director: Gene Fowler, Jr.
actors: Tom Tryon (Bill) and Gloria Talbott (Marge)
screenplay: Louis Vittes
tagline: The Bride Wore Terror!
Newlywed Marge is disturbed that her husband Bill has had a personality change since their marriage. She’s also distressed that they can’t conceive a child, despite a year’s effort. Unbeknownst to her, her husband’s body has been taken over by an alien.
I usually like B sci-fi movies pretty well but the story and themes here seemed unfocused beyond ‘marriage is bad.’ They could have used the setup as a metaphor for human sexuality, gender norms, marriage, infertility, and so on. It could have been awesome cheesy fun but it wasn’t. There were some good moments, nonetheless. The alien husband standing in the lightning is an iconic image, and I was happy to see it. The scene with the [spoiler] human popcicles in the alien ship [spoiler end] was eerie and fun. The paternalistic gynecologist Marge goes to see was unnerving but not meant to be. I was on the side of the aliens 100% – the humans in this movie were prissy and smug.
links
Badmovies.org link
Popmatters link
Science fiction, horror and fantasy film review link
Monster Hunter link