Invaders from Mars (Special Edition)

Rating:
Summary: oh, come on!
Review: This is one badly made, poorly directed, cheesy 1950's sci-fi movie. And I'm a collector of this stuff! At least you can understand about Ed Woods' "Bride of the Monster", etc, because they were made on about $75 and in one take only. This movie doesn't have that excuse. The inflated condoms passing for..what, exactly? on the walls of the underground tunnels, the boiling Campbell's soup image intended to depict...what, exactly? when the Martian ray gun is pointed at the condoms on the walls, the absolutely laughable Martian costumes with the zippers up the back. I tried to convince my kids that the zippers were ridges on the Martians' backs but hey my kids have seen zippers before. I enjoyed the avant garde minimalist sets and it would have been interesting if it had been intended. This thing is really bad and that's where all the pleasure can be drawn from it. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: A Poor Quality Print
Review: Really a shame. With 20+ dollar price tag on this disc, you'd think that there would at least be some sort of warning about the poor quality of the sound and picture. Image Entertainment usually does much better (check out the excellent "Rocketship X-M" for comparison). As another reviewer has pointed out, it's hard to believe that this is as good as it gets as far as a restored print. 3 stars for the movie and 1 star for the picture/sound.

Rating:
Summary: The fear of alienation
Review: Awakened by an electrical storm, 10 year-old wanna-be astronomer David MacLean witnesses a spacecraft land just beyond a sand dune behind his house. Waking his scientist father, David tells of this account only to be humored with, "Go back to bed son, it was only a dream." Nonetheless, Dad's curiosity gets the better of him and he goes outside to investigate only to be swallowed up by the earth. With Dad's lengthy absence from the MacLean household, Mom calls the cops and is about to file a missing person report when Dad returns. But is it really him? Physically he's the same, but little David knows better. Meanwhile, after searching the premises, the cops return and to David's horror, they've also been changed. There's something very sinister going on and David's convinced that it has something to do with that spaceship . . . but who will believe him? This film is still effective, not because of the special effects and costumes (check out the green velvet alien suits!) but because it plays to our primal fear of being allienated from those around us, and the horror that some force could remove those distinctions that define human individuality. This DVD also includes the British version of the film with a very different ending that might not have been as palatable to an American audience in 1953.

Rating:
Summary: Can't believe this is a classic
Review: I watched this while trying to keep in mind the socio-political setting in which it was made - early '50's - Korean War, Red Scare, Congressional hearings on Communist infiltration of the US Government..and the movie does has its moments and the feeling of paranoia is there. But, the last 15 minutes or so as we watch the soldiers and "Martians" endlessly run through the web of tunnels around the alien ship is mind-boggingly dull. The set up of the plot is really well down, as has been described here in other reviews, the boy unearths a plot by aliens to take over and control humans, but once we start seeing the seemingly endless montage of military vehicles being brought into place around where the alien ship supposedly is, the film just loses it. From that point, there is no plot. Just because this was one of the first sci-fi films in color doesn't mean it can hold a distinquished place in film history.

Rating:
Summary: The Movie that led to Alien....
Review: In 1953, when this movie was made, the Red Scare was at it's height. The metaphore for that is here. A young boy sees a UFO land and then finds that martians have stole the minds of his parents and make them do terrible things.This movie made you afraid of Martians, just as real life at that time made you afraid of the Reds. The fear that alien creatures could capture you and make you do things that were against your will was a recuring theme in this movie as well as the THING and INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. While the Martian suits look fake and the Martian leader is little more then some close up of a man in cheap make-up, the movie does little to say that Xenaphobia is an unhealthy thing. That fact in view, this movie is really no better then the Alien,Predator, and Terminator films of today.

Rating:
Summary: Trust no one, kid! [puff-puff]
Review: Young boy sees flying saucer land near his back yard in the middle of the night. The next day, there's something wrong with Dad... The original 1953 version, this is good nostalgia for yours truly, since one my earliest childhood memories is of sneaking a 2 a.m. peak at this movie in bed and getting pretty scared!


Rating:
Summary: This sared the living daylights out of me as a kid
Review: It's a 'B' movie through and through. So the acting, the set and, yes, the quality of the dvd transfer is tainted from the beginning. But it was the one movie that scared the living daylights out of me as a kid. I had nightmares after viewing this one. I didn't buy it because I thought it was a quality movie or for the storyline, though, honestly, forty years later it does have some high points. I think the 'head' of the alien one of the best, especially back in those days. One feels the emptiness of the moment, not because of creativity and production, but because of the sparse set. It's bleak and barren, and actually works if one has the necessary creativity within one's imagination.


I have no complaints on the quality of this movie or on the fact that it lacks in other ways. I'm just glad it was there to scare the living daylights out of me as a kid, and that I can own it today and have a laugh and enjoy a moment of my childhood.

Rating:
Summary: It's the subject!
Review: I first saw this in a theatre & it was the only movie ever gave me recurring nightmares! Think it was the premise that hero's parents (and others) were completely controlled by aliens and the little boy was totally alone against them!
But that was then, it's tame by todays standards!

Rating:
Summary: Unfunny, Uncampy Garbage
Review: Don't mention this waste of celluloid in the same breath as The Day The Earth Stood Still or even Creature From The Black Lagoon. This is almost what Ed Wood might have made with a bigger budget, but the hammy, campy flourishes that are so endearing in Plan 9 or Bride of the Monstor aren't there. The acting is wooden, the dialogue is straight out of classroom films, and the special effects worse than Wood's. Only Robot Monster comes close to this bottom-rung effort and at least Robot Monster had some interesting beefcake. IFM should also get the Stock Footage award for its use of WW II army footage as the film plods along. Yeesh, this film is pure crap! Makes me want to wash my eyes out with Gilligan's Island reruns!

Rating:
Summary: seminal so-bad-it's-good scifi classic
Review: Invaders from Mars came out in 1953, at the height of Red Scare paranoia, and it is both a product of its time and a seminal film that influenced future scifi/horror movies. When a young boy sees an alien spaceship land in a field, he finds that not only don't most adults believe him, but they start acting very strangely....

The alien costumes are laughable by today's standards, but young kids still get a thrill out of this classic, and many elements are still effective. The music is very good and the atmosphere of tension created with extreme close-ups, for instance.

One problem is the acting. Those who have been probed by the aliens act wooden, but sometimes it's difficult to tell the probed actors from those who are just plain bad! The female lead is the exception in an otherwise goofy cast.

Check out the 1986 remake with Karen Black too!

The DVD includes the original US as well as the alternate British version, the trailer and over 100 stills.