Invaders from Mars (1986)

Literally the only thing that saves this poorly acted, horrifically directed, sloppy production is some of its sets. The alien space tunnels suck, the Winston 'aliens', which look like ugly potatoes are woefully bad. The only good sets are the ultra plastic looking house and hill sets. Even the good ones are only enjoyable if you like that sort of camp. One of the worst child actors I have ever seen in a major Hollywood production. Hooper's direction is worse than you could even imagine it could be. Watch some clips on YouTube if you're interested, don't rent or buy this abomination.

Director Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), visual effects wizard John Dykstra (Star Wars), make-up FX genius Stan Winston (Aliens), screenwriter Dan O'Bannon (Alien), cinematographer Daniel Pearl (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre): there's a wealth of experience and talent behind this lavish '80s remake of '50s cold-war sci-fi classic Invaders From Mars, but it amounts to little more than a thoroughly cheesy and rather camp piece of trashy escapism. For some, that might be enough, but given its pedigree, I expected, nay, DEMANDED much more.The film's weakest point is undoubtedly its young lead Hunter Carson, who appears in almost every scene, but is unable to even run convincingly, let alone persuade the viewer that the planet is under threat from Martians (what's with the flappy arms, Hunter?). A better actor in the central role would have helped immensely, although Hooper's direction also proves lacklustre, his film lacking in suspense but loaded with schmaltz (the overly saccharine opening family scenes suggest that the director spent far too long in the presence of Spielberg during the filming of Poltergeist). Serving to undermine the film's effectiveness further are the somewhat clunky aliens—far from Winston's best work.Mindlessly entertaining in the way that only an '80s Cannon movie could be, the film is admittedly never boring, and benefits from some interesting set design and impressive lighting, but as a big-budget sci-fi (by Cannon Pictures' standards, at least) from the man who gave us Leatherface, this can only be deemed a disappointment. Oh, well, at least this film's failure (along with his previous sci-fi/horror flop Lifeforce) resulted in Hooper returning to familiar territory for the long-awaited Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

The reviews for "Invaders From Mars" here on IMDb are uniformly ridiculous, being written by those who have NO clue about the history of the original film and what transpired after it was completed and shown to the public.IFM was the brainchild of William Cameron Menzies, Oscar winner for Art Direction on a little picture called "Gone With the Wind" and many critics' pick for best use of Technicolor as designer for Alexander Korda's sumptuous "Thief of Bagdad" in 1940. "Thief" remains one of the top ten films to utilize Technicolor in every sense of the word. No other film comes close.Menzies took on strange projects after his triumphs, such as "The Maze" in 1953 which used the new 3-D process to tell the story of a man who's really a frog. The 3D effects were very well suited to this foolish Gothic story, especially in the maze sequences. The film flopped, and is now only remember by Menzies devotees.Along came the real masterpiece of Menzies' checkered career: "Invaders From Mars" in 1953. Menzies wanted to use the 3D process, but was eventually underfunded by the producers of this early sci-fi classic. The sets had been built to show the unfolding story from a child's point of view and disorient the viewer. The lack of 3D robbed the visuals of their impact, yet the story of a child's warning of invasion from outer space remains potent. Potent enough for Tobe Hooper to resurrect the whole damn thing in 1986 with some new whiz-bang effects. This version of IFM, while pouring on the homages to the original film (flawed though it was) is even more unfortunate despite a bigger budget and better known actors.Hooper's version of IFM is sloppy, lazy, and completely unfocused. He threw out the real tension the original offered by inserting useless comedy sequences and unnecessary effects to cover his myopia. The taut storyline of the 53' version is gone, replaced by SNL skit actors and Louise Fletcher as the teacher who swallows frogs, a character nonexistent in the 53' original. Hooper throws on the nostalgia to those in the know by reconstructing the famous "fence to the sandpit" and having the original David Gardner, the actor Jimmy Hunt (as a policeman) tell his partner "I haven't been up here since I was a kid" as they check out the scene of the sand abductions. Other silly 53' references are: David's school is now the "William Cameron Menzies" Elementary School, and the brief discovery of the original Martian "brain in the bubble" resting atop a discarded file cabinet in the school's basement, briefly seen when a cop's flashlight reveals it momentarily. Other stupid referential visuals litter the film to no avail. The Martians here look like backwards equines, and the "Mastermind" Martian will never be a substitute for the original. The original "brain" was a dwarf woman in amazing makeup (who had no dialog) and stood on a cardboard box for a few bucks and a box lunch according to Jimmy Hunt's adult recollection. Hooper just fails here at the usual 80's remake, expecting that audiences have completely forgotten the original source of this taut thriller. Watch if you need to. I paid to see this junk when it appeared in 1986. I left early. The 1953 version is fertile material for someone to reassess. Given the richness of the original material, Hooper's version is nothing less than stupid, very stupid.

Invaders from Mars starts late one night as a young boy named David Gardner (Hunter Carson) tries to go to sleep, while lying in bed he sees flashes outside his window & takes a look outside where he sees a huge UFO land just beyond Copper Hill at the top of his garden, he runs into his parents George (Timothy Bottoms) & Ellen's (Larraine Newman) room & tells them what he saw but they refuse to believe him. The next morning & George has a look at where David said he saw the UFO land, when George returns home he has changed somehow & insists that Ellen come over the hill as well. David is convinced something is wrong & notices small wounds on the back of his parents necks, David eventually finds an opening to a tunnel in the hill behind his house which leads to a Martian spaceship buried in the ground & realises that alien invaders from mars are taking over people's minds & using them to sabotage a NASA space mission to their planet while at the same time stealing copper to use as fuel...Directed by Tobe Hooper for the notorious Cannon Pictures this seemed like an odd film for Hooper to make, best known for his horror films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) & Poltergeist (1982) this is a remake of the classic sci-fi film Invaders from Mars (1953) which was one of the better ones from the 50's. While I haven't seen the original Invaders from mars for a few years I always remember it being a great little film, it's pretty creepy at times & has a unique feel of paranoia running through it from a child's perspective as his town are taken over by the Martian invaders, here in this 80's remake the first hour or so does a fun job of recreating that feel as David finds himself in the middle of a Martian invasion but once the script introduces NASA & the military things tend to go downhill as it then becomes more of an action film & loses the creepiness. This 80's remake also has a dark comic vein running through it with some bizarre moments like George drinking a cup of coffee in one go or Ellen eating raw hamburger meat piled with salt, I didn't mind it's black humour but some might. Lasting 100 minutes this 80's remake is also a lot longer than the original which ran for just under 80 minutes, nothing of any great significance is added & all it really amounts to is a lot more running around & a little bit more build-up. The script is a bit uneven, while David, his parents & Linda the school Nusre feature heavily during the first half they become no more than bystanders once the military are introduced. It can be a bit dumb at times but it moves along at a decent pace & has some good scenes, the first venture into the Martian spaceship, the teacher eating a Frog, Davids parents strange reactions & mannerisms when taken over & the Martian intelligence creature is cool. The script feels a little unfinished, the reason for the Martian invasion is to blow up a probe that is being sent to their home planet Mars to supposedly stop us discovering them but surely coming to Earth & walking around like they own the place has a higher chance of them being discovered? Also, while their need for copper is mentioned it never goes beyond anything other than that, a mention. These two points in particular could have been expanded upon as could the taking over of the humans, who exactly was controlling them?At this point in his career Hooper had signed a three picture directing deal with Cannon, the first product of this deal was the rather good, if somewhat ambitious Lifeforce (1985) which flopped at the box-office, then came this which also flopped before Hooper finally made the also rather good The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) which unfortunately again proved a disaster at the box-office & therefore the Hooper & Cannon relationship destroyed Hooper as a director & almost financially sunk Cannon although I Have to say I think all three films that they made together are pretty good, but money talks I suppose. This remake is far more impressively mounted than the original, the special effects are good with some cool alien monsters, neck burrowing devices & the huge Martian spaceship, I also liked the swirling whirlpool of sand effect that sucks people under the mountain. There's little gore or violence here, someone is eaten by a Martian, a few people are shot but that's about it. The organic design of the Martian spaceship is cool as well, from curved walls & doors to huge tunnel digging machines I liked the alien technology on show here.With a supposed budget of about $12,000,000 this apparently had financial problems during production & the was slashed a few times, filmed in Los Angeles. The acting varies, the kid Carson Hunter is awful while the adult cast are a little better & play it up a bit.Invaders from Mars is a film that I liked more than a great many seem to, I thought the aliens were cool, it looked good & has a weird feel running throughout it that while a little uneven makes it a bit more memorable than a straight, serious remake might have been.