One Flew Over the Martian's Nest

I don’t think I’ alone in remembering movies from my childhood more as moments than full narratives. I couldn’t tell you much about my family’s VHS copy of Invaders From Mars, save for those specific images that stuck: a mother eating raw beef, icky open wounds on the back of adults’ heads, and Louise Fletcher practicing Grandma Foxworth’s diction screaming a-e-i-o-u (in my own re-imagining, she adds “and sometimes y”).

Naturally, when it popped up on Instant Watch, it was a natural experiment to see how Tobe Hooper's little loved sci-fi/horror remake played to my adult sensibilities.

Quick Plot: Young Hunter Carson lives happily in the suburbs with his mom and NASA employed dad. One night, he spots what a possible UFO landing just over the hill outside his window. Dad takes a walk to investigate and returns a little ... off.

Just give it one more day and a parents-only walk before Mom is serving up blackened bacon and eating raw chopped meat. At school, Hunter begins to suspect his teacher may also be under some form of extraterrestrial influence, and not JUST because she happens to be played by Nurse Ratched. 

Thankfully, Hunter is able to convince the friendly school nurse Linda (genre stalwart Karen Black) that something is amiss. Together they discover a series of underground tunnels occupied by giant, fleshy ball creatures with long legs and almost adorable t-rex arms, plus their master who resembles what I assume would happen if a baseball had sex with a meatball, the meatball took thalidomide when pregnant then drank steroid-infused clamato while breastfeeding.

Slightly cute, but mostly ugly.

Invaders From Mars is a remake of a classic (though unseen by me) sci-fi film from the golden ‘50s. This version starts with a fair amount of complicated pedigree: Alien creator Dan O’Bannon on script duties and Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hooper behind the camera. Fresh off of the alien (and boob)-filled Lifeforce and slightly distanced from the controversial Poltergeist, Hooper seems to approach Invaders from a rather in-between style. With its child protagonist and PG rating (although a 1986 PG is generally translated into a 2014 PG-13), Invaders From Mars certainly feels like it’s made for a younger audience. On the other hand, some of the violence and general theme of Martians landing on our planet to possess your parents, eat your teachers, shoot your war heroes, and poke a hole through your neck is rather rough stuff for the kiddie crowds.

More problematic is the pacing. My understanding of the original film is that it follows a similar feel to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with a slow build of suspense with special attention to its Cold War analogy. Hooper’s film has other aims. We get one quick but sweet scene setting the Carsons up as a happy family before immediately pulling them apart. It’s not that every monster movie with a child lead has to include the obligatory ‘only the kid knows the truth!’ trope, but Invaders moves so fast that there’s not even time for the intelligent adults to question him.

It’s strange. There’s so much about Invaders From Mars that’s almost awesome. You’ve got a super duper supporting cast filled with the likes of Timothy Bottoms, Laraine Newman (with a Coneheads reference to boot!), and James Karen, all of whom clearly relish the chance to go big. The effects by Stan Winston and John Dykstra are genuinely great, and plenty of weird touches (Fletcher’s zombie-teacher-intimidating-through-vowel-reciting, for one) that keep the film on a kind of special radar.

It’s not really enough. I enjoyed watching Invaders From Mars, but to call it a good film would be a lie. And reader, would I ever lie to you?

High Points

Enough really can’t be said about the creature design of Invaders’ Martians. Gooey, ugly, and genuinely not of this world. Also, they shoot lasers. That’s never bad

Low Points

I don’t really want to even talk about the ending because it made me that mad, so we’ll just leave that right there

Lessons Learned

Always keep a sack of pennies on you. They might cause you to run with a limp and almost get caught by clumsy martians or schoolteachers, but it's worth it

Marines have no qualms about killing martians (although they never carry spare change into combat)

Astronauts need to stay up late

Rent/Bury/Buy

Just 90 minutes on Instant Watch, Invaders From Mars is certainly worth a look for those interested in sci-fi, heavy practical effects, or true ‘80s genre cinema. I can’t imagine anyone will declare this an unheralded classic, but it’s a weird little oddity that should prove entertaining on one level or another. I mean, lasers. Who doesn’t love ‘em?

Potato Sack Slaughter

I’m not a spiritual person, but if there’s one thing I firmly believe, it’s that every holiday--whether it be national, religious, historical, or commercial--deserves its own horror film. Nary an Xmas has passed in my life without a hot chocolaty viewing of Jack Frost or any of the Silent Night Deadly Night films (part 2 is my favorite, since it’s really two-for-the-price-of-one in flashbacks PLUS Garbage Day, my favorite non-holiday holiday). While I’m still waiting for a Severance-like take on Secretary Appreciation Day, it does bring me patriotic pleasure to report back from the Larry Cohen penned, William Lustig directed 1997 Uncle Sam.


In case the holographic cover art didn’t give it away, this is no Saving Private Ryan. If anything, Uncle Sam is like the grouchy old guy at the family reunion who sits in the corner and complains about kids today. Then he shoves garden shears into their eye sockets.


Quick Plot: When the news of Sergeant Sam Harper’s Desert Storm death reaches his sunny hometown, most of his family and those that knew the violent soldier with a mean sadistic streak are relieved. The exception is his America, Fuck Yeah nephew Jodi, a young boy seemingly poised to follow in Sam’s army booted footprints.


Of course, Sam isn’t quite dead (although that doesn’t stop the military from leaving his coffin in the widow’s living room, blocking the television and probably making dinner parties a tad awkward). All it takes is one gang of teens and their darned flag-burning ways to raise his rotting corpse from the dead. Before you can say George Washington, our undead soldier has commandeered a red, white, and blue Sam-suit from a peeping tom to bring back patriotism and slaughter those who stand in its way.

Draft dodgers, corrupt politicians, and even recreational drug users, be warned. This is not the kindly Uncle Sam that made you feel special by pointing in your face and demanding you die for the United States. Like some sort of distant relative to Angela Baker, this Uncle Sam wants to dispose of any and every citizen unworthy of celebrating July 4th with illegal fireworks or the apparently very complicated Star Spangled Banner. What Sleepaway Camp did for summer, Uncle Sam does for Independence Day.


Which basically means makes a fairly unscary, occasionally funny 88 minute movie that’s generally forgettable save for one major conceit (SC’s shocking WTF finale and the very presence of a homicidal undead Uncle Sam).


High Points
Sure, most of the deaths are predictable, but I’m not complaining when a flagpole is utilized in not one but two fairly deserved kills

A brief conversation about the human Sam’s brutal nature hints at a darker and almost intriguing aspect to the rather one-dimensional villain


Low Points
As direct-to-DVD (or video, as this was probably one of the last VHS stalwarts) horror goes, Uncle Sam is well made enough, but that doesn’t hold up when a name like Larry Cohen is attached. While there may be some underlying themes about U.S. military violence, the deeper intelligence of films like It’s Alive and The Stuff is nowhere to be found


The supporting cast is well-stocked with names like P.J. Soles, Isaac Hayes, and Robert Forster, but no one gets much of anything to do that’s worthy of their thespian or personality skills. The exception? Timothy Bottoms, the former Bush of That’s My Bush!, with an, in hindsight, ironic role as a former hippie-turned-unpopular schoolteacher

Lessons Learned
Playing with fireworks will blind, scar, and cripple you; other side effects include inspiring your mother to dress like Miss Piggy attending a 1950s tea party

Nobody can sing the national anthem without making a mistake


When mapping out the route for a potato sack race, locating the final bend around a steep cliff is probably not the best idea


Rent/Bury/Buy
Though it features a fallen soldier, Uncle Sam ain’t Martyrs. This is a breezily goofy B-horror that flies by without offensiveness. It doesn’t have the super creative charm of, say, Killer Klowns From Outer Space, but from its behind the scenes pedigree to the finished product, it’s more watchable than other fare like Rumplestiltskin or your average backyard filmed zombie flick. The DVD includes not one but two commentaries, with discussions by Hayes, Lustig, and the always entertaining Cohen. If you enjoy cheesily slick, nowhere near scary horror, then Uncle Sam is worth a guilt-free rental but it will most likely leave a less lasting impression than a temporary tattoo forced onto you by a five-year-old at a family barbeque or the hangover you woke up with July 5th.