Invaders from Mars

You know when you were watching Night of the Hunter, and you found yourself thinking, "Man, I wish it had a Scifi equivalent." Yeah. Matte paintings and tiny sets were never so eerie.

Wonderfully shot and charmingly silly. Uses its low budget to its advantage in the same way Detour does.

Surprisingly well made and thought out alien invasion thriller. The first act is rather terrifying as a young boy trys to convince a community that the aliens have landed, all the while his zombie alien parents try to track him down. The rest of the film keeps you guessing until the final act when it slips into the b-movie comfort zone of inevitability. But still this was one hell of a ride.

The paranoia of being a small child captured beautifully.

men in green velvet pyjamas running around a 15 mt corridor decorated with baloons.. simply amazing, god I love these old sci fi movies...

Superb use of a small budget by the great William Cameron Menzies. A true SF classic!

Good film.

Those darn mute-ants trying to take over the world. Thankfully a whiny little boy is there to help. Sometimes silly is fun, other times its tedious, this is the latter.

A great one for the genre!

The best that can be said is that it does try to convey the sense of a child's perspective.

"Invaders from Mars" is a low budget sci-fi that plays like a second-rate version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." In one scene, they used the giant telescope to look at the landing spot near the boy's house, and it made me wonder what the professor did with that telescope in his free time.

Although well-designed, and not without its good moments, this is one SF cult "classic" that is sadly over-rated. How freaking long can you watch four thugs in green pajamas lumbering through the same fifteen foot stretch of condom-encrusted caves? Makes the most tedious episode of Doctor Who look like Beckett.

It starts so well then it sinks in a sort of ridiculous propaganda Cold War shit that makes me downvote from 70 to 50.

It starts so well then it sinks in a sort of ridiculous propaganda Cold War shit that makes me downvote from 70 to 50.

The last half is largely bad. The military is pulled in and it feels like at least a third of the second half is stock footage. There are some effective elements left, mostly odd design choices like the bubbly hallways, big goofy velour Martians who run like loping gorillas and the Martians' tiny leader (stolen outright by Luigi Cozzi for "Contamination"), but it's mostly a slog that ends in a really idiotic twist.

Trashy script and wooden acting - but a guilty pleasure.