Rating PG
Length 1h21
Release 25.09.1953
Director Jack Arnold
About John Putnam, a stargazer, witnesses a spaceship landing in the Arizona desert, but none of the townsfolk believe him. Horror strikes, when residents begin to disappear.
Moon: no moon sighting
Where to Watch: Now TV (under Cult Classics)
Trailer:
The Good
The music! I will never not love a good theremin tune and it works really well her to build tension.
How the film presents the alien POV; it’s quite majestic. In fact everything alien works. Particularly when you consider this was made in the early 50s. Not a single bit of CGI in sight.
The Bad
It’s a chilling film that makes use of sound to imply so much about the aliens that land and makes them out to be the scary big bad. In a modern film there’d be a closer resemblance to the xenomorph and people would die to create the scares. However this film is refreshing in that all the chills are implied upon human paranoia.
There’s the added element of chills brought about by the mob that’s formed as the film progresses and actually how real that would be.
The Ugly
I hate the “mock the person who says they’ve seen aliens”. Not believing him is one thing, but outright mocking him in the paper and on the radio?! Technically not this film’s fault, but after half a century of it being the go-to response in movies and me seeing a good chunk of them first, it bugged the hell out of me. Particularly when in-universe its all true.
Final Thoughts
A short and sweet look into 50s sci-fi. If you like the original Invasion of the Bodysnatchers you’ll enjoy this just as much.
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