Invaders From Mars

Invaders From Mars (1953)

Image From IMDB

Of all the fifties Sci-Fi B-Movies Invaders From Mars has always been one of my favourites. I’m not quite sure what it is about it, whether its the bizarre setting with the path of doom, the amazingly inaccurate description of Mars (twenty plus years before the Viking Photos), the interesting effects, surreal interiors, the plucky young boy being the hero and viewpoint of the movie, the mutant Martians, or their awesome heat gun… there’s just something about Invaders From Mars.

I think it’s also the fact that it all feels like a nightmarish dream, bookended by David being in bed to give you the impression it could be. Sometimes, that trope is a little cheap, cheating almost, but, I don’t think it actually is that. It’s not a dream, they just cleverly used that idea to give the movie such a surreal quality, especially with the insane grading during the final escape sequence.

I absolutely adore the core concept of the Martians arrival as well. This idea that they’ve seen we’re building potential weapons technology so are here to stop us, it almost makes us the bad guys… if they weren’t exploding peoples brains after manipulating them to kill and destroy. I also really liked the idea of them swapping the parental figures within the movie too as the doctor and astrologer took over the role, not something you see often. 

The movie clearly had budget restraints, but I can’t help but feel they made the most of it. The Martians look ridiculous, but swapping the size of the actors to make the Mutants look huge (see picture above) is more effort than you’d normally get. And yes, the heat ray effect is weird, but it’s so different. Why not just shoot some kind of chemical reaction for it.

The army footage is odd, but it’s something. The underground sets look cool and also very bizarre. The spaceship is a little sparse, but they tried. Everything feels like they put in the effort, even if the final result wasn’t spectacular. There’s a lot of heart gone into the craft of this movie.

The central performance from the kid playing David (Jimmy Hunt) has always been endearing too. He gee whizzes and golly goshes his way through the movie and wins your heart every time you watch it. You want him to be alright, and want his parents to be alright for him. Plus his enthusiasm for astrology should be an inspiration for kids nowadays.

There’s obviously plenty of movies out there better than a early fifties sci-fi B-movie with some terrible astrology at times (again, it was before we learnt more about our solar system) but I can’t help but feel they really tried something with this one, and a lot of interesting things came from it. I just love the vibe of this movie. If you don’t like it, that’s absolutely fine, but i’ll always defend and praise Invaders From Mars. And the whole stuff with Cathy was absolutely horrible (that smile) so it appealed to my horror loving side too.