Remakes, eh? They're certainly another version of an already existing story. There's a lot of them coming to the cinema soon. Friday the 13th and erm.. quite a lot of others actually. Except I can't really remember what right now. Though there's plenty listed in Total Film magazine. The one with the Watchmen cover. Sorry I'll try and get to the point a bit more now.

The story is a bit of a bodysnatchers esque one. Boy sees UFO one night. Dad investigates it the next day, comes back a bit strange. UFO is hidden under the sand though so you can't see it, obviously. When he returns from school his mum has gone the same way. Then more people in the town end up that way but he manages to get the school nurse on his side and they set out to try to stop the aliens taking over. They get the army on side who eventually manage to blow up the UFO. Or should I say Alien Craft. It doesn't fly much in the film. And it has been identified as an alien craft. So it's clearly not a UFO. But you know what I mean.

The budget is clearly very limited and the acting quite patchy but it does manage to be a pretty faithful remake of the original. Hardly anything has been changed. It's still pretty creepy. Notably a scene where an elderly school teacher is eating a live frog manages to disturb. There's a some scenes inside the alien craft featuring the rubber suit aliens. They are a very alien creature shape but they do look very fake and somewhat silly. Younger viewers might find them pretty terrifying though with their odd shape and huge teeth. I'm pretty sure they would have terified me when I was little.

The restraint shown in the 1950s film makes it a better film. Though maybe they would have done the same had they had the technology back then. I wonder if the film largely remained the same because Tobe Hooper likes it. That is I wonder if Tobe Hooper likes the original and didn't to fix what wasn't broken.

It's really just not quite as good as the original but if you've not seen that, this one has a good chance of holding your attention and also a good chance of creeping you out a bit. But then the obvious cheapness may put you off.

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