Invaders From Mars (1986)

Invaders From Mars (1986) – A boy sees a UFO land on the other side of the hill behind his house.  No one believes him until the aliens begin to take over the town.

Director: Tobe Hooper                                Starring – Karen Black, Louise Fletcher, Timothy Bottoms

It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that four years after Hooper directed one of the great modern ghost movies, “Poltergeist”, he managed to create such a complete piece of junk like this.  It’s a remake of a 1953 movie of the same name.  When a low budget, UFO movie from the earliest days of the genre can outscore you by a full point on the IMDB scale (Original movie), you’re in trouble.  The movie is awful in almost every aspect.

Hooper’s rep is largely based on two movies, “Poltergeist” and the original “Texas Chain Saw Massacre”.  In the first example, he had a Steven Spielberg script and Spielberg as his producer.  In the second, the low budget, slasher movie style didn’t require much in the way of directorial finesse.  The bad news is that we get the earlier Hooper here.  Clumsy, plodding and cliche-ridden, the movie is painful to watch.

It isn’t helped by the awful acting.  I can only assume this was a paycheck movie for the stars, all of whom have shown much better work elsewhere.  Laraine Newman plays the boys mom.  The high point of her performance is when she trots out the Martian voice from the SNL skit.  Black is laughably horrible when she tries for fear, and Louise Fletcher looks like she’s doing a parody of Nurse Ratched.  These are in a different galaxy from the performances that got them Oscar nominations.

The script is lame, the special effects are laughable.  The Martians are terrible.  I tried to find something worthwhile in the movie and failed.  It stinks.  I can give it this much, it squeaked around the corner into “so bad it’s good” territory. But only just.

The movie would work in one category only – when you need something you can mock MST3K style.  Gather some friends and make like Tom Servo and Crow on the Satellite of Love.  Otherwise, hard pass.

Why You Will Like It – You can indulge your sense of superiority and disdain while watching it.

Rating – * Don’t Bother