Invaders from Mars

The director, Tobe Hooper, who honed his scary craft on such films as ''The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'' and ''Poltergeist,'' knows how to construct a horror film so it builds to a screaming pitch. He shoots many of his images from below, to give the view a child might have, and deftly manipulates the audience to feel the growing menace. He is helped by an excellent cast. Read full review

Committed horror nerds and conspiracy-minded liberals alike will find fleeting suggestions of the canny parable that nearly manages to surface. Read full review

Director Tobe Hooper seems to want his homage and his "Saturday Night Live," too. One minute he's reveling in hair-raising terror; in the next, he's dishing up naughty, nasty camp. [9 June 1986, p.5C]

But while it’s first and foremost a terrific showcase for some imaginative designers, Invaders From Mars also holds together fairly well as a movie—or at least better than the choppy Lifeforce does. Read full review

And, though the 1953 “Invaders” was an effective movie, it’s not really the classic that people remember. Except for Menzies’ superb production designs, everything in the remake is better: the acting, the camera work, definitely the Martians. It may not grip audiences in the same way, but that’s because Hooper is trying something harder, a conscious campiness that’s tough to bring off. Read full review

The effects are magnificent (the tripod drones and the supreme Martian intelligence are horrific), but whereas the original worked by building up an increasingly black mood, this version relies almost entirely on the special effects; and such limited brooding tension as it has is gratuitously undermined by a string of sequences played purely for laughs...Fun, but very silly. Read full review

The new remake has several strikes against it: self-indulgent dialogue, uneven performances, stupid shock effects, and a paranoid view of space exploration. It's also about 20 minutes too long. Yet it packs a strong wallop about half the time, if you see it as a child's-eye-view story that taps directly into preteen fears and fantasies.