Thanks for the memories!

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Literally the only thing that saves this poorly acted, horrifically directed, sloppy production is some of its sets. The alien space tunnels suck, the Winston 'aliens', which look like ugly potatoes are woefully bad. The only good sets are the ultra plastic looking house and hill sets. Even the good ones are only enjoyable if you like that sort of camp. One of the worst child actors I have ever seen in a major Hollywood production. Hooper's direction is worse than you could even imagine it could be. Watch some clips on YouTube if you're interested, don't rent or buy this abomination.

The acting in this is pretty bad for the most part, and the lead kid is just awful. Karen Black is OK and Timothy Bottoms is the only Martian-possessed human to have some amount of subtlety to his performance.The highlight of this is the corny dialogue, lines like "Great Scott! Hasn't anybody got a penny?!" and "Marines have no qualms about killing Martians!" are gold.The creature effects are mediocre at best, the bulky Martian drones are neither well designed creatures nor well made animatronics, although the Martian leader looks pretty cool.

Tobe Hooper's elaborate, bigger budgeted 80s remake of the 1953 science fiction classic does have scale going for it, as well as a see-it-to-believe-it cast and talented crew. Scripted by Dan O'Bannon & Don Jakoby, it tells the story of David Gardner (Hunter Carson), ordinary kid who witnesses first hand the invasion of evil Martian creatures which proceed to enslave lots of local humans, Davids' own parents (Timothy Bottoms and Laraine Newman) among them.The problem, at least for this viewer, is that this doesn't have the stark nightmarish quality of the original, and is also often too silly for its own good, going for a camp quality, in terms of both acting and dialogue. Depending on ones' sensibilities, they can either appreciate or groan at lines such as "You'd better hurry, or you just might blow it." and "You don't carry loose change into combat, sir.". We also have the parents acting all goofy and eating either meat that's been overcooked or not cooked at all.Yet, moments like this contrast with some pretty good sequences such as seeing how the humans get their minds manipulated or when the tunnelling devices emerge from underneath the ground. The sets are quality stuff, what with people like Leslie Dilley ("Star Wars") as production designer and Craig Stearns ("Halloween" '78) as art director. The special effects are amusing, to say the least, with Stan Winston and crew crafting some memorable "Mr. Potato Head" aliens as well as a Martian intelligence that is actually kind of a cute lil' thing.The actors are mostly all pros (with the exception of Carson, the real-life son of co-star Karen Black) and some of them do a pretty fine job of maintaining poker faces. In addition to those actors mentioned, we've got Ms. Black doing an appealing job as the school nurse, Louise Fletcher playing her umpteenth Nurse Ratched like role as the miserly frog eating teacher, Bud Cort as a nerdy young S.E.T.I. scientist, the great James Karen of "The Return of the Living Dead" as an ass kicking, cigar chomping Marine general, Jimmy Hunt (who played the kid in the 1953 film) as the police chief, and veteran military technical adviser Dale Dye in a bit.One good thing about "Invaders from Mars" '86 is that it's never boring, and it does have nice touches here and there (the bit with the copper, the cameo by the original Martian Intelligence), and it's at least pretty true to the first film when it comes to the resolution. It's best recommended to undemanding fans of 80s genre fare.Six out of 10.

Invaders from Mars starts late one night as a young boy named David Gardner (Hunter Carson) tries to go to sleep, while lying in bed he sees flashes outside his window & takes a look outside where he sees a huge UFO land just beyond Copper Hill at the top of his garden, he runs into his parents George (Timothy Bottoms) & Ellen's (Larraine Newman) room & tells them what he saw but they refuse to believe him. The next morning & George has a look at where David said he saw the UFO land, when George returns home he has changed somehow & insists that Ellen come over the hill as well. David is convinced something is wrong & notices small wounds on the back of his parents necks, David eventually finds an opening to a tunnel in the hill behind his house which leads to a Martian spaceship buried in the ground & realises that alien invaders from mars are taking over people's minds & using them to sabotage a NASA space mission to their planet while at the same time stealing copper to use as fuel...Directed by Tobe Hooper for the notorious Cannon Pictures this seemed like an odd film for Hooper to make, best known for his horror films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) & Poltergeist (1982) this is a remake of the classic sci-fi film Invaders from Mars (1953) which was one of the better ones from the 50's. While I haven't seen the original Invaders from mars for a few years I always remember it being a great little film, it's pretty creepy at times & has a unique feel of paranoia running through it from a child's perspective as his town are taken over by the Martian invaders, here in this 80's remake the first hour or so does a fun job of recreating that feel as David finds himself in the middle of a Martian invasion but once the script introduces NASA & the military things tend to go downhill as it then becomes more of an action film & loses the creepiness. This 80's remake also has a dark comic vein running through it with some bizarre moments like George drinking a cup of coffee in one go or Ellen eating raw hamburger meat piled with salt, I didn't mind it's black humour but some might. Lasting 100 minutes this 80's remake is also a lot longer than the original which ran for just under 80 minutes, nothing of any great significance is added & all it really amounts to is a lot more running around & a little bit more build-up. The script is a bit uneven, while David, his parents & Linda the school Nusre feature heavily during the first half they become no more than bystanders once the military are introduced. It can be a bit dumb at times but it moves along at a decent pace & has some good scenes, the first venture into the Martian spaceship, the teacher eating a Frog, Davids parents strange reactions & mannerisms when taken over & the Martian intelligence creature is cool. The script feels a little unfinished, the reason for the Martian invasion is to blow up a probe that is being sent to their home planet Mars to supposedly stop us discovering them but surely coming to Earth & walking around like they own the place has a higher chance of them being discovered? Also, while their need for copper is mentioned it never goes beyond anything other than that, a mention. These two points in particular could have been expanded upon as could the taking over of the humans, who exactly was controlling them?At this point in his career Hooper had signed a three picture directing deal with Cannon, the first product of this deal was the rather good, if somewhat ambitious Lifeforce (1985) which flopped at the box-office, then came this which also flopped before Hooper finally made the also rather good The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) which unfortunately again proved a disaster at the box-office & therefore the Hooper & Cannon relationship destroyed Hooper as a director & almost financially sunk Cannon although I Have to say I think all three films that they made together are pretty good, but money talks I suppose. This remake is far more impressively mounted than the original, the special effects are good with some cool alien monsters, neck burrowing devices & the huge Martian spaceship, I also liked the swirling whirlpool of sand effect that sucks people under the mountain. There's little gore or violence here, someone is eaten by a Martian, a few people are shot but that's about it. The organic design of the Martian spaceship is cool as well, from curved walls & doors to huge tunnel digging machines I liked the alien technology on show here.With a supposed budget of about $12,000,000 this apparently had financial problems during production & the was slashed a few times, filmed in Los Angeles. The acting varies, the kid Carson Hunter is awful while the adult cast are a little better & play it up a bit.Invaders from Mars is a film that I liked more than a great many seem to, I thought the aliens were cool, it looked good & has a weird feel running throughout it that while a little uneven makes it a bit more memorable than a straight, serious remake might have been.