All screenshots in this review are of the 4K restoration.

As I understand it the “baby boomer” generation was terrified by this film when they were kids, leaving them with indelible emotional scarring, and I only understood that recently. My father wasn’t into movies, but my mother and my grandmother were, but neither of them had ever seen Invaders From Mars. I being of the Gen-X generation looked at it as more entertainment than anything else, but it’s all relative, I was traumatized by other flicks, most I’ve reviewed, like, Horror Express (1972), Salem’s Lot (1979) and John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982). My brother and I saw Invaders one night, and what makes it memorable is when the scene comes up in the final act of one of the Martian mutants grabbing a soldier and killing him by jumping down this circular shaft with him, the cry he lets out sent my brother into a fit of laughter! This happened one other time, during our viewing of Attack Of The Mushroom People (1963), when a rather low-key fright one of the characters suffers sent my brother into gut-busting laughter. That aside, I did end up loving Invaders From Mars.

I haven’t revisited this movie since I bought Image’s 2002 DVD, revisiting it again last night I came to realization I seem to now have some sympathy for the Martians in this film. We’ll get a theory about why they’re invading from one of our main characters, astronomer Dr. Stuart Kelston (Arthur Franz), and it may have something to do with the new rocket that’s going to be launched in a few days. Kelson suggests this new technology may be seen as a threat to the Martians, and afraid of having these primates being able to launch a war at them I can now understand their invasion may simply be self-defense. It’s not too long before Kelston’s theory proves to be true, as the rocket research plant that makes parts for it is blown up, and the scientist created the rocket is almost assassinated. But I have to keep that sympathy in perspective, for I may be on their side concerning this particular mission, but once that mission is done what’s to stop these Martians from expanding the parameters and deciding, well, while we’re here, why don’t we just take over the planet, then we really won’t have to worry about any kind of earthly threat?

This invasion kicks off with a flying saucer landing just beyond the hill in a sandpit behind the MacLean residence; 14-year-old  David (Jimmy Hunt) is woken up by the weird sounds it makes and rushes in to tell his parents, George (Leif Erickson) and Mary (Hillary Brooke). They half believe him, because George is an engineer who works at that very research plant, so George decides to take a quick jaunt out and have a look. He doesn’t come back until late morning; the landing happened at 5am, and Mary is so concerned she calls the cops. They come and go out there too, and they too never come back. We know immediately something’s wrong with George when he suddenly shows up because he has a 180-degree personality change. He’s mean, and angry, and abusive to his kid (slaps him to the ground at one point). The cops will show up later acting “weird” too, but not as angry as “controlled” George. You see, it’s obvious the aliens are controlling the people it takes; each have this weird, red X on the back of their necks, a control device has been screwed into their brains. But why it turns George into an abusive, angry dick is unknown, while other people controlled exhibit blank stares and stilted speech. These Martians are going to have to work on making their subjects fit in a lot better than they do.

This film is not without it’s tragedies. A friend of David’s, little girl Kathy Wilson (Janine Perreau), is also taken when she ends up having the bad luck to choose that sandpit to play in on this very day, and David sees it happen. The ship is burrowed under the ground, and various sink holes open up to suck the chosen down into their ship to be turned into puppets. This little girl will burn down her own house, and later on we’ll learn she’ll have keeled over dead at one point. That house and that Wilson family was that rocket scientist’s. We’ll learn once the missions of these controlled are accomplished the aliens pop their brains and kill them. We’ll see more of this with those two cops after they blow up the plant. No, there is no gore in this movie, in case you were wondering. The killed-off simply collapse.

Most of the movie is seen through David’s eyes as he keeps trying to get adults to believe his parents are not his parents (shades of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers) but he’ll finally get a couple of them on his side when health-department physician Dr. Pat Blake (Helena Carter) is asked to evaluate his mental health after a freak out in the police station and he’s tossed in a cell. These scenes in the station are very weird, as to how the environment looks. This is a rather stylized movie as to how we’re meant to be seeing these events through the eyes of a child, and those station scenes gave me a very dreamy vibe. Even the placement of actors. Blake keeps David in his care after encountering his now odd parents, and she believes him about the aliens in his backyard after talking to that aforementioned astronomer. Apparently, even though he’s 14 David’s not the kind of kid who goes around squawking about aliens and bizarre shit.

Eventually, the movie moves away from these three main characters for a bit so the army can get involved, then we get a crazy final act of our three leads and the military getting inside the ship. The aliens in this flick are represented by tall actors wearing obvious green “suits” (you can see the seam of the zipper down the back), green skin, and green bulging eyes. They’re mutants (pronounced mew-tants) as theorized by Kelston. This is during a time when the term ‘mutant’ wasn’t well known I take it, simply based on the odd pronunciation. In control of these beings is a tentacle head they carry around in a transparent orb. This is a wild portion of the movie with Earth’s military running around in the ship, shooting mutants (bullets only knock them down), and David trying to save Kelston and Blake from getting their brains drilled into. Strangely, not one soldier is killed, everyone makes it out alive after a bomb is set to detonate within.

Now something strange happens as we get to the end, I mean, stranger than what we’ve seen. As army folk and our three leads race out of the sandpit and down the hill, racing for cover for the explosion they know is about happen, the camera zooms in on David, and it appears he’s now running place, since we see no background behind him. The movie flashes back to prior events, superimposed over him currently “running in place.” As a kid seeing this for the first time, I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but when I got grown I realized that was my first taste of a “dream ending” was all about. Actually, to be accurate, what David had, what we all witnessed for the past 78-minutes, was a premonition in dream form. Sure he wakes up, and races into his parents room and realizes it was a damn dream, but after he goes back to bed he suddenly wakes up again and sees that same spaceship land behind the house.

Generally, I’m not a fan of “dream endings,” or “dream-like endings,” but I’ve become more accepting of them as I’ve grown up, and have a movie in my collection that I saw in a theater back in 1988 that I was digging until the “dream ending” unfolded. I walked out of the theater disappointed, a little pissed, and vowing to never see it again. I’m leaving the title unmentioned because I intend to review it someday, but I’m more accepting of them nowadays, especially if they end like Invaders From Mars did, where it’s more a premonition than anything else. I believe the remake ended that way too.

Invaders From Mars (1953) first entered the DVD market back in 2002 from Image Entertainment (now out-of-print), and it’s blu-ray and UHD debut comes from a boutique distributor from the Netherlands, Ignite Films. Their blu-ray and UHD are solo releases. Arrow Films is supposed to be the distributor overseas (and the menu system is set up like an Arrow disc), but so far no announcement has been made by them yet. In the meantime U.S. and overseas customers can still order the discs only from their website at the moment.

IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT 2002 DVD (OUT-OF-PRINT)

BOOKLET (6-PAGES) INCLUDED WITH ABOVE RELEASE (click photos to enlarge & read)

IGNITE FILMS 2022 BLU-RAY

VIDEO/AUDIO/SUBTITLES (IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT): 1.33.1 Full Frame—2.0 English Dolby Digital (mono)—No subs

VIDEO/AUDIO/SUBTITLES (IGNITE FILMS): 1080p 1:37:1 High Definition Widescreen—2.0 English DTS-HD Master Audio, 2.0 Spanish DTS-HD Master Audio—English SDH, German, French, Japanese, Korean, Italian subs

Big thanks to Ignite Films and Film Restorer Scott MacQueen for doing what sounded like the impossible and making this film look incredible in HD. I say impossible, because the included booklet focuses on the restoration process — “The restoration of Invaders From Mars gestated for twelve years before all the necessary elements fell into place. The research, inspection, and restoration took a full year (partially due to COVID-19 restrictions). . . “ Wow! And it pays off, big time. The images are so clear you can count the freckles on Jimmy Hunts face every time he gets a close-up. Colors pop like never before too!

EXTRAS INCLUDED (IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT) . . . 

  • U.S. And Alternate British Versions Of The Film
  • Theatrical Trailer (2:16)
  • Still Gallery (80 photos)
  • Illustrated Color Booklet (see above)

EXTRAS INCLUDED (IGNITE FILM) . . . 

  • William Cameron Menzies: The Architect Of Dreams (16:26)
  • Jimmy Hunt Saves The Planet (10:30)
  • Terror From Above (22:24)
  • Restoring The Invasion (6:50)
  • TCM Festival Intro (7:02)
  • European Observatory Sequence (8:51)
  • European Ending (2:52)
  • Theatrical Trailer (Restored 4K) (2:19)
  • Re-release Trailer (2:17)
  • Image Gallery (w/original Press Book pages, behind the scenes photos from the restoration process) (38 photos)
  • “Invaders From Mars: A Nightmare of Restoration” By Scott MacQueen (20-page extensive essay on the restoration process)

Great batch of extras, but I’m a little disappointed there wasn’t a commentary created. The extra ‘William Cameron Menzies: The Architect Of Dreams’ comes the closest to that. Most of the extras fall into the short but sweet category.

The old Image DVD gave you the option to watch the original U.S. theatrical version or the foreign one with the added footage, which does nothing for the film, those scenes are even poorly filmed and don’t quite match the original footage, so I’m glad we weren’t given that option with this restoration. However, the added scenes were cleaned up, but presented as solo extras (European Observatory Sequence, European Ending).

‘Jimmy Hunt Saves The Planet’ is a good ten minutes with the movie’s only surviving cast member; I would have loved if he had done a commentary instead, but beggers can’t be choosers.

‘Restoring The Invasion’ does what the included booklet does, it interviews film restorer Scott MacQueen and the various prints and film elements he used to restore the movie, with very stark before-and-after shots.

‘Terror From Above’ interviews three directors (John Landis, Mark Goldblatt, Joe Dante) and a FX artist (Robert Skotak) on how they were inspired and terrified by the movie. There’s also minimal talk of Tobe Hooper’s remake, of which I’m a fan of, but Dante, however, is not.

It was nice seeing John Sayles (screenwriter of The Howling, Piranha and Alligator) doing a quick rundown of the movie’s making and it’s impact on fans in the ‘TCM Festival Intro,’ and do I even need to mention, yet again, my love for image galleries on memory movies I review?

All in all, this is the end all and be all of releases concerning this film, and if you’re a fan of it, I seriously recommend either picking up the blu or the UHD (Ignite should have made this a combo), and I’m eager to see what else they have in mind for upcoming releases, since there’s a ’01’ on the spine of this release.