Ignite Media Distribution Targets July 11 For A Full-Spread Home Entertainment Packaged Media Celebration Of Director William Cameron Menzies’ Invaders From Mars

Ignite Media Distribution Services, with sales and distribution support provided by MVD Entertainment Group, has selected July 11 as the street date for a three-SKU helping of director William Cameron Menzies’ 1953 sci-fi classic, Invaders from Mars.         

Genre fans, film buffs, collectors and the curious will be able to choose between DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD editions of this new 4K film restoration, which is something of a 70^th Anniversary Edition.

Jimmy Hunt (Pitfall, Sorry, Wrong Number, She Couldn’t Say No) stars as grade school kid David MacLean, an astronomy buff and scientist in the making (following in dear old’s footsteps), who awakes one night to see a flying saucer land and suddenly disappear into the nearby sand dunes.   Did he imagine it?  Was it a dream?

Upset, he wakes up his parents, George (Leif Erickson — Night Monster, Johnny Stool Pigeon, The Cimarron Kid … as Big John Cannon in The High Chaparral television series) and Mary (Hillary Brooke — The Woman in Green, The Fuller Brush Man, Lost Continent, The Maze, The Man Who Knew Too Much), who find his behavior quite out of character. 

We will soon discover that David was not dreaming.   His father goes to investigate and doesn’t return.   David’s mom calls the cops and soon officers Jackson (Douglas Kennedy) and Blaine (Charles Cane) show up and go off to investigate.

Whew!   David’s father suddenly returns, but there is something that is very wrong.  Come on, his little brat son woke him up in the middle of the night to rant and cry about flying saucers, so naturally he’s a tad put off.   Smack that kid (oops, he does). 

Jackson and Blaine return … are they zombies?   What’s going on?   Did David just see his neighbor Kathy Wilson (Janine Perreau — The Shanghai Story) get swallowed-up in the sand dunes?  Get help!  

The more David tells people that something is terribly wrong, the more his family and neighbors think he is demented … Kathy returns, nothing wrong, pay no attention to her zombie-like state!!

We all know — as the audience to this classic sci-fi tale — where this is going.  David is doomed, the Martians will take over … unless he can find someone, anyone, to believe his crazy story!!  

Check it out on July 11 with the 70^th Anniversary celebration of director William Cameron Menzies’ Invaders from Mars.  

Bonus features include video sessions with Jimmy Hunt (be sure to check out the Cereal at Midnight podcast interview with Hunt — linked here: https://www.cerealatmidnight.com/2023/03/jimmy-hunt-former-child-actor-on.html), William Cameron Menzies’ biographer James Curtis and Menzies’ eldest granddaughter Pamela Lauesen, a featurette featuring John Landis, Joe Dante, Mark Goldblatt, Robert Skotak and Scott MacQueen and before and after restoration clips.

Additionally, there is a 2K restoration of the “alternate international cut” of the film, an alternate ending and an extended Planetarium scene.