Invaders from Mars

1953 b-movie

Rating: 9/20

Plot: Body snatchers from Mars travel to earth, burrow beneath the ground, and start making mischief. Beaver Cleaver is on to them, but nobody will listen to him. Oh, snap!

Luckily for the makers of this movie, the Martians hid beneath the sand in this town that seems to have a lot of sand because it saved a lot of money that would have been used on special effects. This is a silly and boring b-movie that combines a no-fat version of The Twilight Zone's menace with the golly-gee 1950's naivety. Child actors are often annoying, and even though the kid in this isn't completely terrible, making him the focus of the movie probably isn't a great idea. This is also another really misleading poster. The tentacled thing in the dome, though pretty cool, is on the screen for less than a minute, and the Martians don't do anything but get shot, fall down, and get back up again so that they can stumble around and get shot some more. They're not in it very much either. The action scenes consist mostly of what looks to be stock footage of tanks and army activity or a little kid running around screaming. C'mon, people. If you're going to make a really cheap science fiction movie, at least make it funny!