Editorials
5 Great Alien Invasion Movies!!!
With Dark Skies in theaters this weekend, I figured I’d take a look at some of its precursors in the fundamentally popular “Aliens F*cking With Us” genre. Once I started digging I found so many great examples that it was hard to whittle them all down. Since Dark Skies looks like a more intimate film that focusses on character impact rather than spectacle (not having seen it, I could be wrong) I decided to shift my focus away from large scale stuff like War Of The Worlds and Transformers (hey, the Decepticons and Autobots are technically aliens) and take a look at films that focus on the more personally horrifying aspects of being f*cked with by aliens.
I also wanted to focus on menace. For instance, I truly love Close Encounters Of The Third Kind but something like that doesn’t really invite comparison to Dark Skies nor is it “horror enough” for our purposes here today (though I highly recommend it on the off chance you haven’t seen it).
If they’re not invading our planet, they’re invading our bodies and minds. Head inside for 5 Great Alien Invasion Movies!!!
FIRE IN THE SKY
Probably the most harrowing depiction of an alien abduction/examination committed to film. Released in 1993 to an underwhelming reception, Fire In The Sky is slowly gaining ground amongst UFO obsessives as a true classic of the genre (in content, if not execution).
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978)
Proving the axiom that not all remakes are bad, the 1978 Invasion Of The Body Snatchers reigns supreme over the ones that came before it. Proving the axiom that most remakes are bad, the subsequent versions of this have been fairly terrible. Most recently, 2007’s The Invasion really sh*t the bed.
COMMUNION
I remember reading this book as a kid and it freaked me the f*ck out. Actually, I lied. I read it in college and it freaked me the f*ck out to the point where I was literally peaking outside my bedroom blinds to see what was “out there.” Philippe Mora’s 1989 film adaptation of Whitley Strieber’s (claimed to be autobiographical novel) misses some of the book’s abject terror, but more than makes up for it with a heaping dose of Christopher Walken.
SIGNS
In hindsight, Signs is kind of silly. Why would aliens land on, and try to take over, a planet that was 72% poisonous to them? Literally, half our battle against them in the film is depicted with a baseball bat and a cup of water. But still, that one news image of the alien making its way past an open door absolutely nailed me when I saw this film a decade ago. For an image to still resonate with me a decade later, they must have done something right. There’s also some legitimate suspense in the sequence in which Mel Gibson’s family is ensconced in their basement, listening to the terrors occurring outside.
THEY LIVE
A pulpy, fun conspiracy film that takes aim at media, advertising and the eternal catch 22 of trying to implement a true democracy in a capitalist society with a dwindling middle class. A lot of people feel alienated from the uber-rich who actually run this country – what if it turned out the 1% were actually aliens? A movie 25 years ahead of its time.
What are some of your favorites?
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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