This low-budget film from 1965 is set in the distant future of 1975. It tells the story of an American spacecraft with four people on-board that crash lands on Mars. There's a kind of twist at the end that renders this synopsis somewhat incorrect. The story actually has a theme to it, which relates to the passage of time. And there are a couple of references to "The Wizard Of Oz".But overall, it's a slow moving boring affair that tests the viewer's patience. The character named Charlie, second in command, looks like a high school dropout who joined a circus. Much of the dialogue has each crew member informing another crew member of technical information that all four should have known about long before they ever left Earth. All this talky exposition is for the benefit of the viewer, of course. The woman, named Dorothy, whimpers: "Steve, what are we going to do now?" Responds Steve: "We'll have to run for it" ... a crew of real knowledgeable astronauts there.On Mars, lots of screen time is spent just wandering around their surroundings, making stupid comments and asking dumb questions. In these sequences, the dialogue occurs while the camera is quite some distance from the characters, giving the impression that the visuals were shot first, with the dialogue superimposed in post edit.Later, they encounter live beings, sort of. And the wizard finally makes an appearance well into the second half. When he does, he speaks in English, conveniently, and his voice has an echo chamber quality to it. He launches into a laughable, loquacious monologue that goes on for a tortuous four minutes. It's one of the more humorous parts of the film.Special effects look cheap, though I did find the reddish, pink colors marginally convincing, given this is the red planet. Casting and acting are poor. Dialogue is awful. Scientific credibility is nonexistent. At least the script made an effort to create some thematic heft. And for me that's what saved "The Wizard Of Mars" from being a total cinematic disaster.

Horrors of the Red Planet (1965) BOMB (out of 4) Four astronauts crash land on Mars where they walk around for an hour's worth of running time before meeting the planet's wizard (John Carradine). Here's a really bad movie that somewhat keeps you interested because you're expecting something to happen but when nothing does happen you can't help but be really upset. Carradine doesn't show up until the final ten minutes and when he does it's only his head. The rest of the cast members are equally awful as are the special effects, directing, screenplay and so on.

Classic "bad" sci-fi includes movies like "Queen of Outer Space", "Attack of the 50-Ft. Woman", and "The Brain from Planet Arous". These films have lots of action, actors who are at least moderately known to the public, and decent production values and direction. Sad to say, "The Wizard of Mars" has none of these and can't even qualify as campy. Simply put, it's a really poor movie that's not even good for laughs...and it also made me wonder how and why it was made in the first place, and why anyone would have gone to see it when it was released.The future year is 1975, and a band of brave astronauts is approaching Mars in what looks like a modified 1960s station wagon with a periscope. After a few "scary" encounters with apparent meteors, the craft crash-lands on Mars, and the astronauts are--gasp--stranded. The rest of the film consists of the marooned crew walking...and walking...and walking some more. They have a couple of lame encounters with alien life forms before they find pavement made of yellow bricks (see where we're headed here?).The yellow brick road, at least in this movie, leads our intrepid space travelers to an old castle-type building that is inhabited by extremely unconvincing alien creatures in plastic tubes, accompanied by the ghostly image of none other than John Carradine. Carradine has a really incomprehensible conversation with the spaceship crew, then instructs them to tinker with a giant brass timepiece. The ancient clock starts working, the building starts to crumble, and the crew members suddenly find themselves back on their ship, as though nothing ever happened.Most "Mars movies" have entertaining aliens, some interaction between crew members, and musings about other worlds. This movie just consists of the unknown cast wandering around for what seems like an eternity. The ending is so lame, and so illogical that, after the movie is over, the viewer just wants to ask, "what?".Most minor movies I can at least recommend as mindless time-fillers. This one is so boring that I can't even do THAT.

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.