The Angry Red Planet (Quickie Review)
Like "The Man From Planet X," this is a bizarre science fiction tale culled from an era where fantasy and science fiction were still damn near the same thing. Meaning, we have some highly laughable special effects and rampant pseudo-science masquerading as science fiction. And yes, it's another "classic" released in a high quality transfer with a crisp picture and sharp sound--by Midnite Movies.
So, the main reason to watch this film? Oh, it's definitely the whole time our space crew is on Mars. (What, you thought "Angry Red Planet" referred to Neptune?) Prior to that is some rather poor quality space crew boarding a space ship, inside of which they smoke and toss around sexist chauvinistic banter aimed at the "puny female" member of the crew. It'd be somewhat offensive by today's standards if it weren't so damn funny. But Mars is the real reason we're watching this thing. The film is generally black and white, but Mars, well Mars is screaming bloody red. It's filmed in this bizarre red plasticy sheen giving the angry red planet quite an interesting look of overexposed redness. It's really quite a sight—as are the (ha ha) aliens viewers are to witness. The best being the "ratbatspidercrab." You think that's a joke? That's what they call it in the movie! It's a gigantic chimera (small puppet) of a thing combining traits of rats, bats, spiders, and crabs. It bounds along all puppety and scares the sh*t out of our "heroic crew." There are other weird, and poorly imagined, aliens to be seen, but that one takes the cake. Eventually, after their harrowing experience on Mars, the sexist crew boards their "ship" and returns to whatever planet it was they came from.
This ain't for everyone. Science Fiction film buffs & curiosity seekers, and some general film buffs. Fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 will have a field day with this one (if they never got to it on the show).
2/10 Modern score, 6/10 Nostalgia score, 4/10 overall.
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