SnoopyStyle David Gardner sees a UFO crash in the woods behind his home. He tries to tell his parents (Timothy Bottoms, Laraine Newman) but they don't believe him. Then his parents and his teacher Mrs. McKeltch (Louise Fletcher) change with something on the back of their necks. The only person who believes him is the school nurse Linda Magnusson (Karen Black).The movie starts off well. The premise is a good one. It's always compelling to have a kid be the most knowledgeable and the adults not believe him. The first half has some good paranoia. Then the movie starts to deteriorate. The aliens are cheesy looking. The special effects look weak. The introduction of the military takes away all of the early goodwill. It turns a pretty good paranoid thriller into a campy B-movie cheesefest.

FlashCallahan A boy tries to stop an invasion of his town by aliens who take over the the minds of his parents, his least-liked schoolteacher and other townspeople. With the help of the school nurse, the boy enlists the aid of the U.S. Marines.....Being directed by Tobe Hooper, I assumed (wrongly) that this was going to be an all out horror/Science-Fiction movie that wouldn't pull any punches when it came to killings.As far as I know, this film has never been aired on British TV, and has never been available to buy on Region 2 DVD, So all I knew about this film was the boy with the blonde hair.And I must, say, I was pleasantly surprised with the whole outcome of the film. It's pretty clear by the house and some of the background paintings, that Close Encounters has heavily influenced this film, and this is Hooper trying to do a Spielberg.It's funny in places, but most of all, it's a very effective mild Horror that is suitable for the whole family.The violence is minimal, the creatures are so over the top that they are more like Critters than Aliens, and overall, it appears that David is the person with the most common sense.Louise Fletcher appears as the Mrs. Deagle of the film, but she soon becomes laughable when she is chasing a car down the street.I liked it, but I can understand why the film vanished without a trace.

ebiros2 A remake of 1953 classic. The movie is made by Canon International that had on and off successes with their movies. This is one of the off ones they made.The movie is about a boy witnessing the landing of a UFO at the back of his house. Then people of his town starts to change, their personalities taken over by the martians. He desperately tries to save his parents. His teacher helps him along the way.There's no atmosphere to this movie. The acting was bad and production crew really didn't know what the movie was all about despite that they had the 1953 classic to work off of. 1953 classic at least knew how to show the terror of one boy who is surrounded by the enemies, and how to cover for his inexperience as an actor by putting his innocence forward. This movie has no such considerations.Best pass this movie and watch the original 1953 classic which is a far better production.

Michael_Elliott Invaders from Mars (1986) * 1/2 (out of 4) Tobe Hooper's disappointing remake of the 1950s classic about a young boy (Hunter Carson) who witnesses a UFO land in his backyard and soon realizes that aliens are overtaking various people in town. The only person who will believe him is a teacher (Karen Black) and the two quickly find themselves hunted by the aliens. There were a lot of remakes going on during this era so it makes since that someone would try to remake INVADERS FROM MARS but The Cannon Group probably should have left it to someone else while they just worried about their Charles Bronson and Chuck Norris pictures. Or, perhaps they could have added Bronson and Norris to this thing and at least delivered some fun. This is a really lifeless, over-long and rather pointless remake that doesn't have much of anything going for it. Just about the only good thing that can be said about the film belongs to the special effects, which were pretty good. I thought the landing of the spaceship was rather effective with the lights being used and the monsters certainly looked very good. I also thought the set design of the cave was well done but sadly everything else here is just a bust. The biggest problem is the direction by Hooper who just doesn't bring any energy to anything going on. No matter what a scene calls for the director completely misses the boat and this includes the early scenes with him trying to show this "loving" family. There's so much sugar added to these scenes that you can't help but roll your eyes. Then when the boy comes under attack you'd expect there to be some suspense but there isn't. There are even a few hints at some comedy but this doesn't work either. The final forty-minutes of the film goes into action mode with all sorts of gun play, explosions and other craziness but these scenes too fail to gather up any excitement or energy. The performances really aren't anything to write home about either. Black is about as over-the-top in her emotions as one could get. Carson, as the young boy, isn't charming a bit and comes off more annoying than anything else. Timothy Bottoms plays the father and isn't all that entertaining. James Karen, from THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, is also so over-the-top that it seems like he thinks he's in some spoof. Even former Oscar-winner Louise Fletcher goes overboard as the psycho teacher. Jimmy Hunt, the boy from the original film, gets a fine cameo. INVADERS FROM MARS is considered one of the biggest disasters from the 80s and it's easy to see why Hooper's career started to go down. With such a budget they really should have came up with something much better but at least we have the original to go to.