Walk like an Egyptian (12/22/02)
____________
Invisible Invaders. [Edward L. Cahn, 1959. Written by Samuel Newman.]
Plan 9.2.1 from outer space: the untimely death by laboratory accident of nuclear wizard John Carradine convinces fellow scientist Philip Tonge that the environmental impact of atomic testing is unacceptable, and that the indiscriminate detonation of fission weapons will soon pollute earth, air, fire, water, even space itself; a prophecy confirmed in the most bizarre fashion when Carradine's reanimated carcass lurches into his living room and delivers an ultimatum from evil-nanny aliens who have been unhappily monitoring terrestrial progress from the Moon, where their invisible legions are poised to invade our planet should we not forthwith renounce making things go boom. Washington pays this warning no heed, alas, and in a trice the graves of the world empty and a vast army of the undead [apparently all male and wearing suits, like so many gray-flannel Madison Avenue zombies], operated or occupied [but in any case reanimated] by invisible and insubstantial [but "highly radioactive"] aliens, begins to lumber about the continent, laying waste the land, killing indiscriminately, and generally depressing property values. [Insert stock disaster footage here; repeat as needed.] This prompts a party of guys in white labcoats and the usual token dame in high heels and pushup bra to take shelter in an underground laboratory/fallout shelter hidden in the desert, where under the watchful eye of tough-love military badass John Agar they race to discover the secret which will repel the invasion and put the dead back in their graves, the aliens back in their saucers, the genie back in the bottle, and probably the fizz back in the carbonated beverage. And, sure enough, after some illstarred experiments in spraypainting the aliens which only succeed in turning the shambling zombies into shambling mummies, and despite failures of nerve, attacks of jealousy, wardrobe mishaps, and repeated cutaways to the militant undead, who, we perceive to our horror, are all wearing Really Bad Ties, our heroes confound the wouldbe dictators of the cosmos — who must have missed
Earth Versus the Flying Saucers at the drivein [though you'd think one of the advantages of being invisible would be that you could sneak into the movies whenever you wanted] — with some flashy sonic rayguns; thus speaking the comforting moral that any menace Science and The Military may inadvertently bring down upon us, they can certainly repel. Or we sure hope so.
____________Dixie chick (10/10/02)
