Four astronauts take a trip to Mars and encounter strange creatures.

There is something incredibly likeable and positively cuddly about this movie; I just wish it was better. As it is, the first half, which concentrates on the trip to Mars, is a bore; things don’t pick up until they actually land there. This is where the bizarre red-filter process called “Cinemagic” comes into play, and though it’s obviously a gimmick of sorts, it does serve one purpose; it covers up how cheap the special effects were. I mean, the rat-bat-spider looks totally unconvincing in every photo I’ve seen of it; in the movie, it actually looks somewhat real through the red-filter. Needless to say, this monster is one of the silliest creations in SF cinema; how can you not love it? Not a great movie, but an enormously fun one, and sometimes, that can be enough.