User Reviews

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.

Tobe Hooper's elaborate, bigger budgeted 80s remake of the 1953 science fiction classic does have scale going for it, as well as a see-it-to-believe-it cast and talented crew. Scripted by Dan O'Bannon & Don Jakoby, it tells the story of David Gardner (Hunter Carson), ordinary kid who witnesses first hand the invasion of evil Martian creatures which proceed to enslave lots of local humans, Davids' own parents (Timothy Bottoms and Laraine Newman) among them.

The problem, at least for this viewer, is that this doesn't have the stark nightmarish quality of the original, and is also often too silly for its own good, going for a camp quality, in terms of both acting and dialogue. Depending on ones' sensibilities, they can either appreciate or groan at lines such as "You'd better hurry, or you just might blow it." and "You don't carry loose change into combat, sir.". We also have the parents acting all goofy and eating either meat that's been overcooked or not cooked at all.

Yet, moments like this contrast with some pretty good sequences such as seeing how the humans get their minds manipulated or when the tunnelling devices emerge from underneath the ground. The sets are quality stuff, what with people like Leslie Dilley ("Star Wars") as production designer and Craig Stearns ("Halloween" '78) as art director. The special effects are amusing, to say the least, with Stan Winston and crew crafting some memorable "Mr. Potato Head" aliens as well as a Martian intelligence that is actually kind of a cute lil' thing.

The actors are mostly all pros (with the exception of Carson, the real-life son of co-star Karen Black) and some of them do a pretty fine job of maintaining poker faces. In addition to those actors mentioned, we've got Ms. Black doing an appealing job as the school nurse, Louise Fletcher playing her umpteenth Nurse Ratched like role as the miserly frog eating teacher, Bud Cort as a nerdy young S.E.T.I. scientist, the great James Karen of "The Return of the Living Dead" as an ass kicking, cigar chomping Marine general, Jimmy Hunt (who played the kid in the 1953 film) as the police chief, and veteran military technical adviser Dale Dye in a bit.

One good thing about "Invaders from Mars" '86 is that it's never boring, and it does have nice touches here and there (the bit with the copper, the cameo by the original Martian Intelligence), and it's at least pretty true to the first film when it comes to the resolution. It's best recommended to undemanding fans of 80s genre fare.

Six out of 10.

A boy tries to stop an invasion of his town by aliens who take over the the minds of his parents, his least-liked schoolteacher and other townspeople.

With the help of the school nurse, the boy enlists the aid of the U.S. Marines.....

Being directed by Tobe Hooper, I assumed (wrongly) that this was going to be an all out horror/Science-Fiction movie that wouldn't pull any punches when it came to killings.

As far as I know, this film has never been aired on British TV, and has never been available to buy on Region 2 DVD, So all I knew about this film was the boy with the blonde hair.

And I must, say, I was pleasantly surprised with the whole outcome of the film. It's pretty clear by the house and some of the background paintings, that Close Encounters has heavily influenced this film, and this is Hooper trying to do a Spielberg.

It's funny in places, but most of all, it's a very effective mild Horror that is suitable for the whole family.

The violence is minimal, the creatures are so over the top that they are more like Critters than Aliens, and overall, it appears that David is the person with the most common sense.

Louise Fletcher appears as the Mrs. Deagle of the film, but she soon becomes laughable when she is chasing a car down the street.

I liked it, but I can understand why the film vanished without a trace.

Ah the classic 1953 movie revisited and remade in that classic 80's style with wacky special effects. This really is a treasure chest of 80's gold through and through. Directed by Tobe 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' Hooper, written by Dan 'Alien' O'Bannon and with creature effects by Stan Winston, John 'Star Wars' Dykstra and Alec 'Aliens' Gillis. Doesn't get much better than that folks.

The plot is surprisingly almost identical to the original classic albeit with a few minor changes here and there. One night during a storm a young boy sees a UFO land in an area behind his house (the sandpit?). He tells his parents but of course they don't believe him telling him it was a nightmare. The next day his father investigates and eventually returns with strange marks on the back of his neck, his mannerisms are odd and he seems emotionless and cold. Slowly many townsfolk start acting the same so the young boy tries to alert the authorities but has a hard time making folk believe naturally. Soon enough his school nurse starts to take notice and believe the boy and in time they manage to get the military on board to lay siege to the mysterious sand pit area.

As I already said I was shocked at how faithful this remake is to the source material, it is virtually the same right down to the visual setup. Now this might sound lame (especially with this current horrendous remake trend) but if you've seen the 1953 version its quite cool to see the same stylings revamped (without the use of CGI I might add). The little pathway and hill leading to the sandpit behind the young boys house has been recreated to look just like the original film and it looks splendidly creepy. The alien ship interior is basically along the same kind of lines but obviously much more futuristic (for the time) and of course all the characters are almost identical, although some characters have different job roles here. It was also sweet to see the original lead boy actor from the 1953 version play the police chief in this movie.

The major changes come in the visual effects department for the aliens and obvious things like the spaceship, makeup and a few minor horror moments. You can easily tell the rubbery monster/alien suits are Stan Winston's work, I can tell his creative style a mile away. The main head alien, the brain, was literately that...a fat pink brain that basically looks like Krang from the 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' franchise. I believe this design did actually surface before the introduction of Krang in the animated TMNT series in 1987, so maybe this movie influenced that cartoon? Anyway this powerful double pupiled alien really looks tremendous if a little motionless.

The other mobile aliens (if you can say that) are quite bizarre, honesty I don't know why they went with this design but they basically look like giant testicles with huge gaping jaws and four legs. Huge lumps of gristle with huge mouths lined with razor sharp teeth and four camel-like legs. Clearly very large and heavy rubber suits with the two front legs being for the performer inside and the rear two probably mainly being stability. Its very clever how they have done it but alas these aliens do look totally cumbersome, not very agile...not very mobile at all really and completely useless in an evolutionary sense. How on earth these aliens managed to build spaceships or develop technology I don't know, there must be other types of alien that helped them.

One thing that does stand out was the bad acting which seemed strange to me seeing as this felt like a biggish production. Yeah sure this is meant to be a science fiction B-movie of course so possibly the cast acted badly on purpose? I kinda doubt it honesty, maybe some did but most I think were just poor, especially the main protagonist, the young boy. This kid really couldn't act, it was quite painful at times. He was also kinda tubby and clearly had trouble running too *giggles*, the amount of times he's running away from someone and its laughable, so slow! I guess when one of the main leads from the first two 'Return of the Living Dead' movies (James Karen) is in the film, you should know to expect some grilled cheese. But honesty no one here is very good, there is lots of hokey shouting, screaming and really obviously slow running away from dangerous things.

Of course the finale won't be much of a surprise if you've seen the original film because this ends the same way. In fact it ends exactly the same accept for the cliffhanger moment before the credits role where all we see is the young boy rushing to his parents room, stopping and screaming in terror. Its a typical 80's finish, the kinda thing you'd see in an 80's horror anthology movie, its left to your imagination...and nightmares.

The tension does seem to have gone from this newer version, I kinda expected it to be a trashy 80's gore fest, the movie poster does lend itself to that. On the other hand I did think it could of been a John Carpenter flick at times, if you didn't know any better it could seem that way, it has those dark comedic tones much like 'They Live'. On the whole its certainly a blast if you're into practical hands-on effects with larger than life creature suits and prosthetics but don't expect many thrills or blood. Considering the director its actually relatively tame.

6/10