I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)

Bill and Marge are just about to be married. Just one last hurrah for Bill – a bachelor party – then he’ll meet bonny Marge at the altar. But Bill steps away from the party and an alien abducts him, then replicates his form and proceeds to the chapel. At first, Marge doesn’t suspect a thing. 

I Married a Monster from Outer Space recycles the tried and true Invasion of the Body Snatchers yarn in which communists – sorry, aliens – walk among us, disguised as everyday folk, even our spouses. The plot here toys with that uncomfortable awkwardness of newlyweds once the honeymoon concludes as they gradually discover that they haven’t married the person they thought they had. 

It also introduces a novel back story for the aliens. The sun around which the aliens’ planet orbited went super-nova and wiped out half the population; all of the females. Only male aliens remained. 

Predictably, the aliens hatched a plan whereby they would fold themselves into American communities by replacing human men with exact replicas, marry human women, then modify their anatomies so as to permit them to gestate alien infants, thereby breeding the alien population back to pre-nova levels. 

And they might have gotten away with it, too, were it not for the meddling of Marge.

Part of the reason for the popularity of these kinds of movies (It Came from Outer Space is another great example) was the 1950s red scare – the fear that Soviet operatives lived among us, masquerading as ordinary Americans. The other part was the cost savings in the special effects department that inured to a plot utilizing aliens who appear to be just like us. Saves a lot of make-up, prosthetics, and antenna expense. 

In most cases, though, the true, hideous form of the aliens is still featured in a climactic reveal. That’s the case, here. And it’s nothing new. But here’s something you don’t see often: dogs as deus ex machina. Make it to the end of the film, and you’ll see what I mean.