“The signs that will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons, speak with new tongues…” (Mark 16:17).
Released in April 1953, Invaders from Mars was shot for under $300,000. Dismissed as something that was nothing more than a cinematic comic book by the New York Times, it was added to the National Film Registry in 2024. It’s also been cited as influential by Stephen Spielberg, John Landis, and Joe Dante.
David MacLean awakens in the hours before dawn to what sounds like thunder. Looking out his window, he sees a saucer-like craft land in the field across the road. Frightened (and a little excited) he runs in to tell his parents who first dismiss it as a dream. But something bothers his father George. Maybe it’s that he works at the high security base nearby that’s building a rocket that will launch an atomic satellite into orbit. Whatever the reason, he goes out to examine the field.
Hours later George MacLean returns, but he’s not the father David knows. He’s mean, angry, even aggressive toward his boy. As the morning goes on, a little girl in the neighborhood, the Chief of Police, and even his own mother begin acting strange, and David is sure it has something to do with the strange markings on the back of their necks. But can he convince the unaffected adults of his fantastic story before it’s too late?
What could be your standard monster movie plot is transformed by this movie’s visuals. In color, the palette through which the story is told is both bold and somehow off-color. Sets are designed to look larger, more cavernous than expected. And, very unusual for this kind of film in this era, the camera angles are creative, challenging and change your perspective as the film plays out.
Because of the actors or the direction, what should be the familiar trope of people who look but don’t act like themselves is rendered as something that is unsettling, even disturbing. Case in point, David’s father who in the early scenes is seated close by his son as they look through his telescope. After returning from the field, he is not only short and harsh in voice but unexpectedly lashes out and strikes the boy. This movie contains the stuff of nightmares.
In case you were curious (like I was), this movie premiered three years before Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and one year before the novel (Jack Finney’s The Body Snatchers, 1954) on which it was based was published. And while it’s not the first story where aliens take over the human mind, Invaders from Mars effectively strikes the same nerve that later films would return to: how can someone who looks so familiar act so different?
Many of the stories recorded in the Gospels about possession sound more like mental or physical illness. The man whose young son goes into convulsions sounds like a case of epilepsy. The Gadarene man living wild in the graveyard was, very possibly, struggling with schizophrenia or something similar.
While some reports of demonic possession could, quite likely, be attributed to something treatable medically, the idea behind an infestation of the soul—an affliction that changes a person into a stranger was at the heart of it. The same fear and confusion lies at the heart of films from the 1950s and beyond. How is it someone we know inexplicably begin to act so contrary to their nature?
Excluding those who, like those of Jesus’ time, are truly afflicted by an illness such as dementia that can transform a person and their behavior, we can and perhaps have come across people near to us or within our orbit that have changed. Something appears to have overtaken them.
The past decade in this country has been one that has been confusing for many of us. Kind, tenderhearted, loving people have, through their political alignment or media consumption, become someone else. The co-worker we’ve seen every day for years and who everyone likes begins mentioning how immigrants are detrimental to our country. The neighbor who’s taken in your trash can from the curb every week mentions that they think anyone associated with a certain political party should be arrested and jailed. Parents who raised us in a tradition of kindness and love begin cheering on bullies.
Despite the easy explanation, none of these have been afflicted by demons or are under the thrall of aliens. Yes, we can describe such thoughts and expressions in spiritual terms, but the truth is that none of them nor any of us needs any outside being pulling the strings within our heads. We are quite capable of doing or saying things—good and bad—all by ourselves.
So, what do we do with words like those above? Are we supposed to attribute these changes to demons? Do we dismiss such talk as the remnant of a first century mindset? Is such a thing as much fiction as the Martian implants that controlled David MacLean’s parents?
I don’t think so. And while I don’t believe the spectacle of some modern so-called ministers who claim to cast spirits out of people (nor do I believe those who growl and writhe at their events), I do believe that we have a part to play in excising the hateful and destructive tendencies that can, apparently, manifest in any of us.
How we do that is, as you might imagine, less flashy and less confrontational than it may appear. Jesus wasn’t one for going up to individuals and telling them they were possessed. I personally think that, just like an addict, he knew the afflicted had to want to let go of the thing inside of them. It was only after they came to him, ready for change that he could free them.
So it is with us. Any who might have tried can tell you that no one can be changed from a belief that they don’t want to let go of. It’s only when someone, and that includes you and me, understands the harm the things they do or say cause themselves and those around them that they are ready to be made whole, to be who they were created to be.
It’s not as fun as getting the army to round up its forces in order to try and take down an evil, alien menace as David MacLean did. But it is no less a battle that might free someone from the grip of what has ensnared them.
Jesus, in your name we are charged to bring wholeness to the world. May we act in the love that fills you to free those captivated by hate, fear, and anger.