A movie best remembered for it's special effects - CineMagic was meant to revolutionise science fiction, creating drawings-style background, which would have been very expressionistic (and fascinating to watch). It didn't turn out the way the filmmakers intended but the effects are the most interesting thing about this - red filtered scenes on Mars with various creatures attacking astronauts (most notably the rat-spider-thingy, an evocative picture which inspired me to watch this).
The rest of the movie is depressingly conventional - it's about four astronauts who go to Mars in one of those space ships where most of the scenes take place in the one set, the control section... which is big enough for a living room. The four astronauts are stock 50s types: the "heartthrob" captain (Gerard Mohr) with his steel wool hair and displayed-too-often chest, making lecherous remarks to the red headed female (Naura Hayden) who constantly refers to the fact she's a woman and falls in love with him, plus comic relief fat person (Jack Kruschen) and dotty professor (Les Tremayne).
The scenes on the spaceship and on earth are hard going but the special effects do make it interesting.
No comments:
Post a Comment