We are in the middle of the cold war. The commies are lurking around every corner. Once again we are treated to aliens who have as their agenda, subduing us and turning us into their chattel. A boy sees a space ship land from his bedroom window. When his parents go to investigate they are changed. They also have injuries to their necks. As with "Invasion of the Body Snatcher" he must find someone to believe him. He goes through a convoluted process to try to work out a way to stop what is going on. While the ending is a bit formula there is a kicker. It is an engaging, fun film with lots of questions to be answered. Much more than I expected from the time.

Invaders from Mars is a B film by director William Cameron Menzies the first Oscar winner for art direction.David MacLean (Jimmy Hunt) is a 12 year old kid interested in astronomy who sees a flying saucer landing in the sand pit outside his backyard. When his father, George (Leif Erickson) goes out to look he disappears. David's mom, Mary (Hillary Brooke) calls police, but who also submerge into the sand.Some time later the two cops and his father return, but they act differently like they are under a spell. David notices something in the back of their heads.David finally manages to find two people who believe him when others are sceptical and maybe under the influence of an alien entity which by now also includes his mother.Dr Blake (Helena Carter) and Dr Kelston (Arthur Franz) think there is something in David's story and call in the military who discover a Martian spaceship who are controlling people who they think are important or useful.The film taps into the reds under the beds scare of the 1950s and the supposed flying saucer sightings of the era as well. Films such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers dealt with the material in a more thrilling and cerebral way.Invaders from Mars views this from a child's perspective. Something unusual is happening outside of the house, his parents have been taken over and there is no one else seemingly to turn to or trust.Some of the visual effects reminded me of the original Star Trek series which again shows the B movie origins of the film. A nice bit of hokum that probably played well in the 1950s than today.

This one scared the hell out of me when I first saw it as a kid; I remember them showing it in the evening on BBC2 back in the 1980s. Looks like a lot of other reviewers were similarly traumatised. Watching it now, as an adult, it's easy to laugh at what is a shoddy, low budget production. Scenes are repeated, special effects are wobbly to say the least, the aliens are silly rather than menacing, and the paucity of the production is apparent in every respect.And yet...there's something oddly menacing about this film. It's partly the Cold War paranoia-inspired plot about nice, ordinary people being taken over by a sinister foreign menace. Interestingly, this is the earliest version I've seen on that theme, predating INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS by a couple of years. The paranoia is cloying and really raises the hackles, even as an adult, and even allowing for the cheesy over-acting of the child star.The more overt aspects of the story, which take place towards the climax, are also profound, and in this case the imaginative nature of the production outweighs the budgetary constraints. That alien leader, little more than a head in a goldfish bowl, is oddly disturbing and an image that's stayed with me for my whole life. It's easy to forgive the problems in a film like INVADERS FROM MARS when it contains such classic, timeless material and I do think this is one of those '50s-era B-movie alien invasion classics.

This is the scariest movie I have ever seen. Perhaps that's because I saw it as a child, around the age of David. The movie is filmed from a child's point of view, and I certainly identified with it. As I watched it, I imagined what it would be like to be in David's shoes; as he was carried underground, I was carried underground. Judging from the reviews by others who saw it as a child, I am not alone. Even today, it creeps me out. But whether it would work seeing it for the first time as an adult is another story. Adults are perhaps too rational. Invaders from Mars works best when mainlined directly into the subconscious. A child still in touch with his fantasy world can do this, but can an adult? Look at the adult interpretations: It's a symbolic representation of the cold war, and the aliens are actually Communists taking over America. Having actually watched this during the Cold War in America, I can tell you this interpretation never once crossed my mind, as a child or adult. Sorry, the aliens were aliens, and the fear was of a clandestine alien invasion of Earth. This should come as no surprise to the well-informed, because there were numerous reports of UFOs in the press, complete with apparently authentic photos from the late Forties through the Fifties and Sixties. THAT is why people were afraid of UFOs, though they didn't talk much about it, and the government tried to pretend it was all an illusion of some sort or other. (It is convenient to dismiss the fear of aliens as actually a fear of Communism, though, who knows, perhaps these were Commie aliens. Or early incarnations of the Borg, which is the same thing. Resistance. Is. Futile.)Worse than that, there has been extensive discussion in recent decades of possible implants associated with nose bleeds during alien abductions, especially of children. Harvard professor John Mack, M.D., presented evidence of this, including X-ray films of implants being extracted by doctors, on a network television special in the 1990s. Actual implants were recovered and studied. So this film may have tapped into more than just some collective unconscious fear. I remember waking up with blood from a nosebleed on my pillow, and I have memories of vivid "dreams" of being abducted by aliens from my bedroom, yard, summer camp, and elsewhere. Sometimes these "dreams" left physical marks upon my body. No wonder this movie scared me so much -- and perhaps others. The cast, no offense to any still alive, is not exactly A list. But it works. So do the weird sets, the creation of the genius of William Cameron Menzies, the same Menzies of Gone With the Wind and Things to Come. Here Menzies is the director, rather than just the set designer, though presumably he did both. Spoiler alert:The brilliant move of the movie is the ending, when it turned out all that came before was a dream, but now the real nightmare was about to begin. So the surrealism of the odd perspective sets was the product of a child's subconscious dreams. But it was a dream triggered by a real fear of alien invasion that was on the minds of millions at the time, and perhaps ever since H.G. Well's War of the Worlds. For another take on aliens from a child's perspective, watch Steven Spielberg's series Taken, narrated by Dakota Fanning. The wonderful old Twilight Zone series also tapped into this vein many times, suggesting it was still a concern of people. Invaders from Mars could have been a Twilight Zone episode, and perhaps it was an inspiration and model for Rod Serling.