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Invaders From Mars Reviews

Director Hooper's remake of William Cameron Menzies' 1953 cult-classic science fiction film INVADERS FROM MARS ignores everything that made the original so effective. Although the scripts of the two films are nearly identical, the new big-budget production is so wrong headed that it bears little resemblance to the original. Carson (son of actress Karen Black) is the young son of perfect American couple Bottoms and Newman. One night Carson is awakened by the light and sound emitted by a spaceship that lands behind his house and sinks into a sandpit. In the morning his father goes to investigate, but when he returns he seems different--he behaves like a zombie. Carson notices that his father has a fresh scar on the back of his neck, and the boy's imagination goes wild. People are being taken over by the aliens. All the tongue-in-cheek humor, film-buff jokes, and special effects in the world can't save this mess. Although the performances in the original version wereOscar-nominating material, with few exceptions the cast of the remake is awful. The one charming piece of casting is that of Hunt--the little boy from the original film--as one of the policemen who investigate the spaceship crash.