When it comes to Mr. Tobe Hooper, creator of arguably the greatest pure horror film of all time in TCM, one really has to scratch his head to come up with anything decent from him since that 1974 foray into Texas inbreeding and cannibalism. Hooper delivered a slew of films in the seventies/eighties, all of which were, to be blunt, turkeys. I did enjoy 1981’s The Funhouse on a marginal level, and his best effort of this period, 1982’s Poltergeist, faced rumors that Steve Spielberg had more to do with that film’s success than Hooper himself. So, here we are with the Kings of Grade B eighties schlock, the Golan/Globus boys from Cannon Films, backing Hooper on a redo of Invasion of The Body Snatchers and, of course, the original 1953 Invaders From Mars. Yes, here we are…sigh.

Invaders deals with a small boy named David Gardner (Hunter Carson), a ten year old with a big imagination who lives in a seemingly normal small town U.S.A. with mom and dad. However, one evening after watching shooting stars in the night sky with the old man, David awakens in the middle of the night to the scene of a big ass spaceship landing in the valley behind his home. Mom and Dad write off their son’s sighting as imagination running wild, with dad promising to check out the valley the next morning for “aliens”. Of course, as David and the audience now knows, there really are ET’s in them thar woods, and me thinks they don’t have the best of intentions. Soon David notices everyone in town acting very bizarre, from mom eating raw hamburger to his teacher swallowing live frogs whole. And say, what’s up with the weird marks on the back of everyone’s necks? That’s right, their “inhabited” by space aliens you understand, intent on taking over the town/world, and it’s up to David and a school nurse (Karen Black) along with the U.S. army to stop the said invasion.

This one starts off on the right foot, delivering a nice uneasy vibe as David becomes tuned in to all the weirdness going on around him. The opening half hour or so has a nice n’ creepy comic book feel to it, and actor Carson does about as good and non annoying performance you could expect from a child actor. Typically I hate kid actors, but the guy did a decent job here. Actually, the acting overall is shockingly decent. Louise Fletcher does a nice turn as the evil schoolteacher, and her character is in the film’s most disturbing sequence as David catches her swallowing a live frog whole…yikes! However, the problem with Invaders falls in the film’s second half. Once we are in the Martians underground base, things take a bad turn into Grade Z level schlock, what with big rubbery alien suits amidst some very bad visuals and “special” effects. The introduction of the Marines at the end, while played for pure fantasy (from a child’s/David’s perspective) had its moments but ultimately it’s all just sort of goofy. Hooper starts out making a semi-creepy sci-fi flick, only to have it turn into an after-school special after the first thirty minutes. Pass on this one.