War of the Worlds Year: 1953 Director: Byron Haskin Written by: Barré Lyndon Threat: Martians Weapon of Choice: Disintegrating ray Based upon: novel by H.G. Wells IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
None

Rish's Reviews
This review has been a long time coming, mostly because I've become very lazy in my old age. I saw this in a cool double-bill with Earth Versus the Flying Saucers at the revival theater downtown, where I used to go a lot more often. I met my bald friend at the theater, and for an afternoon, we were transported back in time to the carefree days when our slightly more naive planet was attacked by visitors from another world.
When a meteor strikes down in the hills of a small California town, everyone gets excited. That is, until they discover that it's not a meteor, but a craft from nearby Mars, and but one of an unstoppable invasion force bent on conquering or destroying everything on the planet.
This seemed a bit sillier than necessary (since it's a pretty frightening subject), but I wonder if, in the 1950's, you had to be silly. It was a scary time to live in, with the Cold War really heating up (no pun intended) and the Red Menace apparently banging on everyone's door. Still, you look at 1956's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and see that it managed to capitalise on that common fear and stay both serious and terrifying because of it.
I haven't read the H.G. Wells book on which this is based, so I don't know how faithful it was, but most of it felt very Fifties and I imagine a great deal was made up for the flick.
But is this Horror? Jeez, I don't know. It's a lot more like Horror than Earth Versus the Flying Saucers was, with actual slimy creatures and people stupidly walking right into their deaths.
The special effects were great, a lot of which still hold up today. I got the impression that this was a big budget film for its time, and while some of it (the dialogue and illogic of the story, for instance) was quite silly, the parts that worked REALLY worked.
I liked the scope of this one, with scores of people involved and action all over the globe. The destruction was great, with producer George Pal pulling out all the stops to thrill and entertain. The Martian probe/gunship/weapons are really impressive. The Martians themselves are shown for only the briefest of seconds, though we do see an extended view of one of their (cool) hands. One scene, where we drop an atomic bomb on one of the spacecraft, was copied nearly exactly in the 1996 flick Independence Day.
Also, the girl was quite pretty, but her screaming was quite painful.
Since I saw two alien invasion films from the same period in a single night, I couldn't help but compare them. Both films had a couple of common elements. Among them were scenes of armies attacking the aliens with their mid-20th Century armaments, then, unable to get through due to an electromagnetic field, they are incinerated/vaporized by alien death rays. Also, Paul Frees played a reporter in this film (with a distinctive voice), and narrated and was the voice of the aliens in the other film. I mentioned to my friend that he sounded like the guy who introduced the old Disney movies and rides. Turns out he was.
I often berate the movies of the Fifties as being the dumbest and least-serious films of the 20th Century. This has some of those elements, but also has a timeless moment or two to recommend it. As an example of the former, the way the aliens are beaten is clever, but not believably done in the film. It just comes out of nowhere, like a hand from God to swat down the Martian invaders before they blast a church.
I'd Recommend It To: Fifties Sci-Fi fans.
Note: In reading over this overdue review, I see that I only put down two Skulls for it, making it the lowest-scoring film in the history of the site. Somehow, I don't think this is accurate. If you know of any Skulls I missed, please let us know and we'll adjust accordingly.
Posted: July 12, 2004

Total Skulls: 2

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?