Saint Mort’s Nostalgia Nightmares “Invaders From Mars” Blu-Ray Review

After a brief break Saint Mort’s Nostalgia Nightmare is back! This week we’re reviewing the Scream Factory release of Invaders From Mars. I’ve seen it once before this Blu-Ray came in the mail and raises the question if I’m the wrong audience for this movie.

Before I talk about Invaders from Mars I want to discuss the fact that I’ve thought it was directed by Joe Dante for a long time. I guess it just feels like something Dante would make, a fairly innocent and non-offensive movie about a child in a weird situation with occasionally adult moments. It’d felt right in with Gremlins and Small Soldiers, but instead this movie is directed by Tobe Hooper which might not work to it’s advantage.

Tobe Hooper has had an uneven career and that’s speaking as someone who defends more of his movies than most people. It’s undeniable that Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a masterpiece and whether or not Poltergeist was directed by him or Spielberg it’s still a great movie. That being said, I’ve also defended The Funhouse as an unappreciated masterpiece, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 was a brilliant ‘fuck you’ to people forcing him to make a gorier sequel, I found Lifeforce to be a complete blast, and I don’t even completely hate Eaten Alive.

Somehow I never knew this movie existed until I was in college. The peak of my horror fandom was in Junior High during the very early years of the internet. I had no clue what IMDb was back then so I wasn’t checking into filmmaker’s filmographies and even then Tobe Hooper wasn’t really at the top of the list of directors whose filmographies I felt I needed to see anyway.

Anyways, when I worked at a video store I stumbled upon the VHS of this and watched it. It was okay, nothing to write home about. I remember thinking it was probably Joe Dante’s worst movie (see first paragraph). This might sound like an insult but Joe Dante has had a pretty solid career and even at his worst he’s still damn good.

Invaders From Mars isn’t a great movie, but I don’t think anyone is pretending that it is. Not even Scream Factory. But it is a fun movie. It’s that awkward combination of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Monster Squad that makes this movie more fun than I originally remembered. The screenplay was written by Dan O’Bannon and follows in line with Return of the Living Dead’s subplot about the Army coming in and handling the situation.

There’s plenty of great performances in this movie (including a great role from Bud Cort) but the star of the show is Stan Winston’s monster designs.  The creatures look so cool in that super 80’s way (specifically one alien who looks like Krang from TMNT).

What hurts this movie is its undecided tone. The movie keeps trying to be a genuine horror movie and a kids movie at the exact time, since it never seems to settle on a tone it constantly feels awkward and uneven. The ending is cliche’d and infuriating

I also can’t believe how many times they say the name David Gardener in this movie. This movie should be shown to writing students as a reminder to limit how often people refer to each other by name.

Invaders From Mars is available on Blu-Ray from Scream Factory today. Beyond a beautiful transfer of the film it also contains a commentary track from Tobe Hooper and an amazing behind the scenes feature. Pick up your copy today!

Matt Kelly is the host of the Saint Mort Show Podcast and co-host of the Reddit Horror Club. He also runs the Every Damn DVD blog. Instead of eating Ham and Mashed Potatoes with his family on Sunday he watched Invaders from Mars FOR YOU! Show up how much you appreciate his handwork by getting him something off his Amazon Wishlist to watch.