Comments on: Mind Blowing Movies: Invaders from Mars (1953), by Douglas Rushkoff

By: Outtacontext

Outtacontext — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:28:00 +0000

The 1950s version of Invaders from Mars was THE scariest movie I had ever seen. In Los Angeles we had the Million Dollar Movie where they showed the same film every night for a week. And, of course, I watched it every night. I was so scared at the end of the week I couldn’t go to sleep. I never walked through a vacant lot again without looking at my feet to make sure the ground didn’t suddenly open up. Years later, I made a photograph about it.

By: miasm

miasm — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 19:43:00 +0000

and the Tavistok institute might really be manipulating popular culture to manufacture mindless consumer zombies.
Man! I want to believe but…. Names!
Name and shame these damn Doctors. The whole first (truly modern) generation of attempts at mind control seem to be like attempts at micro-surgery with a chainsaw. The damage they did to some people was indefensible and as much as the history is maligned in relatively mainstream sources we are still left with stuff like Scientology and advertising, Pop and Paul is Dead.

By: miasm

miasm — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 19:33:00 +0000

Rushkoff, you glorious kook!

By: Scott Bryson

Scott Bryson — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 13:54:00 +0000

I’ve got the horror story to beat everyone re this film. At 5 y/o my parents had just been in LSD tests with some MK-Ultra related doctors and in my mom’s case she was turned loose to wander L.A. and never recovered–she was in her room crying much of my childhood and remained pretty stressed out constantly while ignoring us–so we were glued to Outer Limits & the Twilight Zone every day, along with seeing this movie.

But around the same time, one night my brother told me to wake our parents and come in the living room (they were out stone cold) and look across the canyon.

Above the house of my best friend, whose dad Gene Barry had recently starred in War of the Worlds, was a UFO the size of a full moon, except it rose up, hovered a few minutes and then disappeared behind the hill.

So when my parent’s behavior had dramatically changed and I saw this movie, I suppose another conspiracy theorist was made for life. And for some odd reason my friend seemed to fade out of my life at that point too.

Still trying to comprehend if this was all a synchronistic accident or a contrived experiment…

By: Finnagain

Finnagain — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 03:53:00 +0000

You are so doomed.

By: catdance

catdance — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 03:02:00 +0000

I wasn’t allowed to watch scary movies of any sort when I was a kid. No Outer Limits, no Twilight Zone — not even Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein. To this day I recall peeking into the living room from the stairs, watching a movie in which people had marks on the back of their necks (barbed wire was given as an excuse at some point?) and there was an underground room with warty surfaces. It scared the hell out of me and gave me bad dreams, which I couldn’t run to my mother with since I’d been watching something I shouldn’t have. I think that is one of the very few times I ever thought my mother just might be correct about one of her rules. At least now I know what the movie is, and I can FINALLY watch all of it, more years than I’ll admit to later.

By: Finnagain

Finnagain — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 02:12:00 +0000

Alright already! I’ll watch it.

Trivia: The wall of boiling bubble-like stuff was made of inflated condoms.

By: Stefan Jones

Stefan Jones — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 01:31:00 +0000

I was a teen when I saw Invaders from Mars, so it wasn’t terrifying . . . but it was still creepy. There was a wonderful dream-like air to it.

One shot stands out. A little neighbor girl gets “turned,” and starts a fire. It might have been her own house, I forget. But I remember this LOOK on her face, the most amazing evil smirk, when she is asked if she knows anything about the fire.

Trivia: The wall of boiling bubble-like stuff was made of inflated condoms.

By: robcat2075

robcat2075 — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 22:59:00 +0000

Pretty good stunt work by the kid when he takes that backhand in the face from his dad.

He’s going down just a hair too soon but that shot freaked me out more than the soldier getting sucked into the sand.

By: Finnagain

Finnagain — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 21:51:00 +0000

I’ve never seen this one, but this is still a good policy:

check the back of his neck to see if he had been changed.

By: Preston Sturges

Preston Sturges — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 21:50:00 +0000

That was my thought about the insect people of “First Men In The Moon.”

By: Preston Sturges

Preston Sturges — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 21:49:00 +0000

Years later, Supreme Intelligence made a modest comeback as Tony Harrison.

By: Brian Kiesel

Brian Kiesel — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 21:06:00 +0000

The part that freaked me out as a kind was when they got sucked into the sand. That scene gave me nightmares as a kid.

By: Vanwall Green

Vanwall Green — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 20:50:00 +0000

The alien in the fishbowl – still creepy as hell.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 20:28:00 +0000

Creepiest eyebrows in film history.

By: hellishmundane

hellishmundane — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 19:57:00 +0000

woahh. you just blew my mind man.

By: Lemoutan

Lemoutan — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 19:52:00 +0000

It was the quicksandily thereminny stuff which did for me. And the underfoot rug removal as – one by one – the people you trust become turncoats. It also kind of undermines those warnings you’re given against accepting gifts from strangers, since you can’t even trust your ain folk.

By: timquinn

timquinn — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 19:43:00 +0000

never

By: John Spencer

John Spencer — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 19:18:00 +0000

One of my most favorite movies as a kid. I remember the martians ran like they had shit in their pants!

By: fredh

fredh — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 19:03:00 +0000

Yeah, it was the UK ending that was more grim. A trend, I hear, in 60-70′s UK sci-fi. See “Quatermass and the Pit,” or “Village of the Damned” for more pessimistic storylines in the same vein.

By: woodly

woodly — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 17:53:00 +0000

With so many mindblowing movies being listed so frequently on BB, at what point does it become more interesting to post about non-mindblowing movies?

By: P

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 17:33:00 +0000

That movie scared the shizzle out of me when I was a kid. I sneaked a furtive look at the back of my parents’ necks for days afterwards, terrified that I’d see a little round mark. What blew my mind was that one by one, the people the boy trusted most including the authority figures who should have protected him were turned into aliens, a pretty scary thought for a kid. The ending was pure nightmare, when he looks out his window and sees the alien ship landing. Yep, that movie did it for me, too.

By: Romeo Vitelli

Romeo Vitelli — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 17:23:00 +0000

As I recall, there were different endings for this movie. One included the boy waking up only to spot the Martian ship landing for real (which they used for that horrible remake)