Astral Factor (1976)

Invisible Strangler
Astral Fiend

Cast:

Robert Foxworth is Lt. Charles Barrett
Stefanie "Just a couple more years until Hart to Hart" Powers is Candy Barrett
Sue Lyon is Darlene DeLong
Mark Slade is Detective Holt
Leslie Parrish is Colleen Hudson
Marianna Hill is Bambi Greer
Elke Sommer is Chris Hartman

What the box says:

Demonstrating that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, a convicted strangler studies the paranormal and finds a way to render himself invisible. Once he escapes, he sets out to find and eliminate the five women who testified in his prosecution. A police lieutenant (Robert Foxworth) sets out to safeguard them, and bring the invisible killer to justice.

Plot:

At the California Hospital for the Criminally Insane, Roger Sands has been studying his book on Invisibility for Revengeful Dummies. Getting distracted, he demonstrates his telekinesis.

Beam me up Scotty....

This ought to be even stranger than Randall Flagg eyes...
He does turn invisible and escapes when the guard opens the cell door and walks through the main door.

Why is Roger so nuttier than an incontinent squirrell? He keeps having flashbacks on how he killed his mother who didn't want anyone to know she had a son.

Good invisible Roger walks into the apartment of Darlene, a model, who testified in his trial.

Act like you're choking...Imagine you're watching this movie..

Finally we get to the hero, Lt. Chuck Barrett. He gets to the apartment and can't quite figure how Darlene was strangled when all the doors and windows are locked from the inside. At the scene, Roger's fingerprints are found and it's revealed that Roger escaped from the asylum. The police start looking up the other women who testified in Roger's case. A psychiatrist explains how Roger is hunting down women who remind him of his mother and how he studied ESP.

Elsewhere, Roger finishes off another of the testifiers.

Barrett being a man of action can't believe the paranormal aspects of the case but goes to check out the ESP center and is told about astral projection.

Roxanne, a dancer and witness, is rehearsing for her new show while the cops watch her.

1970s interepretive dance show...Quality does ensue...
Well, invisible Roger strikes again.
Act like you're choking...Imagine a 1970s interpretive dance show...

Bambi, another witness, is on a boat and guarded. This time, Roger doesn't bother with any ESP. He swims underwater to the boat and uses a speargun to finish off the police and strangles Bambi (must have not been deer season...)

Roger jumps a speedboat and escapes the chasing Barrett.

By now, the police are heavily guarding the last witness, Chris. They have a handrail wired to the electricity as a trap for Roger. The police patrol the estate but don't realize that Roger has gotten inside. Invisible Roger starts shooting at the police.

As Roger climbs the stairs to get at Chris, he touches the handrail and gets electrocuted. Strangely, he doesn't re-appear but some guy who is invisible disappears. Barrett heas back to his house and wife Candy (Stephanie Powers desperately waiting for a better acting job...)

What I say:

Behold the power of the 1970s paranormal movies. Well, for a movie made in 1976, it was held back only a few years to be unleashed in the 1980s. This movie makes it a little hard to figure out what astral projection is. Throughout the movie, it seems that Roger turns invisible but sometimes it is implied that he can strangle from a distance. Near the end, he needs the SCUBA suit to reach the yacht to go after Bambi. Shame, he didn't use the speargun against Bambi (probably not bow season...)

How many movies have some higher police officers chew out the hero cops for reporting about killer aliens, monsters, etc...? Well, not here, the police don't get mad at the number of deaths of people they're protecting. If that's not bad enought, they're automatically ready to grab onto the mere notion of the invisible killer. Good to know that finding fingerprints of invisible stranglers is so easy decades before C.S.I..

Robert Foxworth may be more known for Damien: Omen 2 or Prophecy, the classic mutant bear movie. Playing a cop who can't believe the idea of paranormal powers or his wife Stephanie Powers who seems to be playing a hippie a few years late... Foxworth is just to play a cop who has a case that doesn't make any sense and get irritated at how things are going even before realizing he criminal has super powers for all intents and purposes.

With a guy who has more mother issues than Norman Bates, something can't be right...Why would any crazy guy hunt down those women that testified against him? If he was a celebrity strangler, why'd he leave anyone alive to testify against him in the first place? Ok, Ok, too much thought into a movie about a guy who reads a book to become invisible and telekinetic to hunt down those that tormented him. At least, Carrie had telekintic abilities that weren't learned out of a book.

From the past few months, I've mentioned how many of the movies reviewed seem strangely cut. Well, this movie is getting that detail, too. Since I haven't seen the Invisible Strangler version which is about 10 minutes shorter and doesn't show Roger reappearing every few minutes or have him talking. Be thankful, I'm not going to do any sort of compare or contrast.

Quotable Dialogue
"You are my mother!"
"We have a 1-8-7..."
"Escaped under mysterious circumstances?"
"Did you catch your maniac, yet?"
"So help me, Bambi..."
Morals of the Story
Hospitals need more jail cells.
One turns blue before turning invisible.
Dogs immediately sense invisible stranglers.
Stick shift cars are easily to control with telepathy.
You should always give gifts to others on your birthday.