The Angry Red Planet

[Buttafly]

This was by FAR the cheesiest movie I've ever seen and I loved it for precisely that reason. The special effects were rediculously funny and campy, especially the amoeba.  It was the most original (and silliest) creature ever put on film.  I mean seriously? It takes some imagination to come up with a giant twirly-eyed, jellyfish-esque, amoeba monster.  Everyone involved with this movie had to be on something because all the dialog and special effects and especially the acting all had the feel of something out of a hallucination.  But that oh so hip jazz score at the end is just the icing on the cake.  All in all, though, a very entertaining flick. :)

Long live the rat, bat, spider! And the Red lighting too!

[Peter]

I was terrified of the Angry Red Planet as a kid of 7 watching it on TV on a rainy Saturday afternoon, and now, 39 years after first viewing it, it remains one of the very best examples of classic 1950's SciFi films.
Viewing it today, I become that same 7-year-old kid again, and love every minute of it.

[Steve]

As a lover of SciFi and a lover of bad movies I must say you have way overrated this flic. It basicaly sucks, and even for a bad movie is really BAD!!!

[Dave Munger]

I actually came here just to comment on constant acceleration. I am a nerd. Acceleration is actually measured in terms of "G-forces", one G of acceleration is equivalent to one Earth gravity. It could work with a drive that was close to 100% efficient, like the "asymptotic drive" in Arthur C. Clarke's "Imperial Earth". That got it's power by feeding hydrogen to a microscopic black hole. Generally, things in Clarke novels either are possible mathematically, or he makes it really obvious that they're meant to be understood as magic. Then there are hypothetical drives where you don't have to carry the fuel with you, like ramscoops for collecting interstellar hydrogen. With constant acceleration, there is also the advantage of getting there faster.

<a href="http://davemunger.blogspot.com">The Hand Of Munger</a>

[Phil]

I saw this movie the other night for the 1st time since I was a little kid... and I must say it was BAD!!! I liked the way they looked out the window discribing stuff but not letting us see...  and they kept telling sammy the freeze-gun lover to not leave the window and keep watching, well what about the other window??? And the sets? Flat drawings!! But they figured if they put enough red on it we might not notice.. loved the rolling eyeball.
Also the fact that some of the astro-nuts had to explain to the others 'facts' about Mars (like maybe they weren't curious enough to find out a little before takeoff?)
I always thought "Forbidden Planet" was light-years ahead of this movie and it was made years before!!
Also, that rocket must have had a pretty large fuel tank! Wonder if the president knew these few guys in the control room and four astronauts were up to?

[Bruce]

INCREDIBLY BAD!!! Some of the "Monsters" and scenery consisted of STILL Black & White DRAWINGS!!! Someone says: "OH! NO!" Look at the "Monster" in the view port and we are treated to a LINE DRAWING of a "Monster"!!! Then a "Monster" with a revolving turret for a head!

Horrifying, YES! But all due to the REVULSION at the rock bottom worst stuff imaginable (QUALITY-WISE!)

[IT.]

Not a bad movie in my opinion.Far better then Catwomen Of The Moon or Missle to the Moon.The scenes with the Batratspidercrab was the best and well remembered. The rest of the movie was average.I saw this movie as a kid and i enjoyed it but i always thought they could of had the batratspidercrab walk off a cliff into a pool of lava or something after it was blinded but it just walks off into the distance kind of a weak ending for one of the best monsters in SciFi history.I give it 5 STARS.

[Thunderbird]

The rat-bat-spider i wonder if those martian scientists were not fooling around with genetics? and as for the giant ameba there was a even bigger one in a episode of classic star trek a ameba big enough to wipe out a whole star system and a star ship run by vulcans WOW THAT IS BIG

[amherst]

This film was shot in "Cinemagic" process (that wierd negative with red tint) -- a process created and used for this film by Norman Maurer -- Maurer was the son-in-law of Moe Howard of the Three Stooges, and managed their careers in the 1950s and 1960s. (Maurer was a comic book artist by profession, and also invented the first 3-D comic book).

[David Milland]

A spectacularly bad film! Not that that's a bad thing. There's bad, and so bad it's good, and for most of it's 83 mins. "Angry Red Planet" falls into the latter category. Nicely stylized, but utterly unrealistic B/W line drawings are regularly substituted for actual Martian scenery. The "real" Martian scenery is no better as it is a strange combination of obviously potted palms, and other trees that have no business in a jungle, all of which have been scattered with excelsior. Even the pink, headache inducing "Cinemagic" effect doesn't begin to disguise this. The giant amoeba is delightfully audacious in it's awfullness. It is obviously two entirely different models. The rubbery, jellid one for the water, and the rigid, rolling-eyed one for land. It is also rendered as a chunky, multicolored mound of Jell-o surrounding the rocket, and swirling ominously through the porthole. In one such porthole shot you can clearly make out the end of a stick stirring it. The batratspidercrab is, on one level, as hilariously fake as anything I've ever seen on film, yet it is also amazingly effective! I could see every wire holding it up, the obviously hinged jaw, the way most of it's legs never touched the ground as it walked, just the utter, blatant fakeness of it, and yet it absolutely fascinated me! I wish it had taken up the entire running time, and I REALLY wish that I owned that prop. The four lead players, save for Ms. Hayden, are all talented, prolific, usually solid character actors. Gerald Mohr played lots of cops and robbers, and was very good in a small part in William Wyler's "Funny Girl". Les Tremayne and Jack Kruschen had both appeared in George Pal's stunning "War Of The Worlds". Tremayne had worked for Douglas Sirk in "Written On The Wind", and the same year(1960) that ARP was released Kruschen (brilliantly) played Dr. Dreyfuss in Billy Wilder's "The Apartment". All of which makes me wonder why the performances are so bad in this movie. I tend to think that since it was just a ten day shoot the principals signed on for a quick paycheck, and in the hope that the film would disappear quickly, and just gave the director what he wanted. Unlike Kruschen, not to many people can say that they were directed by Ib Melchior and Billy Wilder in the same year. Yes, it was directed by the notoriously inept Ib Melchior, produced by the epically inept Sid Pink (the man responsible for "Reptilicus"), and cowritten by both. Given that pedigree I suppose I should be thankful that it's even watchable. Other than Melchior's "Robinson Crusoe On Mars"(which still had execrable special effects even though it was from Paramount) this is sadly/hilariously the best movie either ever made. The jazz score at the end is quite cool, especially since it doesn't remotely fit with any of the music heard previously in the film. As for the lovely Nora (later to become "Naura") Hayden, she quit acting, and in the early 70's authored the best selling sex manual "How To Please A Man Every Time", and it's sequal "How To Please A Woman Everytime". I imagine her python-like unhinging jaw was a great aid in her research. That thought alone makes me extra double glad that I'm queer as a prom queen.  I've often heard it said that no one ever sets out to make a bad movie. "Angry Red Planet" will make you wonder. At least it's (unintentionally) funny, and moronically entertaining. I wanna see the Batratspidercrab in a new movie!

[iriegirl]

I thought it was very good for the times.  I just saw it yesterday and was kinda impressed.  The red effect was creepy as hell.  As was Batratspidercrab.  But the fish with the eyeball spinning around; now THAT'S comedy!

[roberto]

The angry red planet is really orange. Was orange Kool-Aid or Tang used in the editing process.

Anyway, we should never criticize the limited resources of B films. Mental resources, that is.

I think the director should have thrown in the chicken sink when making the giant bat-rat-crab-spider. Chicken sink? You heard me right. He could have added a wattle, some wings and a beak and made the giant bat-rat-spider-crab-chicken. Pecking up his prey would have been more efficient than that stupid claw.

By the way, is that toot, in the backround, to the giant rat-bat-spider-crab what the pop is to the weasel?

[eman]

I saw this movie in 1959, at the age of four. For the times it was scary as hell. I still remember the movie and I'm going to buy it, so I can relive the experience. Of course, this movie would not hold up to todays special effects. Nor could anyone reasonably expect that it could. IMHO

[Bat-Ratty]

A superior sci-fi movie for it's time - we can now look back at those more "innocent" times with affection (and hilarity) at what passed for science "fact." Yes to all the comments that the Bat-Rat Spider was one of the cooler monsters ever made. If you go a convention, you can pick up a model of it for a decent price. Does anyone know that Gerald Mohr (the lead actor) was the voice of Mr. Fantastic in the Hanna-Barbera "Fantastic Four" cartoon series of the 60's? - some "get a life" trivia for you!