Invaders from Mars



Young David Gardner is woken up during a thunderstorm one night and witnesses a large flying saucer landing just over the hill in his backyard. His parents don’t believe his story when he wakes them up to tell them. But since his father, George, works at NASA he is curious to see if something did land in his backyard during the night. So in the morning, George heads outside alone to investigate. But when he comes back, David immediately notices that his father is acting very strangely and that he suddenly has some sort of sore on the back of his neck. His mother tells him not to worry about it, but when the police head over to investigate as well and also come back with new neck wounds and acting equally peculiar, David is convinced  something bad is happening. But what is he going to do about it? Even he knows that it’s hard to believe a 12-year-old boy when he tells them that aliens are starting to control people in town. Luckily, he manages to convince the school nurse about the spreading invasion, but as more and more people in town are taken over it’s going to take more than a kid and a frightened school employee to stop the alien menace….


….from eating all the local frogs!

Since I’ve been watching some pretty violent stuff the last couple months, I decided I’d dedicate this month to some lighter fare. Looking through my watch-list I realized that I …really didn’t have too much that fit that particular criteria. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of what I have on my watch-list involves a lot of violence and bloodbaths. Who would have guessed? But there was still enough for a month! So this month the theme is “Movie’s You Could Technically Watch With The Kiddies.” Honestly, I’m just using this month as an excuse to finally get to that Double Dragon adaptation that’s been haunting my watch-list for a while (Don’t look at me like that! It looks gloriously cheesy and dumb! It’s perfect!). But I decided to start with this one first, partially because I was drawn to the ridiculous looking poster that appears to be a trio of ugly-faced meteors attacking some innocent, and understandably very confused, stargazers. I didn’t realize at the time that it was a remake of the film from 1953 (Oops!), but that’s irrelevant. It’s rated PG and I totally expected nothing but utter kid-centric crap. But then the credits started (making my eyes bleed), and as I struggled to read the opening credits as they zoomed past me, in what was clearly an effort to impress the audience with the studio’s brand-spanking new computer graphics software that looks horribly cheesy today….I realized the movie is directed by Tobe Hooper? It was partially written by Dan O’Bannon, who wrote and directed The Return of the Living Dead? It stars Karen Black? And all the special effects were done by none other than Stan Winston? Well, be still my horror-loving heart! This might actually be decent!

*proceeds to actually watch the movie*

…Well….shit……At least they tried.


*sigh*

To the film’s credit, it does look really good, with a lot of the sets having a very noticeable “dreamlike” quality around them (for good reason). Not really in an artsy-fartsy kind of way, because this was a movie aimed at kids and I’m sure they wouldn’t care. But it’s still very clear that the film had a budget: 7 million at the time, and around 20 million in today’s dollars. And numbers like that ain’t nothing to sneeze at. So the normal things I tend to complain about, like crappy lighting, sound, and framing, are non-existent. Sets were planned, shots were planned, they had more than one 20-watt light bulb at their disposal….it’s wonderful. Once the military shows up there’s also an appropriate amount of extras and accessories on displays, so not only are we blessed with a helicopter and tank, but everyone is also properly costumed, armed, AND they look like they know what they’re doing (meaning you don’t have an entire platoon shooting willy-nilly or aiming their guns at the back of their comrades heads.) So thankfully there are no glaring issues with the visuals.


Initially I thought this was some sort of scaled model. But no, it’s a set.


The military suddenly having no idea what they’re doing in a horror movie is a pet peeve of mine.

And the effects? For the most part, they’re lovely. There are a couple of obvious instances of green screen and CGI, but unlike the annoying opening credit sequence they’re kept to a minimum. Instead, almost everything else is a practical effect, and since Winston worked on them they look great. Or, well, the aliens look great, anyway. The “ship” they’re in is kinda sparse, but the creatures themselves look nice and creepy. I’ve read some people claim they look too cheesy, and…I guess you could make that argument, but I still think they’re well designed. Stan was apparently working on this film simultaneously with Aliens, so I’m sure these guys didn’t get his full attention. But if these things are the result of him only giving the movie even 40% of his attention span, then I’m still pretty impressed. What I’m not so impressed with is the “head” alien. But that’s not because it’s not designed well. It’s just because it looks like a weirder, real-life version of the villain Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and every time it was on screen I couldn’t stop giggling.


If I can’t unsee it, neither can you.


I miss you so much, Stan Winston!

But the film’s issues aren’t related to the visuals, but rather the tone and pacing. To put simply, unfortunately the movie never seems to figure out what kind of movie it really wants to be. Sometimes it feels like it’s trying to be a straight-up remake, with super-serious moments and a creepy tone, and other times it seems like it’s almost trying to be a parody of itself. Like, when dad gets taken over you can immediately tell that something’s off. He’s suddenly gone from Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky, to acting really robotic, and obviously the sudden sore on his neck is NOT normal. But to “drive the point home” that he’s not acting himself he…. Pours an entire container of Tic-Tacs (or whatever the hell those are supposed to be) into his hot coffee cup and chugs it? Um, okay? Kinda weird, sure, but it also kills the “creepy” vibe.


Ah! Candy! Over sweetened coffee! The horror! THE HORROR!

And the film’s pacing is just…Not great. Mostly because the movie is just too damn long. Scenes go on longer than they need. Points regarding the danger are made, and then remade again later. Some of it is just unnecessary and feels artificially long. The perfect example: after David manages to convince the military that they need to intervene, dozens upon dozens of soldiers all descend upon the ship’s landing site and you think, “Oh, okay. This is a kid’s movie and they brought bombs and shit, so the climax can’t be too far away.” and you think that there can’t be more than 10, maybe 20 more minutes left to the movie, TOPS. But – Surprise! – you are shockingly mistaken. Because once the damn army shows up you still have 40 minutes of movie left to sit through. I mean, thankfully things do go BOOM during that time and you even get a bonus alien exploding across the screen, slimy guts and all. But still, holy crap. This movie could have easily been 20 minutes shorter and benefited from the faster pacing bump. There’s no way that segment (or the movie, really) needed to be so long.



So in the end, Invaders from Mars just ends up being okay. It looks fantastic, sounds great, and even has a really fine pool of actors to work with, though the kid is questionable (and why are you pinwheeling your arms while running, you twat? That alone makes me want the aliens to eat you). But the pacing and tone of the film are highly questionable. Why is this scene still going on? Why are you throwing in random jokes during what should be a serious time? I don’t know. With a little more polish on the script and editing, I think this could have been really good. But instead it just feels too long and thematically confused. Which is a shame, because it really does have some very fun and entertaining parts to it. The young’uns will probably like it though regardless, and it’s likely worth a quick watch for the adult horror fans just so you can fully appreciate those alien costumes. Just don’t go in hoping it’ll knock your socks off or anything.

Invaders from Mars is available on a variety of streaming services.

Invaders from Mars is also available on DVD and Bluray.

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