- Original theatrical poster - image courtesy of Where Danger Lives
Invaders from Mars disturbed me profoundly as a child, in hindsight probably less because of anything in the film itself than because of the transitive property of having preceded Tobe Hooper’s nauseatingly grotesque 1986 remake, which had already ravaged my young mind during a cable TV airing sometime in the early 90s.
Decades later, I still tend to linger on some of the more damaging experiences the movies have afforded me (United 93, Irreversible and Cannibal Holocaust come to mind), so it was a groovy bliss to return to this bit of crackerjack paranoia and enjoy it with a comparatively clean slate. It isn’t great, but it is great fun.
The story is something of a perfect distillation of alien invasion genre tropes, and I suspect that most of the recognized clichés surrounding the cultural notion of a Martian invasion – green, humanoid aliens with slit eyes and three fingers are themselves a distinctly silly archetype, to say nothing of their ruler, a head in a glass jar with six tentacles for digits – can be traced back to the success of this earnest bit of sci-fi pulp. Certain storytelling trends also pop up here for possibly the first time, but I won't spoil the rug-pulling the film so readily delights in.
The titular invaders remain unseen for most of the picture, their craft landing at night during a storm, nestling itself beneath a sandpit tucked behind a row of homes in a seemingly typical suburbia, one equipped not incidentally with an underestimated militaristic presence. One by one, townsfolk are sucked under the sand, converted into obedient slaves for an unseen larger purpose and released back into the community, their bodies snatched by a brain control device implanted through the neck.
For a time, only young David (Jimmy Hunt) knows the truth, his sky-is-falling proclamations given the run-around by skeptics, authorities and those already converted into alien infiltrators. Once doubt has been sufficiently cleared, the army moves in for an epic standoff.
The film isn’t particularly deep any way you cut it, but as an expression of American superiority, it’s a superior example of healthy patriotism, the kind that doesn’t rely on demeaning other nations like a bully proving his worth on the playground.
The popularity of the film can likely be accounted for by the (mostly) straightforward simplicity of the plot, but Invaders from Mars isn’t merely a pleasant pushover. Fairly original in its use of a child as the primary character in an adult world, the film successfully taps into the heightened fear we tend to experience in youth, with the inflating paranoia of the 1950s acting as something of an added pressure cooker. The use of vivid colors is fittingly surreal, while the large-scale presence of the invaders is grounded by distinctly personal loss, guaranteeing the ensuing nightmares of many a pre-adolescent for years to come.
Invaders from Mars is available in its entirety on YouTube ( click here).
Invaders from Mars. Dir. William Cameron Menzies. Perf. Jimmy Hunt, Helena Carter, Arthur Franz, Morris Ankrum, Leif Erickson, Hillary Brooke, Bert Freed. Twentieth Century Fox, 1953. Running Time: 78 min.
