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Invaders from Mars (1953) William Cameron Menzies

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Invaders from Mars (1953)
Genre: Horror | Sci-Fi
Country: USA |Director: William Cameron Menzies
Language: English | Subtitles: None
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1 |Length: 79mn
Dvdrip H264 Mkv - 640x478 - 25fps - 916mb
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045917/

One night, young David McLean sees a spaceship crash into a nearby sandpit. His father goes to investigate, but comes back changed. Where once he was cheerful and affectionate, he's now sullen and snarlingly rude. Others fall into the sandpit and begin acting like him: cold, ill-tempered and conspiratorial. David knows that aliens are taking over the bodies of humans, but he'll soon discover there have been far more of these terrible thefts than he could have imagined. The young doom-monger finds some serious help in a lady doctor and a brilliant astronomer. Soon they meet the aliens: green creatures with insect-like eyes. These beings prove to be slaves to their leader: a large, silent head with ceaselessly shifting eyes and two tentacles on either side, each of which branches off into three smaller tentacles. It's up to the redoubtable earth trio to stop its evil plans.

An eerie horror/sci-fi that works even better today: great set design (by the director William Cameron Menzies), script, haunting music, and unforgettable images: the hill-top "sinking sand" set, weird marks on victims' necks, the catacombed alien lair, the tall, green, bug-eyed Martians, the gold-like, tentacled, expressive "head"-intelligence in the globe, the LONG hypodermic needle, much more. Costumes work well too, note the change of the mother (Hillary Brooke) from loose-haired blonde sweetness, to a possessed rigid-hairstyled villainess in black. The doctor-heroine (Helena Carter) is a picture-book beauty of auburn-coiffured refinement and soft-spoken sympathy, clad in a cream-colored dress, with a bright red handkerchief to set it off and two-toned stilettos. Jimmy Hunt is all-American red-headed freckleness, unusual in that the story is told from his point-of-view, a fine performance. Good support from Morris Ankrum, Arthur Franz, and Leif Erickson. The dreamlike nature of the picture is only enhanced by the repeating footage, lots of stock military scenes, the wobbly aliens, etc. Basic plot was re-used for "It Came From Outer Space" (1953), "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1956), "It Conquered the World" (1956), many more.

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