When I was a really little kid, I thought the front yard of my grandparent’s house was huge. Admittedly, the house is set further back from the street than any other in that neighborhood, but it didn’t take me long to realize the yard was nowhere near as large as elementary-school-aged me believed. All it took was a foot or so of vertical growth and I suddenly had a whole new perspective.
1953’s Invaders from Mars wisely presents its world in a manner consistent with how young children see the world. His home is OK, but some of the outside world is very strange. Most notable is a police station, which is an intimidating place, even for adults. But in the one presented here, the front desk is raised up higher than it should be, putting the sergeant behind it on a literal pedestal. The wall behind him is so absent of color and texture that a clock mounted on it almost seems to be floating in space. My wife remarked it was like Saint Peter at the gates of heaven, which I thought was interesting. Then there’s the ridiculously high walls of this space, which are made even more menacing by the long, unbroken corridors they flank.
It is in this distorted environment the young Jimmy Hunt finds himself unable to convince most of the adults that a UFO is buried in the massive sand pit behind his house. People keep dropping into the sand, only to later reappear. The most noticeable difference in these returned people is their manner becomes brusque and stoic. Among the first victims are his parents, as well as two police officers. That officers of the law getting converted are only more reasons Hunt is reluctant to go to the police station.
Hunt quickly takes notice of a red “X” on the back of the neck of those who were taken into the pit. We will later learn this is where the invaders have surgically implanted a control device at the base of each victim’s skull. Should the aliens no longer need a subject, or the mission is jeopardized, they can instantaneously kill them through this mechanism by giving them an aneurysm.
That is rather strong stuff for a sci-fi horror movie from 1953 which is aimed at children, especially when this is how a girl Hunt knows (Janine Perreau) meets her fate. Actually, everything that happens with Perreau in the short time she is the film is rather disturbing. We haven’t met, or even heard about, this character before Hunt, watching through a telescope, sees her fall into the sand pit. As soon as Hunt runs to Perreau’s mother to say what he has seen, the girl has returned and is wearing a very creepy expression. Jimmy leaves, only to discover the girl has set a can of gasoline on fire in the basement of her house. Shortly after this, we learn the girl is dead.
One aspect of this film I found intriguing and unnerving is how people just keep going up a path in somebody’s yard to where they are inevitably taken by the pit. Just consider what it would take to have somebody convince you to go into a stranger’s back yard. I know I would have a great many questions. Of course, the converted humans are very insistent the uninitiated take this little journey. And yet another thing that bothered me about Perreau’s trip up the path is she was unaccompanied. So, what was she doing there? Did kids back then just wander into people’s back yards and fall into sands pits there?
This is one of those rare pictures where the low budget results in a feature that is likely more interesting than if it hadn’t had such limitations. That path to the sand pit is only ever seen on a very restrictive set that obviously does not extend beyond a single hilltop, over which people keep conveniently dropping into the sand. For some wide shots, we see a painted rendering of the same scene. This artificiality only adds to the uncanniness of the viewing experience.
Unfortunately, such budgetary restrictions also have their downside, most notably in the extensive recycling of some footage. To pad the film out to feature length, real military archival footage is utilized to a preposterous extent, with many of the same shots of tanks and the like used multiple times. Almost as bad is when we finally get into the alien tunnels underground, and the same shots of running drones clad in green velour suits is repurposed ad nauseum. That the same shots are occasionally flipped makes not a whit of difference.
I watched Invaders from Mars on the Ignite Films blu-ray in a stunning restoration. Many bonus features are included on the disc, including additional footage shot for the European market. I welcome the inclusion of that footage, including an alternate ending, even if I’m glad none of it made it into the film proper. These additional scenes are cumbersome and awkward. I was stunned anybody had watched the original film, with its tiring reuse of footage original and archival, and thought the movie needed to be longer.
Dir: William Cameron Menzies
Starring Jimmy Hunt, Helena Carter, Arthur Franz
Watched on Ignite Films blu-ray