Very well executed

People are voting emotionally.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Blistering performances.

*Spoiler/plot- 1964 Wizard of Mars- Edgar Rice Bourroughsian idea for a film. Spaceship crew travels to Mars. They find an very ancient civilization. Phantoms and curses from the dead citizens plague the exploration of the city ruins. The supreme dead wizard tries to capture the crew and take control of their spaceship. *Special stars- John Carradine, Roger Gentry, Vic McGee, Jerry Rannow, Eve Bernhardt. Scientific technical adviser: Forest J. Ackermen. *Theme- Teamwork wins the day even against planetary wizards. *Based on- Some people have thought this film's plot was taken from 'Wizard of Oz' due to some minor similarities. *Trivia/location/goofs- One of the last films for eternal 80+ year old film actor, John Carradine. Film's technical adviser was SF expert and writer, Forrest Ackerman. This film borrows heavily it's special effects and miniature sets from other well know features. The wizards city ruins looks like something out of you kid's goldfish fish bowl. The female astronaut is named "Dorothy" and her role is clearly dubed. Look for a 3 minute wizaded 'rant' of John Carradine reprising his 'Preacher' role from "Grapes of Rath'. Listen to the erroneous plot references to martian canals and having 'Up' and 'Down' while traveling in outer non- gravity space. *Emotion- A fun film made even more laughable due to the many 'borrowed' expensive production elements from other SF films of the era. A terrible mash-up of borrowed scene elements, special effects, and electronic camera switcher gimmicks to tell this shallow paper-thin plot. Even the martian face has been 'borrowed' from another space travel film.

I remember seeing this movie as a kid on the "Sunday Afternoon" movie on the local station in the late 70's, but I couldn't remember the title. I knew it had to be from the 60's so IMDb helped me narrow the possibilities. The key was I remembered the astronauts finding a "Golden" road under the desert, so the "Wizard" title grabbed my eye.A Google search brought some web sites that fully describe the movie and show screen shots.I am a bit disappointed now that the actual movie does not live up to my memories of it. I remember it being kinda spooky and strange, but now it seems really stupid.I would like to see it again, too bad there doesn't seem to be a DVD yet. I wonder if it is on any movie compilation set of "B" movies.Paul

Hewitt's "Gallery Of Horrors" is one of the great "so bad it's good" funny films, and his really stupid "Monsters Crash the Pajama Party" is inept but a lot less amusing. so the genuine qualities of "Wizard Of Mars" caught me off guard. It's video title "Horrors Of The Red Planet" is actually a lot better and more fitting. I hate to get into a fight here about the obvious merits of MST3K, who did not even do this movie, but it would have in fact been a bad choice for the show, as the film does have a strange, hypnotic effect that goes along with the clumsy flubs one expects from a Hewitt film. The film has a dream like quality, and it's strange story seems, yes, an interesting forerunner to "2001". Three of Hewitt's "Gallery Of Horrors" stars (Carridine, Roger Gentry, and Vic McGee) are back. McGee does the best work of his career, even toping hissleazy ganster in Ed Wood's "Sinister Urge." Opps, there I go. Actually, Vic McGee is a terrible actor who appeared in a handful of grade Z films, but his work here is somehow moving. See, this movie just won't let you make fun of it. I don't know if the actress is overdubbing her own voice, but they should have found a better one to use(the whole movie is overdubbed). In any case, see this film. It's right up there with "Creation Of The Humanoids" in the strange department.

This movie was so bad even I couldn't stand it. It was the first movie I ever removed from my massive personal collection because it was just that lame. I gave it to someone for free under the condition that he took it away, far away. I bought it under the title "Horrors of the Red Planet", and it was only slightly less nauseating than "Wizard of Mars" because it was shorter. You could cut half of this film out and you wouldn't miss it. The summary on the box had absolutely nothing to do with the movie, it mentioned black holes, alien ships and photon torpedos, none of which appeared in the film. I've seen better films on Petri dishes. The special effects were so bad they made Doctor Who look like Star Wars. (I'm not slamming DW, that's my favorite show.) A wall of shaking tin foil with a red lamp on it wa supposed to be underground magma. The science in this made Godzilla look like Andromeda Strain. One of the characters said something like,"We don't have enough oxygen to make it. But there is a little oxygen in the Martian atmosphere, so if we drop our suit pressure to below Martian air pressure, the extra oxygen will flow into our suits." WROOOOOOOONG! The characters were about as bright as coal sacks, sharp as balloons. I gave this movie a 1, which was far too generous but it's the lowest score available. If you want a better movie, watch Blood Diner.