Oh Geez, Louise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                       That is the great Louise Fletcher consuming a frog on camera in 1986's "Invaders From Mars," shown last Saturday night on "Svengoolie."  David and I laughed our way through this Tobe Hooper remake, because I actually thought it was a parody.  Gone is the McCarthyism message of the 1950's, and why a bunch of aliens would want to control these examples of humanity is a mystery to me.  And how did Fletcher get elected as Earth's emissary?

                                          But I have to hand it to Louise Fletcher, for she steals the show.  Whether abusing children, driving a rampant school bus, running down a hillside street in heels, she livens the film up every time she is on camera.  When she is not, less so.

                                           Those who eat also get eaten, and you have got to see the scene where Louise lovingly embraces one of the ugly henchmen, and then gets devoured by him. It does not get better than this.

                                               The special effects are cheesy, but there is one highlight.  While searching some kind of a building--and the viewer has to be keen to spot this-- there on a pedestal is the prop bearing the leader of the 1953 original, who was played by actress Luce Luz Potter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                 Karen Black and her son, Hunter Carson, play a nurse and the little boy originally played by Jimmy Hunt, who turns up here as a town police chief.  I cracked up over his line, "I haven't been up this hill, since I was a kid."

                                                     I expected something haunting, and got camp parody.  Even better was "Sventoonie's" deconstruction of the 1972 film, "Horror Express."  It preceded "Terror Train" by eight years, and had Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and more period atmosphere than the featured parody, however unintentional that was on Tobe Hooper's part.

                                                        But thanks so much, Louise!  You made it worth it!

                                              Take a look at this shot from the '53 original.  Now, THIS is Fifties conformity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                        And this!  Where does one see such set design and art direction, anymore?

                                    And isn't Luce Luz Potter more terrifying than that giant pubic louse thing?