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Best movie of this year hands down!

Overrated

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

The Invisible Ray (1936)*** (out of 4) Dr. Janos Rukh (Boris Karloff) discovers a new form of radiation and he hopes to do great things with it but he becomes poisoned and soon everything he touches dies.This here was the third teaming between Karloff and Bela Lugosi and as fans often point out this film here isn't nearly in the same league as THE BLACK CAT or THE RAVEN. In a large part this is due to the fact that horror films were pretty much banned and were not put into production for several years. This here meant that there weren't any "horror" movies from the studio and all of their famous monsters remained on the shelf. What we got a spike in were old dark house movies and more science-fiction type of films, which is what THE INVISIBLE RAY here.The film isn't a complete success but if you're a fan of the two stars then it's certainly good enough to hold your attention. What works the best is the performance by Karloff who once again does a very good job at making you believe he is the character as well as making you like the character. I really thought he gave a very strong performance here and he once again works extremely well with Lugosi. Lugosi is given a fairly weak role here but whenever the two legends are on the screen together you can see that they both raise their game.The film has a lot of dialogue scenes that tend to drag on a bit but where the film really works are the science ones. I really liked the special effects of Karloff's hands and face glowing. I also liked how the radiation story played out. One just wishes that they had given more screen time to the special effects instead of the dialogue.

A good and interesting older sci-fi film. I love the idea of finding a cure for blindness but this particular fictitious form of radium called Radium X also has it's dark side if it falls into the wrong hands (as we see in the film). This movie is a grim reminder that scientific discoveries in real life (as well as in the movies) can be used for good but it can be used for bad/evil if one uses that way.Great film for fans of the science fiction genre. It tells the story of Dr. Janos Rukh (Karloff) who discovered the (fictitious) Radium X, is exposed to the poison and becomes a murderous maniac against the scientists and supporters of the expedition were the Radium X was found.7.5/10

Despite owning The Bela Lugosi Collection DVD from the day it came out, I honestly don't think I've seen this film before. If I have, I've forgotten almost everything about in the intervening years. As it is, it's a pretty fun sci-fi/horror hybrid. The movie has a fantastically Gothic opening, with a group of scientists, Bela Lugosi among them, gathering in an old castle on a dark and stormy night. Using his fancy telescope machine, Boris Karloff shows his audience the history of an asteroid hitting Earth, by reflecting rays off of Andromeda. (Is that possible? It doesn't seem possible.) It's hard to go wrong with Karloff narrating over a series of surreal, astral images. The gist of this really cool montage? There's a new element somewhere in the wilds of Africa.In the first of two major location changes, the scientists pack and head for the jungle. After some moderately racist scenes of African natives, Karloff finds the asteroid and immediately turns this fantastic new element into a death ray. Also, he becomes poisoned with the new element's radiation, now glows in the dark and kill things with a touch. His fellow scientists basically run off with Karloff's discovery, though they still technically credit him. He's still pretty upset. Also, his much-younger wife is in love with another guy. That's a lot of set-up, isn't it? I thought so too. "The Invisible Ray" is a half-an-hour in before we finally get to the movie's main point. It's not exactly a problem, as the movie is actually well paced. But still, as far as revenge quest premise go, it's a bit convoluted. In the second location shift, the action heads to Paris and Karloff can get down to the business of killing those who have wrong him with his brand new radiation powers. Perhaps it wasn't the best idea to betray the guy who can kill with a touch.The main pleasure of "The Invisible Ray" is seeing Karloff play an over-the-top villain. There's some excuse about the radiation affecting his sanity but even before then he seems a little obsessive. Having the great actor scream about "Thieves!" is sort of awesome. The second half is exciting enough and there are several nice touches. An eradicated hand-print appears on the skin of each victim. Karloff destroys one of six statues at a near-by church after claiming a victim. Lugosi discovers the identity of the killer with a especially ridiculous, but fun!, method. Bela does well in another nice guy part. The ending rolls around in an unexpected manner. "The Invisible Ray" maybe demands a little more from viewers as far as plot mechanics go but it's a satisfying thriller that drawls its audience in early and keeps their attention.

In another Gothic castle on a mountaintop far far away, Boris Karloff is busy exploring the stars, searching for the secrets of the planets and what created the earth's core. He knows many gasses make up the earth's core, and in one discovery, gets to witness the big bang from millenniums before. Sharing this with disbelieving scientific guests, he convinces them to take him with them on a journey to Africa where he discovers "Radium X", a gas which turns him into "the touching killer" when it gets too deeply embedded in him. Bela Lugosi is along for the ride, but don't you dare call him "sidekick".This isn't as good as the two previous Karloff/Lugosi co-starrers, and even with a fine supporting cast, it ranks low on the totem pole of Universal fantasy/sci-fi/horror, at least amongst the ones released in the 1930's. Beulah Bondi is present as one of the scientists, guilty in Karloff's mind of pairing his estranged wife (Frances Drake) with another scientist (Frank Lawton). Violet Kemble Cooper, who resembles an older Dame Judith Anderson (and even sounds like her), gives a very melodramatic performance as Karloff's aging blind mother, crippled after assisting her son in one of his experiments.As for Lugosi, he's a total good guy here, out to aid Karloff who in a lucid moment seeks his help in finding a cure. There's one shocking moment where Lugosi refers to a sick African child as an unfortunate creature. Footage of this with Karloff in the head gear was later used for Lugosi's character in the campy serial "The Phantom Creeps". The film's horror doesn't come from the deaths here, but from the actual prediction that the earth is filled with such materials which was almost a decade before the bombing of Japan and the beginning of the nuclear age. For that, this is actually a film of foresight in which the fear might make you think what else exists out there that could destroy mankind.