- Directed by Ib Melchio
- Written by Ib Melchior, Sidney W. Pink
- Stars Gerald Mohr, Nora Hayden, Les Tremayne
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 23 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBAJEczBaHY
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s way more sci-fi than horror, but the monsters are really well done for the time period. It doesn’t get boring, although the “Cinemagic” effect gets old pretty quickly. Overall, if you like classic sci-fi, this is a good one.
Synopsis
Serious-looking men enter the Pentagon. Colonel Treegar is in charge. The space ship that’s been missing for so long has been found, but they are assuming it’s dead. It entered Mars orbit two months ago, and they had believed it crashed, but it didn’t. Now it’s time to go get that ship, as it contains priceless data from Mars. They decide there’s no time to lose in mounting a recovery operation. There could even be someone alive on the ship, but it’s not likely.
They do their remote control thing, and the Mars rocket ship is going to land in Nevada tonight. Colonel Tom O’Bannon, Dr. Iris Ryan, Prof. Theodore Gettel, and Sam Jacobs are the crew that left on the rocket. Have any of them survived?
The door of the ship opens, and there is someone aboard! Two survivors. The recordings from the ship are all blank. What happened to the crew? Dr. Iris Ryan is sedated, but the unnamed man behind the curtain has some kind of weird growth that is rapidly spreading. They finally wake up Iris and ask her what happened. We get the flashback…
The four are flying the spaceship and on their way to Mars. Everything is going really well. Tom and Iris are getting close after seventeen days. There is a montage of them doing engineering and science stuff to pass the time, and we get to know them all a little more. Forty-seven days in, they’re finally orbiting Mars. They go through the pre-landing check and land on the surface.
The oxygen is too thin to breathe, but there’s enough oxygen there to sustain some kind of life. Still, they don’t see anything moving out among the vegetation. They all decide to go outside to see what’s up. Iris sees a three-eyed creature outside the window and screams.
Back in the hospital, Iris needs to rest, and the doctors say she has a mental block about something. The doctor explains that drugs will keep her going, but there’s a risk of a complete mental breakdown if they force the memories from her. Iris insists on the drugs– she needs to remember to save the life of the infected man. Soon, the drugs take effect, and she remembers it all…
The three men on the ship don’t really believe Iris saw something at the window. They step outside, and literally everything is red (The Cinemagic effect touted in the preview and publicity). Sam has an ultrasonic freeze gun, but Tom carries a regular pistol. They see many strange plants as they walk through the red jungle. Iris says some of the plants have what appears to be a nervous system. A giant, carnivorous tentacled plant grabs Iris and tries to eat her. The men fight it off, and they go back to the ship.
The Professor has a feeling that something is watching them from afar. There may be some kind of hyper-intelligent community mind like that of the ants on Earth. They find that they can’t communicate with home, their radio signals just bounce back.
The next day, they go out again and wake up a forty-foot tall Batratspidercrab that lumbers after them. The sonic freeze gun doesn’t work; it’s too big, but they do manage to drive it off eventually. They continue on and find an ocean or lake that extends to the horizon. As they return to the ship, the three-eyed creature follows them.
They decide the place is more dangerous than expected, so they’re going to take off. The professor still thinks there’s a controlling force organizing the life forms there, and it concerns him. They launch, but the angry red planet chooses to not let them go. They’re in some kind of force field.
They can’t leave, so they decide to see what’s on the other side of the lake. Luckily they brought an inflatable raft. They see an advanced city in the distance. Before they can get there, a giant sea monster surfaces and chases them. They run back to the ship, but the monster eats Sam. It also touches Tom on his skin and seems to have infected him.
Iris says the thing is essentially a giant amoeba. Tom thinks they can electrify the outer hull, which is insulated from the inner hull. They work hard, rewiring everything. They turn on the generators, and the creature does back off. Unfortunately Gettel has chest pains from the stress.
The radio comes on, and it’s a warning to the men of Earth from Mars. They all black out and find themselves launched and back in space. Gettel is dead from the takeoff G-forces, and Tom’s infection is accelerating. Alone on the ship, Iris didn’t know how to rewire the ship back for normal control.
Back in the hospital, the doctors want to know what the voice said. What was the warning? She doesn’t remember, and the tapes don’t help. They do learn enough from her story that they manage to slow the progression of Tom’s infection. Iris goes to the lab and figures out that they can trick the amoeba into leaving Tom by using small voltages of electricity. They plan to “scare” it out of him.
Tom’s better. They finally found the warning on the final tape. They have been watching us for centuries. “Do not return to Mars. Do not come here.”
Commentary
They make really good use of what looks like space program and military stock footage, but it all looks about right and fits very well with the narration. There’s a lot of 1950s science fiction here before the monsters appear, but it’s all good, fun stuff. There’s lots of retro-classic tech in this, which is usually fun. All those buttons and dials and gauges and switches.
The present day stuff flashing back to the trip to Mars keeps the story from getting boring. The creature effects are interesting, creative, and pretty effective for the year it was made. As silly as the batratspidercrab was in concept, it looked pretty cool. We never do see what’s in that city.
The film used something called the Cinemagic Effect on Mars. Everything is awash in a bright red outside the ship. Which was probably intended to make the hand-drawn two-dimensional scenery, fake plants, and live actors blend together better on a low budget. The success of it is mixed, but it does give the film a distinctive and unique look.