They Make You Communist – The Invaders from Mars

One of the things I like to do when I get the chance, when I'm not studying planetary sciences, journalism or the history of the ancient Roman sewer, is to settle with a huge cup of tea in Starbucks or wherever, and watch a classic film over wi-fi.

It takes two or three visits, but the movie gets watched eventually, as the tea gets colder and the pigeons stare in through the window at me. The latest one I watched was “Invaders from Mars”, a 1953 piece of classic atomic age paranoia with a cast no-one's ever heard of, and an irritating boy as the chief protagonist.

The film is slightly different from the usual “Kid sees something, no-one believes him” plot you get in movies of this type, right up through Jaws in the 70s, in that it takes that standard trope and spins it into “Kid sees something, no-one believes him until a lot earlier in the film than is normally the case.” Late at night, the boy David sees a bright green flying saucer land in the sand pits behind his house – how Horsell Common like! - and in the morning his father, a worker at a secret rocket research plant, goes out to investigate.

He comes back eventually as the family begin to panic...but he isn't quite the same. In fact, his voice is flat, he is agressive, and he hits his son! But far worse than child abuse IS THE FACT HE HAS BEEN TURNED INTO A COMMUNIST! We know this because in 1950s American carport suburbia, only communists would shout at their wives and beat their kids up.

As further confirmation that he is now evil, he is lit predominantly from underneath so his pinko face is now covered in sinister shadows, and he stops shaving, instantaneously going stubbly in the space of 15 minutes.

The wife is of course properly submissive to even her spousal Stalin, but at some point she goes out to the sand pit and comes back acting the same way. David's friend, a neighbourhood Bonnie Langford and daughter of another rocket scientist, goes out to the pit and returns to set fire to her house before dropping dead of a mysterious brain haemmorhage.

Luckily the boy is rescued from his now evil parents by a woman doctor, and a distinctly unsceptical astronomer who belies in UFOs – The Lubbock Lights and George Mantell's death get a mention – and has a magical telescope that can see David's house even when pointing at the sky. And through this scope, they see various soldiers and local people being sucked down into the sand, including a General.

That same General is then caught trying to sabotage the Rocket factory, before he too dies of a Stroke. The army are all too ready now to believe there is something down there, as it transpires the dead have had crystals implanted into their brains, controlling their very actions. COMMUNIST DREAMS OF MIND CONTROL HAVE BEEN MADE REAL.

So everyone troops off to the sand pit, stock footage of tanks shoot at it, and eventually everyone gets sucked down into the sand to meet giant “Mu-tants” - supposedly 8 feet tall Martians with silly masks on and very obvious zippers up the back of their genital free bodysuits. They have turned the tunnels below the sand into explosive condoms (TRUE) that turn into explosive oatmeal (ALSO TRUE) when fired on by a hokey looking laser.

The child and his scientist mentors are eventually led before a head in a goldfish bowl that does sod all apart from fiddle with its pincers and is apparently “Mankind, distilled into its ultimate form”. The woman, of course, is selected for crystal implantation by the disembodied head, before of course rescue happens and the boy blows the aliens up with their own exploding oatmeal contraceptives, before he wakes in his own bed and finds IT WAS ALL A DREAM.

But then he sees the saucer land again...

The film is collosally stupid, and colosally entertaining, particularly the stuff legged lumbering Martians and their all too obvious outfits, but it also stands out as one of the paradigm movies of American “Reds Under the Bed” paranoia. After visiting the pit, the adults come back cold, evil, and with all their individualism erased. They engage in covert attacks on American military might, are clearly godless, and their leader is essentially the embodiment of the US perception of communism – a human with all the humanity distilled out of them, leading a bunch of collectivised drones.

You still have to love it though!

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 12.05.14