Invaders from Mars (1986)

Invaders from Mars is a 1986 American science fiction horror film, directed by Tobe Hooper. It is a remake of the film of the same name, which was filmed in 1953.

Plot
One night young David Gardner sees an alien spacecraft landing in a sand quarry behind his house. Hi parents do not believe him. His father, however, out of curiosity wants to inspect it. He returns changed. Later his mother and others also look changed. Slowly more and more townspeople show changing behaviours.

The only one who believes David is the school nurse, Linda Magnuson because of her own observations and both are then hunted because of what they know. They are therefore forced to flee together.

In this situation David, who knows about the U.S. Marines stationed at a place, where his father works and who know him and his father, and Linda go to them in order to report to them what is going on. For that purpose they go directly to their leader, General Wilson. They find out through them, that they are aware that an alien spacecraft must have landed somewhere in that town, because they detected it, but couldn´t prove it, since their instruments could not verify it.

With their help they find out that the people there have changed, because they have been put under control by implants implanted at their necks and that the aliens must have come from Mars, living there underground because of the uninhabitable atmosphere there.

Realising that they are here to take control of the humans they now view as a threat because they have landed on Mars with probes (Viking probes) and also in order to take copper from Earth, which they need to make their technology work, they managed to attack, take the spacecraft and destroy it after leaving a bomb there behind for that.

Ultimately, David awakes in his bed during this explosion and tells his parents about the events, all apparently a nightmare. After he and his parents return to sleep, he is suddenly reawakened by the alien spacecraft beginning to land. Running to his parent's bedroom, he screams as an alien noise is heard there.

Cast

 * Hunter Carson as David Gardner
 * Karen Black as Linda Magnuson
 * Timothy Bottoms as George Gardner
 * Laraine Newman as Ellen Gardner
 * Louise Fletcher as Mrs. McKeltch
 * James Karen as General Climet Wilson
 * Bud Cort as Mark Weinstein
 * Jimmy Hunt as the Police Chief

Box office
Invaders from Mars was released on June 6, 1986, opening in seventh place. In total, it earned $4,884,663 at the US box office, a loss from its $7,000,000 budget.

Reception
Nina Darnton wrote in The New York Times that Hooper "knows how to construct a horror film so it builds to a screaming pitch" and also praised the "excellent cast," but thought that when the Martians are finally revealed, "the film becomes less terrifying. We get lost in the complexities of the inventions and finally they seem overdone and overproduced." Variety panned the film as "an embarrassing combination of kitsch and boredom," adding that a remake of the 1953 original was a reasonable idea but "Dan O'Bannon and Don Jakoby's inferior screenplay fails to bring in new ideas or provide interesting dialog. The story elements here have been done to death in the interim." Sid Smith of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 3 stars out of 4 and wrote, "Much of what is lovable about Hooper's fun, scary and refreshingly silly movie is all its in-jokes." Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times stated, "If you can tap into Hooper's oddball rhythms and cold sendups, you can enjoy yourself. And, though the 1953 'Invaders' was an effective movie, it's not really the classic that people remember. Except for Menzies' superb production designs, everything in the remake is better: the acting, the camerawork, definitely the Martians. It may not grip audiences in the same way, but that's because Hooper is trying something harder, a conscious campiness that's tough to bring off." Paul Attanasio of The Washington Post wrote that "despite its occasional sparkle, 'Invaders From Mars' is an overlong movie with a tiny spirit. It plays to a certain smug superiority of an audience nurtured on junky television, and while that smugness is in some ways justified—movies like the original 'Invaders From Mars' had their obvious failings—it's also, over the course of a feature film, more than a little annoying." Time Out wrote, "... whereas the original worked by building up an increasingly black mood, this version relies almost entirely on the special effects; and such limited brooding tension as it has is gratuitously undermined by a string of sequences played purely for laughs". Thomas Kent Miller in his book Mars in the Movies called it "unredeemingly awful [if seen for the first time by a 21st century adult]. Otherwise, some children who saw it for the first time, with little or no knowledge of the 1953 version, derive much pleasure from the film."

As of April 2021 the film holds a 38% approval rating at film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on 16 reviews.

It was nominated for two awards at the 7th Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Supporting Actress for Louise Fletcher and Worst Visual Effects.

Trivia
The original film's child star Jimmy Hunt played the police chief in this movie.