Invisible Strangler
"Well, did he leave any finger prints on the crime scene at least?!"
"Chief, how do you not understand this completely simple concept."
Guys, I'm gonna be honest right out the gate, there's a whole hell of a lot to unpack here. Like, let's begin at the concept itself, alright. Somebody went into a room in Hollywood, walked up to their boss who had his shoes on his desk, his suspenders strapped on, big ol' sunglasses and a cigar hangin' out his mouth (I'm describing a very specific seedy place in LA where only these types of movies can come from), and went "Sir! I've got it! It took me hours but I finally got it! Okay, it's about a murderer...and he strangles people...BUT THEY CAN'T SEE HIM!"
His boss then leaps up from his desk, fist pumps the air, points his cigar hand at his employee and goes, "God dammit, Greg, you're a genius! This is why you're the highest payed screenwriter in the field today! I'm gonna get you a supermodel!" and then they made this movie. That's exactly how this went down, right? Like, no joke. That's the only way this could've gone down. This is a prime example of someone sitting in a room with a dartboard, note cards pinned to a cork board while they tried to stick two words together that might, when slapped beside one another in a semi cohesive, create something just slightly interesting enough to possibly be made into a movie. So here's Greg, sitting in his chair, tossing darts at the wall when he finally hits two words, "Invisible" & "Strangler", and as he gets up to retrieve his darts for the fortieth time, a twinkle in his eye, and he goes, "Eureka!"
Look at this goddamned hot mess. Just look at it. This box art looks like what we used to wear in middle school. This is the personification of middle school fashion back in 2004.
Let's begin at the art itself, okay, because I don't know what this style is, other than incredibly unnerving, but there's a lot going on. You've got a woman, half submerged in water, naked, either being supposedly strangled by this invisible killer or just choking on something that went down the wrong pipe, and then you've got two other people, and a straight up disembodied head floating there. I mean, look, I know they're not paying you much to do this, but can't you at least TRY to give a damn, for our benefit? Please? Give that poor girl some shoulders, a torso, anything! Do you have any idea how hard it is to survive in the world as a woman, let alone a disembodied head of a woman? It's tough out there! We need all the autonomy we can get, okay? You really think Headless Carol here can get a job and support her two children, Kyle and Samantha? She can't be a cashier, she has no hands! The best she's gonna get is catalogue work modeling jewelry! Which, I mean, it might pay well, but eventually a girl wants more from life than people trying to take pictures of her neck.
I also like the back of the box, specifically the description which implies that one can simply learn how to astral project simply by reading about it. If this is true, then I'm a goddamned expert, because I've read so much about the subject it's not even funny.
Let's also I guess just ignore the fact that it's completely unrated, despite having a caricature of a vaguely naked woman and straight up murder as not just the central core of the plot but right there on the cover art. I'm assuming this did not get a theatrical release next to ET. And to add to that, I also like the inclusion of the "Video Treasures", which, okay it's a video, sure, but treasure? That's reaching. And none of the people on the box art seem really at all perturbed by what's going on to this poor lady, but I'm guessing that's just because they're not actually there to see it. Except Headless Carol, because she sees EVERYTHING. I mean, layout wise it's nothing special, but it's nothing horribly terrible either, it's fairly generic, so it's got that going for it at least.
The wikipedia, as always, provides some gems, one of which include two alternate titles, "The Astral Factor", which sounds like some sort of beginners course in a physics college class, and the better of the two, "The Astral Fiend", which is just downright hilarious to me and frankly what I think they should've gone with. In fact, I'm willing to bet that they only went with "Invisible Strangler" because not enough people in the common renting marketplace would know what the fuck astral projection even is. Another little gem is this little tidbit which informs us that "Arthur C Pierce wrote the screenplay and co-directed the film uncredited." Gee. I wonder why he made that decision. This movie is about a man who killed his famous mother and then is put into an asylum where he learns to astral project and then uses that power to exact revenge on his mothers friends who testified against him at trial.
These women, thanks to the role list on the wikipedia page, are named Candy Barrett, Darlene DeLong and Bambi Greer. Frankly, after learning this, I can't really blame him for killing them. Those are stupid names, and they deserve to be snuffed out.
There's no budget, and no income, which doesn't really surprise me at this point. What DOES surprise me is that this movie has a shockingly high number of people credited as "Dancer" and if you think I'm kidding, I've screencapped this fact for you right here.
So yeah, that's The Invisible Strangler, or as I like to call him, the Astral Fiend, or just Ass Fiend for short, ya know, to save time, and cause I'm 12. I really don't know what would drive a man to create such a monstrosity such as this, but one can only assume that he was in the darkest part of his life yet. Let's hope he gets better, gets the help he needs, wherever he is.
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