Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again host a fundraiser for Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.
Today’s theme: 1950s
This played double features with The Blob, and that sounds like a great night.
I Married a Monster taught me an important lesson.
If you judge a movie solely by its title, you might expect schlock. Yet it’s almost a science fiction noir, a movie that explores a loveless marriage and bleak domestic life.
Marge Farrell (Gloria Talbott) was excited to marry Bill (Tom Tryon), but shortly after tying the knot, she realizes something is seriously wrong. Good old Bill isn’t so great these days. He’s cold, distant and completely unfeeling. When Marge surprises him with a puppy for their anniversary, the dog immediately snarls at Bill—leading to Bill accidentally strangling the poor pup in the basement. Beyond the dead pet red flags, Marge is desperate to start a family, but she can’t get pregnant. When her doctor confirms she’s fine, he suggests Bill come in for tests, a suggestion Bill isn’t too keen on taking.
Also: Bill likes to go into the woods late at night and hang out with other guys.
Maybe Marge was expecting to see her man topping a neighbor in the brambles, but I bet she never expected to see an alien emerge from her man and walk into a spaceship.
The alien plot is sinister in a strangely melancholic way: all the females on their home planet are extinct. To save their race, they’ve invaded Earth, taken over the bodies of local husbands and are attempting to breed with Earth women. Yet as these cold, unfeeling invaders inhabit human bodies, human memories start leaking into their consciousness. For the first time, these logic-bound creatures are forced to experience love.
When Marge realizes the town’s authority figures are all compromised, she turns to her doctor. Together, they rally a posse of men who have recently fathered children—proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that they aren’t alien impostors. Armed with shotguns and dogs that love to bite aliens, which end up being the secret weapon, they storm the spaceship in a desperate shootout climax to save their wives and free the real townspeople hooked up to life-support machines inside the ship.
Dog vengeance!
Gene Fowler Jr. wasn’t just some studio hack. He was a veteran film editor who worked closely with Fritz Lang, and that pedigree shines through every frame. Paired with DP John P. Fulton’s moody shadow work, the movie feels less like standard mid-century sci-fi and more like a dark, claustrophobic nightmare. Fowler later served as editorial supervisor on Bad Ronald and Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark.
