Nonureva Really Surprised!

Sarentrol Masterful Cinema

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Uriah43 This movie concerns itself with a young man named "Roger Sands" (Frank Ashmore) who has special mental powers which he uses for his own deranged purposes. For example, at the beginning of the film he happens to see a beautiful young woman and proceeds to follow her into her apartment while he is invisible. He then walks into her bathroom while she is bathing and strangles her to death. Naturally, when her body is discovered this draws the attention of the police chief who assigns a detective named "Lt. Charles Barrett" (Robert Foxworth) and "Sergeant Holt" (Mark Slade) to investigate. Even though they have no idea how the murderer managed to get into the apartment they find a fingerprint belonging to Roger Sands and realize that they have a serial killer on their hands who has unique abilities which they don't quite fully comprehend as of yet. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this movie definitely had some potential but due to a couple of lackluster scenes here and there didn't quite achieve it. It also had several notable actresses to include Stefanie Powers (as "Candy Barrett"), Elke Sommer ("Chris Hartman"), and Leslie Parrish ("Colleen Hudson") but except for Stefanie Powers their performances were rather weak as well. In short, this film should have been much better and because of that I have rated it accordingly. Average.

bkoganbing Poor Frank Ashmore, son of a former Hollywood star who is in jail has decided to do a little transcendental meditation. In fact he freaks the fecal matter out of a the guy with the cell across from his with a disappearing act he's perfected. Who says you can't learn anything new in the joint?Of course he escapes and then goes on the hunt to strangle a lot of former Hollywood cheesecake like Elke Sommer, Sue Lyon, Stefanie Powers, while being hunted by intrepid cops Robert Foxworth and Mark Slade are on the hunt for a murderer who leaves absolutely no forensics.The Astral Factor is a great example of what we lost when we grew too old and sophisticated for those classic Universal horror films. This was a film with a story that cried for that kind of treatment. The obvious example here is The Invisible Man which Claude Rains put over in a such bravura style of classic theater trained acting that we don't see any more. If The Invisible Man were done the same way as The Astral Factor the audience would have been bored out of their skulls.As was I.

Chase_Witherspoon Incarcerated killer learns to transcend existential boundaries and temporarily abscond from his gaol cell, preying on a vast array of glamorous former Hollywood starlets. Detective Foxworth is baffled by the apparent lack of physical evidence, and begins to speculate on a supernatural cause. Aside from an original premise and a great cast of former 60's sexpots (Powers, Lyon, Hill, Sommer and Parrish), with names like 'Bambi' and 'Candy', there's not much right with this tepid mystery. Mother fixated killer Ashmore does little other than look constipated, perspire and affect intense mind grips, while Foxworth's perplexed expression suggests he's struggling with the concept of the killer's meta-physical abilities. As an audience, it was also a struggle to remain engaged, as the movie laboured from one murder to the next seemingly without selection or purpose. Powers is entirely irrelevant to the plot, a vexatious waste of talent simply for the status her name brings to the dull production. Whatever value the original idea had, it quickly evaporates, the all too brief cameos being the only partially redeeming qualities.Wasting an attractive cast, "Invisible Strangler" has invisible special effects, paltry production values and incoherent dialogue to match its laborious narrative approach. Female viewers will be less concerned with the bevy of babes on show, and more appalled by the blatant misogyny of the storyline. A disappointing revision of "The Invisible Man" borrows heavily from "Psychic Killer" released a year earlier in 1975, and should have been so much more entertaining.

lazarillo This movie is kind of like the more famous 70's cult horror film "Psychic Killer" in that it deals with a prisoner who develops psychic powers which he uses to escape and take revenge on his enemies. But while in that movie the convict was an innocent man taking well-deserved revenge, the psychic killer here is a grade-A lunatic out to finish the job. In an interesting back-story he is revealed to be the disturbed illegitimate son of a famous actress/sex symbol who kept him isolated from her social circle to avoid scandal, and ended up being strangled by him. (This might have been inspired by the real-life Hollywood murder of B-movie actress Susan Cabot in the 1960's, allegedly by her troubled, illegitimate dwarf son). It's never really made clear whether his psychic "powers" actually involve astral projection(thus the alternate title "The Astral Factor") or if he is simply able to appear invisible somehow (thus "The Invisible Strangler"). The inept cops are powerless to stop him regardless, even when he is obviously in non-"astral" form and has rendered himself decidedly visible by putting on a scuba suit.What really makes this movie though is the all-star cast(or, as some wag might say, the "all has-been and never-would-be cast"). The lead detective is played by Robert Foxworth, who appeared most memorably in the ridiculous 70's mutant bear/environmental horror flick "Prophecy". German actress Elke Sommers appears as a "special guest star" (as opposed to the other actors who were apparently "regulars"). She plays a sexy former "Miss Galaxy" who the cops try to protect while she lounges around her mansion in skimpy bikinis. Sue "Lolita" Lyon has a five minute role as an early victim without uttering a word of dialogue (which is probably for the best as acting was never her strong suit). Mariana Hill ("Mrs. Fredo Corleone" in "The Godfather Part II") appears also, in accordance with an apparent law that she had to appear in every low-budget exploitation/horror movie made in the 70's and early 80's. The best though is Stefanie "Hart to Hart" Powers, who is VERY sexy as Foxworth's bimbo girlfriend "Candy". She routinely refers to herself in the third person, and buys herself an expensive fur coat on HIS birthday (which he doesn't object to since she's obviously wearing absolutely nothing underneath it). Some will probably tune in for Powers' "nude scene" (if you don't blink you might get to see the top part of her bare butt), but frankly her whole performance is downright wood-inducing (even if, like me, you don't usually go for the whole Marilyn Monroesque dumb bimbo thing). So what, if her entire character is completely superfluous. . .This actually seems kind of like a 70's TV movie or series episode--it would not have been out of place as an episode of "Kolchack, the Night Stalker" actually. But since I like "Kolchack" and 70's TV movies I found it pretty satisfying overall if, admittedly, not all that great.