In this remake of the classic 1950s science fiction tale, a boy (Hunter Carson) tries to stop an invasion of his town by aliens who take over the the minds of his parents, his least-liked schoolteacher (Louise Fletcher) and other townspeople.
This film has an all-star cast and crew: director Tobe Hooper, writer Dan O'Bannon, composer Christopher Young, actress Karen Black, and special effects guru Stan Winston. Say what you will, but the film has some of the finest people involved.
The film lost money and received generally negative reviews. Time Out wrote, "whereas the original worked by building up an increasingly black mood, this version relies almost entirely on the special effects; and such limited brooding tension as it has is gratuitously undermined by a string of sequences played purely for laughs."
Paul Corupe of Rue Morgue also comes down hard on the film, saying "Hooper overloads the remake with outrageous FX, excessively detailed sets and convoluted explanations." In short, he says the film "is unsatisfying, little more than a series of chase sequences" and "surprisingly clunky creatures that look like they were lifted from Jim Henson's reject pile."
The film is, indeed, heavily reliant on Winston's creatures, and it is a bit silly or campy more often than suspenseful or scary. A great film it is not. But this also depends on who the audience is: if this is geared towards children (which may be the case), perhaps it works best being silly and without too much terror.
This film has an all-star cast and crew: director Tobe Hooper, writer Dan O'Bannon, composer Christopher Young, actress Karen Black, and special effects guru Stan Winston. Say what you will, but the film has some of the finest people involved.
The film lost money and received generally negative reviews. Time Out wrote, "whereas the original worked by building up an increasingly black mood, this version relies almost entirely on the special effects; and such limited brooding tension as it has is gratuitously undermined by a string of sequences played purely for laughs."
Paul Corupe of Rue Morgue also comes down hard on the film, saying "Hooper overloads the remake with outrageous FX, excessively detailed sets and convoluted explanations." In short, he says the film "is unsatisfying, little more than a series of chase sequences" and "surprisingly clunky creatures that look like they were lifted from Jim Henson's reject pile."
The film is, indeed, heavily reliant on Winston's creatures, and it is a bit silly or campy more often than suspenseful or scary. A great film it is not. But this also depends on who the audience is: if this is geared towards children (which may be the case), perhaps it works best being silly and without too much terror.