Flying saucers and alien invasion movies were the trend in the 1950s. UFO sightings in Washington State in 1947 and the famous crash near Roswell, New Mexico in 1948 had ignited a fever for all things alien. The movies soon followed the public interest with films like The Thing from Another World (1951), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), War of the Worlds (1953), This Island Earth (1955), Earth vs. The Flying Saucers (1956), Invasion of the Saucer-Men (1957), and many more of varying levels of quality. Many of these science fiction/horror hybrids were aimed toward an audience of children and teenagers and often featured young people, but few placed the viewer so deeply in the child’s perspective as the 1953 classic Invaders from Mars. In many ways, Invaders from Mars walked so that Invasion of the Body Snatchers could run just three years later. Much of this is due to its extremely low budget and independent production. Some sets are re-dressed to serve as different locations. For example, the police station serves double duty as a scientist’s lab. The costumes of the Martians, called Mutants in the movie, look like green crushed velvet pajamas complete with a visible…
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Mutants and Mind Control: Revisiting ‘Invaders from Mars’ at 70