Invaders from Mars
June. 06,1986 PGIn this remake of the classic 50s SF tale, 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 aid of the school nurse the boy enlists the aid of the U.S. Marines.
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Reviews
Excellent but underrated film
Did you people see the same film I saw?
I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
The boy David Gardner (Hunter Carson) is the son of George Gardner (Timothy Bottoms) and Ellen Gardner (Laraine Newman). One stormy night, he sees a spaceship landing on the beach nearby his house and he tells his beloved father that promises to investigate in the morning. George goes to the spot and vanishes, and Ellen calls the police. The two officers walk to the place and also disappear. Out of the blue, George returns home emotionless and acting in a strange way, and David notes a cut on his back neck. David goes to school and learns that the aliens are somehow controlling earthlings including his teacher Mrs. McKeltch (Louise Fletcher). He goes to the infirmary and the nurse Linda Magnusson (Karen Black) asks him to tell what is happening. After the interview, she sees evidences that David is scared and telling the truth. What can they do to avoid the invasion?"Invaders from Mars" is a good remake of the classic 1953 sci-fi film. The original movie was made a couple of years after the end of WWII when the army was the symbol of defense of the country. Tobe Hooper introduced more humor in the story and the result is very entertaining. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Invasores de Marte" ("Invaders from Mars")
Director Tobe Hooper's remake of the 1953 classic takes the always successful Amblin Entertainment formula made famous through films like "E.T.: The Extra-terrestrial," "Space Camp," and "Explorers" and adds his own flair. He takes those familiar ingredients and combines them with frightening aliens intent on taking over the world one small town at a time. In "Invaders from Mars," a boy (Hunter Carson) begins seeing his parents and neighbors act like zombies. Is it a coincidence the weirdness all started after a flying saucer landed in his back yard?The big genre star in "Invaders from Mars" is veteran genre actor Karen Black. She's perfectly cast in the role of the panicked and constantly tormented school nurse who believes our young lead character is telling the truth. Is she a little overdramatic and campy at times? Of course she is she's Karen Black in a horror movie!"Invaders from Mars" is rated PG in that wonderful way many 1970s and 1980s movies were. It contains a lot of content that would've merited it at least PG-13 today. The movie includes violence but no real gore. Many sequences will frighten younger viewers because of how the aliens appear and the intensity they'll feel as the lead characters are chased down. The young boy in the film has quite a filthy mouth, much like his counterparts in several other movies featuring children experiencing fantastic adventures in the 1980s."Invaders from Mars" will fit nicely with "The Goonies" and "The Monster Squad." It has all the elements of the coming-of age films of the 1980s directed and produced by Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, and others. The only difference is it delves a bit deeper into the horror and sci-fi realms. It's exactly the sort of genre movie you would expect "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Poltergeist" Director Tobe Hooper would want to watch as an alienated (pun intended) boy.
I'm not a fan of remakes, not at all. I don't see why films that were good in the first place need to be 'updated'. Perhaps a bad film with a nice idea would be worthy but most remakes, especially these days are just cashing in on the success of the original and usually doing a bad job to boot.Invaders From Mars is one of the most famous of the Classic 50's sci-fi films along with Forbidden Planet and War Of The Worlds. It's certainly the most disturbing of the era with paranoia and fear seen from a child's perspective along with some memorable imagery!The big surprise about this remake is that it's actually good. Really good in fact! Of course it's not perfect but it set out to do a task and in my eyes succeeded!I think one of the best things about the film is how it looks. The locations and sets are fantastic, the set of the alien space ship interior and tunnels are superb as are the locations such as the sand pit. This is all the more baffling when you consider that it's made by Canon, a company famous for uber cheap budgets and cutting corners but it certainly doesn't have that feel here. Being made in the 80's the film has that certain warmth to its feel that seemed to be present in films of that era. There is a remarkably strong Spielberg vibe to the whole film mixed in with a good does of John Carpenter from around the same era. Tobe Hooper does a great job with plenty of nice sweeping wide angles crossed with claustrophobic horror type shots and situations and some nice recreation of the iconic scenes of the 50's original such as the fence going over the hill. There are also plenty of snippets of trivia from the original film hidden here and there throughout the film which is a great tribute and obviously shows the film was made with love.Of course it's not perfect, the acting is hammy in parts which sort of ups the cheese value a little but on the whole it's pretty average and doesn't stray much into 'cringe' territory.A special mention and combined criticism must go to the Martian creatures themselves. Stan Winston's workshop created these beasts and although superbly made and animated they seems to not know whether to be scary or goofy, looking formidable with their huge teeth and grunts one might be scared stiff if they didn't look like a giant testicle from the side on.These are minor flaws though in a film that has so obviously been made with a passion for the subject.I love both versions of this film and I honestly think that more people should give it the credit that it is due!
I watched this, and whilst I admit some of the special effects were good, I felt there were some parts of the film that could have been a lot better as it digressed too far from the original story in places.The dialogue and some of the acting was corny. The aliens looked too far fetched, the head martian looked like a cross between something out of star wars and war of the worlds. Whilst the more 'lowly' martians looked out of place as again a cross between the war of the worlds aliens (1950's original) only with teeth! A bit over exaggerated I thought, especially where one of the aliens appears to be 'laughing' after his counterpart eats the school teacher! Speaking of which, I thought the scene of her eating a frog, had no real importance or relevance in the film for that matter.One of those films to watch once, and forget!!