Invaders From Mars 2001 Horror Movie Review

Let’s face it: a movie in which Louise Fletcher eats a bullfrog can’t be all that bad. Indeed, Tobe Hooper’s remake of the 1953 classic Invaders from Mars is a total hoot, remaining loyal to the original while serving up a kaleidoscopic orgy of fang-toothed beasties, dazzling pyrotechnics, and enough wretched dialogue to choke its enthusiastic cast. If anything, Hooper’s too enamored of the original, and with amateur actor Hunter Carson (Paris, Texas) as the boy-who-cried-Martian, he can’t sustain the original’s eerily paranoid atmosphere. This big-budget Invaders compensates with campy humor (especially from evil schoolmarm Fletcher) and cool special effects by Star Wars innovator John Dykstra. Carson’s real-life mom (Karen Black) plays the school nurse who believes the boy’s warning of invasion, and Jimmy Hunt—who played the kid in the original—brings everything full circle as a Martian-possessed policeman. Watch the original, then enjoy this less effective but equally entertaining remake. —Jeff Shannon