A masterpiece of the 50s 'paranoia' genre, combined with many of the most distinctive images of science fiction.  It is the handling of the material rather than the material itself that makes Invaders from Mars the striking film it is.

       Our main character is David McLane (Jimmy Hunt), a young boy who awakens one night to see a flying saucer landing in the sand pit behind his house.  His father, an important scientist in the space program, reassures him back to bed but investigates afterward, not returning until morning. 

     Strange behavior.  A mark on the back of the neck.  More people disappear, then return, their behavior not normal.  David's pleas of warning go unheeded, as whatever the alien influence might be spreads....

     Designed and directed by William Cameron Menzies (art director for Gone With the Wind and director of Things to Come), the look of the film is designed as if seen through David's child eyes.  Geometric composition of some shots, the use of extreme close-ups, and stark lighting, along with other techniques, produce a result somewhere between a comic book and a funhouse distorting mirror.  The art direction is stark and simple-- many sets are underdressed, with little or no extraneous detail (a police station, in particular, is strikingly minimalist).  The production was shot primarily indoors (except for some stock footage), and the sets of outdoor locations like the sandpit behind David's house are almost expressionistic, with dark, twisted trees and a whitered wood fence sihouetted against the sky backdrop.  The film was shot in Cinecolor, a two-color process that is entirely appropriate to the dream-like quality of the film.