a fireball and reverse back through the snowfield.
Dr. Wilson and Erik observe the fireball fly away. “I wonder if they found out what they wanted to know,” Dr. Wilson says. “Well, let’s hope for better luck when we set foot on some other world.”
Mr. Carradine’s voiceover concludes the film. “If we search deeply enough into this, perhaps we’d find an omen. Memories are diminished as the passing of time provides a past. It equally brings to us the future, and without a future, there would be no present.”
The End
It must be said: Invasion of the Animal People has no animal people. Perhaps the giant creature could be described as an "animal person," but there is only one of him, and the other aliens are more "people people" than "animal people." With this bit of trivia out of the way, let us delve into the greatness that is Invasion of the Animal People.
The most exciting aspect of the film is probably the presence of John Carradine as the narrator. Mr. Carradine's scientific knowledge is so vast that listening to his mellifluous voice tell us about astronomy and evolution and Diane Wilson's mental state is akin to listening to the works of your great Earth composers whose names escape me for the moment. Mr. Carradine was a national treasure, and producer Jerry Warren certainly knew how to utilize his many talents.
Another great aspect of the film is its exotic Scandinavian scenery. While some might argue that watching people act against an unchanging white backdrop is somehow unexciting, those people have no imagination. The Scandinavian snow almost becomes a character in the film, as the heroes fly over it, ski through it, and wander helplessly along its windswept hills. Very few monster movies come close to the visual majesty of Invasion of the Animal People; perhaps the closest is Shriek of the Mutilated (1974), with its clever use of negative photography to show a barren snowscape.
Finally, the film's greatness is enhanced by its magnificent special effects. The giant alien is truly terrifying as it pulls apart a small house at least twice during the film. If indeed it is the "animal people" of the title, it is an iconic monster, made all the more iconic by its final sacrifice as it lays Diane on the snow and accepts the burning spears of the Laps, then falls off a cliff for ambiguous reasons. Nobody who watches Invasion of the Animal People to its climax will ever forget the tragic ending of the animal person -- and that is what classic cinema is all about.