Invisible Strangler

[1984, Movie]

Invisible Strangler: Review

This ridiculous film concerns a young lad who strangles his mother when she tells him that she wishes she had aborted him. Locked away in a mental hospital, he studies books on the occult (what kind of mental hospital would let a disturbed inmate have books like this is a question left unanswered) until he learns an ancient Buddhist technique for becoming invisible. He then escapes his rubber-padded room and goes on a murder spree, under cover of invisibility strangling his mother's old friends in their posh homes. These scenes are ludicrous--women, seemingly all alone, suddenly start choking, their eyes rolling up in their heads. The detective assigned to the case finally gets rid of the unseen assailant by hooking a metal handrail up to an electrical outlet and frying the fellow. Lyon makes a tiny appearance with no dialog, and Sommer has a slightly larger role as a cocktail waitress. Shot in 1976 under the title of THE ASTRAL FACTOR, the film languished on the shelf for eight years before being sprung on an unsuspecting world.