Saturday, July 1, 2017

ANGRY RED PLANET 1959 (SHOUT FACTORY) BLU-RAY

Another piece of late 50's sci-fi gold comes to Blu-ray.

This movie focuses on four people who are on an expedition to Mars. However, the movie opens with the ship coming back to Earth and the authorities finding only two survivors. Dr. Iris Ryan (Nora Hayden) and Col. Tom O'Bannion (Gerald Mohr) who is dying from a mysterious infection.

Iris tries to recall the details of the flight for the doctors and scientists and that is when we learned what really happened.

Also in the crew was Prof. Theodore Gettell (Les Tremayne) and Sam Jacobs (Jack Kruschen) and the flight to Mars we learn was pretty uneventful. After many days in flight the crew lands on Mars and discover that there is absolutely no sound and nothing is moving.

When they leave the ship they are greeted to the totally red Martian landscape and are attacked by a large bizarre plant as well as spied upon by a three eyed Martian. Later expeditions have them attacked by a bat-rat-spider-crab monster and when they try and cross a lake to get to a Martian city a huge one celled amoeba comes after them and eats Sam Jacobs. Watching him slowly dissolve inside the creature was nightmare stuff back in the day.

The Martians decide to let the ship leave and take back a warning which state that earthlings must NEVER come back to Mars or they will wipe out our entire planet. When the ship lands we find Gettell has died from a heart attack and as mentioned earlier O'Bannion is dying from a strange infectious disease.

It seems part of the amoeba touched him and is slowly eating his arm away. A solution is found and people involved with the project have all learned a terrible lesson.

The Blu-ray really brings out the red color on the planet Mars and that makes the entire movie very enjoyable. Filmed in "Cinemagic" which wasn't shown in the trailer, this technique makes everything looks very bizarre and comic bookish.

A huge thanks to Shout Factory for bringing this to Blu-ray and it is a highly recommended MUST own disc for fans of 50's sci-fi.

No comments:

Post a Comment