Space Invasion of Lapland (1959)

directed by Virgil W. Vogel
Sweden/USA
73 minutes
2.5 stars out of 5
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First off, "Lapp" is now considered a derogatory term for Saami people- I'm not sure exactly where it falls on a scale from "horribly offensive slur" to "term that has fallen out of use", but either way, it's not used anymore, so I wanted to make sure to mention that because they sure do use it liberally in this film.

Anyway. This is kind of a strange one because it has all the trappings of a typical American sci-fi film from the 50s: A super corny monster, a damsel in distress, self-assured men doing Science™, etc. But it was also made in collaboration with Sweden and the majority of it takes place in Sweden. The country isn't really portrayed with the same exoticism that most American films of that era treated other countries with, and although it's implied that the domain of serious, modernized scientists is to investigate strange things and the domain of the Saami is to run in fright from them, Saami people aren't treated as a curiosity. 

This is a movie that I can't recommend in confidence unless you love skiing. It's not even particularly impressive or showy skiing, just... shots of characters skiing down hills for about 75% of the film's runtime. The low rating I've given this isn't necessarily for quality, it's for how incredibly boring it is. A glowing meteor lands in rural Sweden, some people go "perhaps we should investigate the meteor" for 50 minutes and then go skiing. End film. Well, not technically, because as I said there is a corny monster, whose lumbering, silent presence accounts for most of the "action" in the film, which, believe me, is not saying much. However, this monster is still just about the most interesting thing about the whole deal. It's essentially Bigfoot as an alien, but a really really really big Bigfoot. Its size is what makes it so fun- it dwarfs cabins, rips them apart like toys. The miniatures used to convey the alien's size are genuinely not that bad and make for neat practical effects. 

This movie is fun as a novelty, and fun if, like me, you have some Swedish ancestry in ya, but it's as boring and dated as all the other sci-fi films of the 50s are now. It leans more towards the U.S. and English speakers, and even has some people speaking a fake gibberish language instead of Swedish or Saami, which is always disheartening. It's not good but it's not unwatchable.