50's American Horror Part Fourteen

INVADERS FROM MARS

(1953)

Dir - William Cameron Menzies

Overall: MEH

 

Historically significant as the first color film with spaceships and aliens, (beating out War of the Worlds by four months), Invaders from Mars is a mixed bag of both dopey and effective attributes.  It is quite ridiculous for high ranking Army officers to be hanging around with a young kid who gets to sit in on and participate in their highly dangerous and, (one would think), heavily restricted military efforts against hostile alien forces, but apparently no one told the screenwriters this.  Silly plotting issues aside, the set design is stylishly surreal with police precincts and medical buildings having long, barren hallways that juxtapose the otherwise "gee golly wiz" performances.  The Martians look idiotic yet interestingly odd at the same time and their threat is actually quite creepy, mind controlling people who sink through the sand and into their underground ship which makes said victims hot-tempered and intimidating.  Highly dated from a production standpoint, unintentionally laughable, flatly acted, noticeably low on budget, and the kid is borderline insufferable, but it has enough quirks in fits and starts to make it marginally memorable at least.

THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US

(1956)

Dir - John Sherwood

Overall: MEH

The final film in Universal's classic monster series was The Creature Walks Among Us, the third to feature the Gill Man in as many years.  Jack Arnold graduated to A pictures with frequent assistant director John Sherwood stepping in.  The most prominent change though is the Gill Man's physical make-over which kicks off the movie's second act.  This is given a narrative explanation at least as this time another team of scientists enters the Everglades and in capturing the creature, they severely burn him, perform an experiment to keep him alive, and all of that turns his gills into proper humanoid lungs or something.  As the title would suggest, he does in fact "walk among" everyone for the rest of the movie and even gets a set of loose-fitting clothes as well.  It is an interesting spin in some respects and the creature does get to show off his considerable strength more here than in the other entries in the series, but the story is bogged down a bit with a combination of stiff and unlikable characters.  Leigh Snowden breaks up the exclusively male cast and provides the eye candy that was as much a staple with this trilogy as the monster, but she also does not get anything to do besides stand around in a bathing suite and have guys hit on her.

THE BRAIN EATERS

(1958)

Dir - Bruno VeSota

Overall: MEH

Three years after co-directing the avant-garde noir thriller Dementia, Bruno VeSota followed it up with the Roger Corman and Ed Nelson produced The Brain Eaters which was an unofficial/accidental adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein's novel The Puppet Masters.  Shot for a measly $26,000 in six days and running only an hour long, it gets in and gets out with a generic story concerning a mysteriously crashed spacecraft from another world, plus mind-altering parasites.  The aliens give the usual song and dance of being peaceful and only wanting to take over the human race in order to make them more docile and free of pesky emotions, which is solved by all of the square-jawed white men by realizing that they can thwart their invaders by throwing electricity at them.  None of the set pieces are engaging let alone fun and even with its commendably short running time, the whole thing feels like a slog due to the chatty script and stock science fiction ideas on display.  The film is of note though for containing an early performance from Leonard Nimoy, (whose last name is misspelled in the credits as "Nemoy"), playing an aged, bearded expedition member that is fully corrupted by the alien's soft-spoken mojo and shrouded in fog.  Thankfully, you cannot mistake that iconic voice so you will still recognize him even without seeing him.