Zontar, The Thing from Venus, Larry Buchanan, 1966

From A.S. Hamrah's recent review:

If, as Godard said, “the definition of the human condition should be in the mise en scène itself,” then Zontar, which plays like an industrial documentary on Dallas living rooms and shopping centers, puts it there in negative. A dead-watch-battery miasma pervades the film, a three in the afternoon of the soul.
...
The inadequacy of the film’s world seems normal and accurate, snapshots of the time as it was. In the end it’s a valid document of a place that did survive some kind of attack, but kept on going the same dull way, learning nothing.

Made for around $30 thousand ($250 thousand today) for AIP to fill out some TV deal they made. A remake of Roger Corman's It Conquered the World in 16mm color.

I thought maybe the scientist working with Zontar to take over the Earth and usher in a golden age was supposed to represent American Communists. But then the U.S. Army general whose mind was taken over by Zontar goes around telling people that "the Communists" are staging a revolt, using that as an excuse to enslave humanity. How many Communists did they think there were in the Dallas-Fort Worth area?

I liked Zontar himself with his leathery wings living in a big giant cave. John Agar as a two-fisted scientist who knocks people out with one punch or a single karate chop.