My review of “Things to Come” proved rather popular as many people had no idea the film existed. So let’s look at another British film that long ago (not as long as Things to Come) that chances are not that many of you will know about. The 1966 film Invasion.

Now first thing to say, this film doesn’t really have an invasion, in fact it’s also very low budget so if you’re expecting bug eyed monsters invading in flying saucers, then that’s not the kind of film you’re getting.

The film starts with a crash and the forest ablaze. Then while driving a man dashes in front of a car only to be struck by it. He is taken to a hospital where strange details begin to emerge. First the man seems to be clothed in a strange rubber suit. Second though he appears to be East Asian his blood comes off showing he is not human. This as well as two women also appearing to be East Asian and wearing similar suits stalk the ground. Now I want to point out that they do make note that the aliens look just like they are from East Asia as there is a human woman of that ethnicity in the hospital’s staff, but this is our main way of keeping the cost low.

Now if the first part of the movie involving a figure emerging from the woods and then rushed to hospital revealing he’s an alien sounds familiar. I should tell you the film’s screen play was written by Roger Marshal, however more importantly (sorry Roger) is that that screen play was then adapted for this by Robert Holmes who would later write for Dr Who including the episode “Spear Head From Space” and it’s clear to see that elements of this story were drawn from this movie.

With a lack of fancy special effects or monsters, the film begins to build a tense atmosphere, the hospital soon finds itself isolated, surrounded by a strange force field and people begin to vanish as the two mysterious women continue to prowl around it. But because this isn’t some American B movie there is more to the story than just a tale of black and white indeed you feel elements of bigger things going on in space with our human protagonists caught in the middle only getting a glimpse of what’s happening.

For fans of those kind of movies this is a different beast, still clearly low budget (in fact its soo low I couldn’t find what the budget was) it builds a more tense feel rather than fear of a monster. The force field is so complete that people begin to worry about running out of air, all the while our main source of intimidation and fear is the 2 Asian women in rubber space suits. Still for such a low budget I can’t say it’s a bad movie. They do well with what they have and tell a decent story.

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