Invaders from Mars (1986) Review

Invaders from Mars (1986) Review

 

The 1980s was a pretty great decade for movies about intergalactic horrors. The same year the sequel Aliens came out, director Tobe Hooper’s remake of Invaders from Mars was released, but it was a box office failure and isn’t talked about all that fondly as a prime 80’s extraterrestrial example. This was also in the age of the effective 80’s horror remakes. In the past I’ve reviewed The Thing, The Fly, and The Blob, but Invaders from Mars was one I had never seen until just a few months ago. While I can see why it’s been disregarded in the years since its release, I think it has some merits worth highlighting.

It begins with a kid and his dad lying out in the back yard stargazing, and they spot a really big shooting star, which turns out to be (you guessed it) a UFO. After going to bed later that night, only the kid, David Gardner, sees the UFO land in the distance from his bedroom window, then his dad comes back from going to look for it the next morning seeming…different. He has a hole in the back of his neck and isn’t acting like himself. It becomes like a suburban Invasion of the Body Snatchers from a child’s perspective. David’s mom, his classmates, his teacher, and the cops all become strange, because as he discovers, they have been mind-controlled by the evil Martians hiding in a tunnel beneath the town!

Invaders from Mars starts out promising and establishes a quirky tone early on. It’s not really scary, but it’s not a comedy. It’s oddly funny, and while the concept is very familiar, there’s not much sense in criticizing its unoriginality since it’s a remake, and there are some inventive aspects. Most original of all are the aliens. Stan Winston created the Queen for Aliens the same year, and while that is obviously the better of the two designs, the Martian drones are pretty original, with backward-facing arms supporting meatball-shaped bodies. They’re kind of like giant, hairless Crites from Critters, and the Martian leader is a freaky-looking appendage with dual pupils in its eyes. The drones do come off as a bit goofy when they move around, but the realization of their strange form is impressive. David finds his way into the underground spaceship and sees them pretty early in the movie, but here lies the first of the movie’s many problems.

Seeing the aliens fairly early on puts a damper on the suspense, and then it feels tedious when we don’t get to see them again for quite a while. We’re stuck with David and the only person who initially believes him about the body snatching: the school nurse, played by Karen Black. David was played by Hunter Carson, Black’s real-life son, and I can see how they thought casting his actual mom in that role would help sell the believability, but Hunter Carson is unfortunately not very good. He’s tolerable at first, but just becomes more annoying as the movie goes on. The rest of the cast does a fine job, with a couple other standouts being James Karen as the military general and Louise Fletcher as David’s evil teacher, the latter most well known for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It’s quite something to see Nurse Ratched devour a whole frog in the back of the science lab!

The score by Christopher Young is pretty good, and the visual effects are by far the highlight of the movie. I would recommend it to anyone who is a fan of 80’s practical creature effects alone. But, all of these enhancements can’t save the movie from mediocrity. It becomes plodding by the midpoint, and even when the military gets involved and starts blasting the Martians to smithereens it’s still strangely flat. This was the second of a three-picture deal director Tobe Hooper made with Cannon Films, and it’s not one of the worst from his filmography, but not one of his best, either, falling somewhere in the middle. It lacks the R-rated intensity of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and it isn’t as atmospheric and suspenseful as Salem’s Lot or Poltergeist, but it’s still entertaining if you like this kind of thing.

Considering the talent behind this remake (screenplay co-written by Dan O’Bannon, co-writer of the original Alien, production design by John Dykstra [Star Wars], and Stan Winston for alien effects), it is surprising that Invaders from Mars didn’t turn out better, but for fans of 80’s extraterrestrial horror, it’s still worth checking out.