As space invasion flicks go, Target Earth has been largely and unfairly overlooked. Sure, it's creaky and threadbare but certainly not without charm. Its central themes of isolation and survival were not novel upon its release, and special effects had certainly been better executed in similar films. But there is something both appealing and unsettling about the film's handling of these well-worn themes. As 1950s film scholars continue to over-analyze America's radioactive paranoia, they often ignore the cleareyed approach of this stark story: protagonists simply wake up one morning to find everyone gone. On that simplistic hook hangs a decent little film. The name of Target Earth's producer, Herman Cohen, is certainly a familiar one to genre fans. The driving force behind a fistful of essential teen-schlock films in the fifties (I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Teenage Frankenstein, How to Make a Monster) Cohen emigrated to England at decade's end, producing a string of that country's more notorious horror capers (Horrors of the Black Museum, Konga). Prior to Target Earth, Cohen had been a party to two of the decades' more dubious cult film outings. Bride of the Gorilla (1951) featured busty Barbara Payton as the simian's betrothed and seems justly forgotten and rarely revived. But Cohen's next production, Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952), is atrocious on so many levels that it remains eminently watchable 45 years later. Shoddily fascinating, it stars a pathetically drawn Lugosi, and Martin and Lewis impersonators Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo. Helmed by the notorious William Beaudine, the movie is depressingly cheap and stubbornly unfunny. Eschewing the clumsy comedy of Brooklyn Gorilla and the sodden sexual overtones of Bride, Cohen's handling of Target Earth was refreshingly straightforward: Four disparate citizens of a major city awake to find themselves the only survivors of some unremembered holocaust. There is no physical devastation, no bomb craters or leveled buildings. Only abandoned cars and the occasional lifeless body. As the shocked quartet make their way to shelter, they spy a huge robot patrolling the deserted streets. Able to slip past the alien sentry, they hole up in an empty hotel for the night. Elsewhere, a team of scientists and soldiers is hard at work developing an effective counterattack. Led by the ever-able Whit Bissell, an alien specimen is captured and analyzed in hopes that some vulnerability will be discovered. Eventually, it's learned that a certain sonic frequency can penetrate their alien armor. (The idea for a sonic super-weapon was picked up and employed to better effect two years later in Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers. More recently, Mars Attacks utilized a similar sonic solution to the alien problem.) Low-rent though Target Earth undoubtedly is, a case can be made that its meager budget actually enhanced its depiction of desolation and sense of isolation. Shots of the empty city streets as staged by director Sherman Rose are a trifle bland but nonetheless haunting. At first blush, the alien robots are laughable, but there is something unsettling about their blank inhumanity and complete earnestness of presentation. The always likable Richard Denning, comfortable in so many roles of this nature, makes for an effective group leader. Denning, a veteran of several television series including Michael Shayne and Hawaii 5-0, went on to appear in genre shockers like Creature With the Atom Brain, The Black Scorpion and Creature from the Black Lagoon, rivaling John Agar and Robert Clarke for the cult-film acting crown. Richard Reeves, who slipped in and out of lovable oaf roles throughout the fifties is likewise cornily effective. Sci fi stalwarts Arthur Space and the aforementioned Whit Bissell lend legitimacy to the film's stagy military scenes. According to veteran director Herb Strock who helmed three films for Cohen (Teenage Frankenstein, Blood of Dracula, How to Make a Monster), Herman was "pontific" in his approach to a production. Things got done his way or not at all. Little wonder that each of his films is easily recognizable as a Cohen production. Cheaply sensational and solidly entertaining. As previously stated, Cohen took up residence in the U.K. following How to Make a Monster. His British output proved to be a mixed bag of bummers and bona fide shockers: Horrors Of The Black Museum (1959) Vividly recalled by even casual viewers, an unctuous Michael Gough stars as a demented writer exacting varied and hideous methods of murder. Fans who haven't watched the film in 30 years recall with disgust the "binoculars scene." Recently re-released with its original "Hypno-Vista" prologue restored. Acting: B Atmosphere: B- Fun: B+ The Headless Ghost (1959) As patently dopey as Black Museum is horrific, this trite tale of a trio of fortyish-looking college students sequestered in a British castle doesn't deliver a single thrill. Ostensibly a horror/comedy (!), the ghosts are bumbling and grumpy and the insipid banter of the protagonists wears thin in the early going. For what it's worth, the ad art is great. Acting: D- Atmosphere: D Fun: C Konga (1961) Michael Gough reprises his patented performance as an effete madman in this odd pastiche of "ape-movie" cliches. This time around, Gough plays a pontific scientist with a growth serum he's testing on a chimp. The super-charged simian sprouts to Kong-size and devastates London. Acting: B- Atmosphere: C Fun: B- Trog (1970) The expatriate producer returned to the States for this one. Somehow, pitiable Joan Crawford was coerced into appearing as a scientist working to educate a laughable trogladyte. Once more, Michael Gough goes through his endearingly irksome motions. Understandably, this was Crawford's last film. Acting: C- Atmosphere: D- Fun: C-