It’s funny how things work.
I didn’t think much of this one the first time I saw it, liked it the second time, and this time around…
Well, I guess I find myself on the fence.
Now I’ll admit one does not expect a lot from any film from the team of producer Sidney Pink and director Ib Melchior. They are also responsible for Reptilicus and Journey to the Seventh Planet, neither of which is all that good, even if they might have a fairly good moment or two. The Angry Red Planet seems to have been their most ambitious project. But that isn’t saying much.
It came as a shock, the last time I saw it, when I realized that the beginning was “borrowed” from The Quatermass Experiment. There aren’t that many American films which display any clear Quatermass influences, so few that I made no effort to discuss them in an article I wrote some years ago for the Internet Review of Science Fiction.
Mind you, even the extended version of The Quatermass Experiment found in the original six-part serial gets straight to the main story, with the rocket crash landing and the rescuers finding the lone survivor.
Here there’s more talk. A lot more.
But things do more or less take off when we finally get to the point where one of the two who survived the first flight to Mars is given a hypnotic drug and recalls what happened to the expedition. We’re warned that her story will be highly subjective, thanks to the drug’s effects, which gives them the excuse to film the Mars scenes in “Cinemagic.” This means everything on the surface is heavily solarized and tinted Red.
The effect is weird, eerie and memorable. It certainly helps the effects, which become far more surreal — and their limitations aren’t quite as obvious.
It is that surreal quality which I love in this one. The creatures have a notably insane sort of unreal quality to them, as if whoever designed them was more than a little high — and maybe a bit hungover as well.
My favorite by far is the infamous Batratspidercrab, a notably absurd and scary creature which probably came out of the nightmares of some disturbed mind. However, we really don’t need to ask where the insect-like Martian leader came from as he looks far too much like the dead Martians in Quatermass and the Pit for it to be some absurd coincidence.
But the real problem is that there’s far too much talk. Talk, talk, talk. A tighter edit, a more succinct script, less of the awkward romance — and one or two more bizarre monsters — and this one might have been a classic.
Oh, well, it has its moments. Not to mention a solid cast of Old Time Radio actors including Jack Kruschen, Les Tremayne, and the Radio voice of Phillip Marlowe, the incomparable Gerald Mohr. And the creatures are excellent in a limited sort of way. It may not be as good as some of the other midnight movies of the same era, like The Crawling Eye or Toho’s The Mysterians, but it is surreal — and silly — enough to be quite entertaining.
And you’ve got to love that Batratspidercrab!
rivets on the poster 