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Great Film overall

A Disappointing Continuation

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The Astral Factor is about a psychopath, imprisoned for murdering his mother, who somehow learns how to make himself invisible by studying books while incarcerated in a hospital for the criminally insane. Needless to say, he escapes and goes on a killing spree.This one begins quite well in all fairness but it soon gets somewhat tedious. The storyline is such a bad basic idea you have to wonder how the likes of it ever got as far as to be given the green light for an actual movie. Well, while it was made as film, it seemingly sat on a shelf for near enough ten years before actually being released. It's really not all that surprising to be perfectly honest. While the story is pretty terrible, it's not really that that is the chief problem. Sometimes bad stories make for good films after all. No the issue is probably that, with very few exceptions, movies about invisible men are almost always terrible. What can be more cinematically tedious than an invisible character? What it does mean though, is there are some very silly murder scenes which I guess could provide some laughs I suppose. But for me the best aspects about this one were the appearances of Elke Sommer and Stephanie Powers. Sommer starred in a few interesting cult films in the 70's and her presence is always welcome, while it was strange to see future 'Hart To Hart' TV star Powers cavorting about with her butt exposed. She played the detective's trophy wife! She does zero housework and spends all his hard earned cash. She and Sommer were at the very least interesting diversions in a film in need of them.

Poor Frank Ashmore, son of a former Hollywood star who is in jail has decided to do a little transcendental meditation. In fact he freaks the fecal matter out of a the guy with the cell across from his with a disappearing act he's perfected. Who says you can't learn anything new in the joint?Of course he escapes and then goes on the hunt to strangle a lot of former Hollywood cheesecake like Elke Sommer, Sue Lyon, Stefanie Powers, while being hunted by intrepid cops Robert Foxworth and Mark Slade are on the hunt for a murderer who leaves absolutely no forensics.The Astral Factor is a great example of what we lost when we grew too old and sophisticated for those classic Universal horror films. This was a film with a story that cried for that kind of treatment. The obvious example here is The Invisible Man which Claude Rains put over in a such bravura style of classic theater trained acting that we don't see any more. If The Invisible Man were done the same way as The Astral Factor the audience would have been bored out of their skulls.As was I.

Low rent almost TV movie starring Robert Foxworth, Elke Summer, Stephanie Powers and others from TV about a man who can kill people by astrally projecting himself. He escapes from prison and the continues his evil ways. Foxworth is the cop on his trail.Its bad 1970's low budget film making where everyone no doubt did it for the pay check.(Hey back in the 70's there were lots of tax lop holes that got some ghastly films like this made. The regrettable thing is that films were then set loose on the unsuspecting public.) Not worth your time. For insomniacs only-even if it is in the 99 cent bin-or even if you get it for free.

I bought this film on a cheap DVD from a 99 cent store. I know very well why it was 99 cents. It starts out in the prison where the strangler, Roger Sans, is being held. He starts to meditate and becomes 9/10 invisible when his stupid insomniac cell-neighbor sees him. He picks an argument with him and gets telekinetically attacked. A guard comes in and is locked in Sans's cell while he escapes in a tacky hand-held shot accompanied with ridiculous "heartbeat" and "heavy breathing" sounds. He visits his mother's grave, where in a weird flashback-ish scene it is explained that Riger's mother never cared for him and never let his life progress. A police officer, a particularly stupid officer, approaches him, claims Roger is a vandal and threatens to call reinforcements. This is where one of my favorite bad movie things happens. His eyes glow when he telekinetically pushes him into an open grave. This sounds normal, but the glowing eyes effect was achieved by painting glowey stuff on a still picture of the strangler. Greaaaaaaaaaat. Anyway, a bunch of inconsistencies ensue, Robert Foxworth shows his HIDEOUS rear area, Elke Sommer wears a bikini, and blablablabla. However, let me point out the silly ending. Roger Sans is sneaking up the stairs to kill Elke Sommer. However, the police are hiding watching him, and have charged the railing with electricity to know when he arrives(!) Robert Foxworth rapidly fires a machine gun until there is a shot (in negative to illustrate the invisibility) of Roger Sans screaming as bullets go in everywhere. He falls onto the floor, pulsating from inverted to normal tone. His last words: "I never wanted to hurt you mama." He then glows brightly. It fades away and a void opens up in the floor, where a blue glowing Roger Sans careens into another dimension and creates a glowy blast thing. The void in the floor closes up and that is the end of Roger Sans. It is a little hokey, but it genuinely disturbed me. Tell you what, buy the DVD and skip to the end. You'll actually feel a little weird. Bad, very bad.