A semi-comedic sci-fi, Invasion of the Saucer Men must have had some influence over the extraterrestrials from Mars Attacks. Here, the mischievous, diminutive Martians, complete with bulbous heads and bulging eyes, land their spacecraft on the outskirts of a small American town called Hicksburg, where they cause all manner of trouble for the locals, and for the army who are trying to cover up any evidence of the aliens' existence to avoid panic.
The heroes of the film are teen lovers Johnny Carter (Steve Terrell) and Joan Hayden (Gloria Castillo), who accidentally drive over one of the little green men after a quick smooch at Lovers' Point before eloping. While Johnny and Joan go to call the authorities (who naturally don't believe a word of their outlandish story), opportunist Joe Gruen (Frank Gorshin) discovers the dead alien and thinks it is his ticket to fame and fortune.
With incredibly poor production values, very few genuine laughs, and zero scares, the film is pretty much a failure on most levels. The design of the saucer men themselves is fairly iconic, but too little is seen of them to make up for the film's other shortcomings (and when we see the creatures in long shots, they're quite clearly little kids in bad costumes). The film's most ingenious moments revolve around the dead alien's hand, which has detached itself from the body and, with one of the creature's eyes connected, crawls around the place continuing to cause havoc (the aliens kill using needle-like protrusions from their fingertips that administer an overdose of alcohol!).
The heroes of the film are teen lovers Johnny Carter (Steve Terrell) and Joan Hayden (Gloria Castillo), who accidentally drive over one of the little green men after a quick smooch at Lovers' Point before eloping. While Johnny and Joan go to call the authorities (who naturally don't believe a word of their outlandish story), opportunist Joe Gruen (Frank Gorshin) discovers the dead alien and thinks it is his ticket to fame and fortune.
With incredibly poor production values, very few genuine laughs, and zero scares, the film is pretty much a failure on most levels. The design of the saucer men themselves is fairly iconic, but too little is seen of them to make up for the film's other shortcomings (and when we see the creatures in long shots, they're quite clearly little kids in bad costumes). The film's most ingenious moments revolve around the dead alien's hand, which has detached itself from the body and, with one of the creature's eyes connected, crawls around the place continuing to cause havoc (the aliens kill using needle-like protrusions from their fingertips that administer an overdose of alcohol!).