Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

A Disappointing Continuation

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

A remake of the 1958 classic gets a 70s update.The premise is the same but the reasons behind it are different. It seems like each incarnation of this film reflects the unrest of each society it was made in.This film depicts the 70s swing towards pop-psychology and psychiatry that was popular at the time. The psychiatrist characters played by Leonard Nimoy and Jeff Goldbloom brilliantly convey this angle.But the film also shows American society and its people in disarray. Post-Watergate and post- Vietnam politics and the related disillusionment fuel the characters and general feel of this film. No one knows who to trust, what the truth is or who/what to believe in anymore.Paranoia is also a key component in this movie. This makes the film a very intense watch and quite exhausting at times. Whilst I love this film its a movie I have to be in the mood to watch. It seems like tiny nuances and interactions that characters would normally take for granted are given thought time, credence and then magnified. An example is when Brooke Adams character is bumped into. There is then a sequence in which Adams and this character are walking away from each other down a corridor but take turns to look at each other over their shoulders.There is also a sequence where Adams is walking around San Francisco and passes a bust city bus. Every single passenger is looking right at her. Is the camera capturing reality or the internal and paranoid thoughts of Ms Adams?The paranoia and suspicion escalates until we get to one of the most famous unsettling endings in movie history.Brilliantly acted, written and directed. This really is a prime slice of time capsule filmmaking then is strangely as relevant today as it was in the 70s. This is also one of the best San Francisco movies ever made. The city looks amazing and provides a gorgeous backdrop to the film's events. Added kudos for the mud baths locale.Look out for the cameo by Robert Duvall as a priest on a swing and the man-dog that suddenly appears who is a weird fusion of a banjo playing character and his dog earlier in the film.

I have never been a fan of horror movies or remakes because they are usually not good. But when done right, they can be special movies. Invasion of the Body Snatchers happens to be both a remake and a horror movie, so I had my doubts. Luckily, this is a really good movie. This film is based off the 1956 film of the same name, and I hear it is a good movie. So when a remake at least equals the quality of the original, then that means you did something right. Most people seem to agree that this movie equals the same horror tone as the original, but it passes it in terms of conception. There are many themes this movie expanded on. Such themes include paranoia, the idea of dehumanization whether it's mentally or quite literally in the case of this movie. You could also talk about the idea of the lack of trust of people in an increasing complicated world. The original had roots in communism as the 1950's were known for paranoia as the Cold War escalated. You could easily see the transfer of those ideas in this film. Paranoia is rampant as these invisible alien creatures take over human bodies and minds. These ideas really created the tension and horror that the movie needed.This science-fiction remake is sent in the city of San Francisco, California. One day, Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams) complains to her good friend Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland) that her husband has been acting very strange. Bennell originally dismisses the thought as marital problems. But when more people start complaining, he becomes increasingly concerned. When writer Jack Bellicec (Jeff Goldblum) and his wife Nancy (Veronica Cartwright) uncover a mutated corpse, Bennell realizes that the world has been taken over by an unseen force. Now it's up to him to beat the clock before the whole city turns into mutants.The film does have a good cast, and they all turned in solid performances. Donald Sutherland is a great actor, and he showed himself some range here. Brooke Adams made a name for herself earlier in 1978 with Days of Heaven, and she turns in another good performance. Jeff Goldblum is an amazing actor as you will see in future movies, but he is really good in one of his earlier roles in this film. One of the best performances in the film comes from the amazing Leonard Nimoy. You might know him from his iconic role as Spock in the original Star Trek television series. He is usually typecast as similar characters in his movies, but this role as Dr. David Kibner gives him something fresh, something different. He plays more of a villainous character, and it's a welcome sight.The production design adds to the horror elements. The look of the movie is creepy and sometimes downright scary. The pods where humans are transformed are wonderfully scary. When the movie shows how these humans are transformed is the ultimate prize when it comes to being scared. Any fan of horror would appreciate this.Overall, I really enjoyed the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers much to my surprise and delight. It succeeds in giving me the creeps, but in such intelligent ways. It's a thematic film touching on concepts of paranoia-which was a very popular concept considering what was going on in the world at the time. So remember if you see any pods nearby, well lets hope it is not an invisible alien making you its next prey. After all, I became a little paranoid for a few days after I saw the movie.My Grade: B+

"Well why not a space flower? Why do we always expect metal ships?"Since its publication in 1955, Jack Finney's Sci-Fi novel has been adapted many times for the big screen. The first adaptation was directed an year later by Don Siegel starring Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter. The story took place entirely in a small Alabama town where some of the locals began mysteriously behaving in strange and detached manners, but more than twenty years later Philip Kaufman decided to remake this film and relocate the story in the populated city of San Francisco instead. The circumstances were different and the underlying political themes weren't necessary so this film focused entirely on the growing sense of paranoia behind the invasion. The mystery element is gone here, because from the very first scene we witness how this strange organic life form, similar to gel spores, begins drifting from a far away planet through space until it reaches our atmosphere and is washed down by rain in San Francisco. Here the spores develop into plants with pink flowers and the people who come into contact with them begin behaving in strange ways, which is of course a result of this life form taking over the bodies. The first to notice the change is Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams) who shares her concern with co-worker, Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland), a public health inspector. She tells him that her husband has begun to act in a very mysterious manner and that he seems detached from any emotion. Matthew recommends she talk with his friend, David Kibner (Leonard Nimoy), a renown psychiatrist. When Elizabeth goes to speak with him, David mentions that other people have come up to him with similar concerns. Their fears are confirmed when Matthew's friends, Jack (Jeff Goldblum) and Nancy (Veronica Cartwright) discover a strange corpse that is being formed by the plant to duplicate one of them. By this time the invasion is in full force in the city and they must find a way to escape before it's too late. The original film was already considered to be quite good, but this remake is probably the most referred to when mentioning Finney's novel. All the other adaptations after this one haven't met the same reception. The way in which cinematographer, Michael Chapman, shot the film gave it a much more disturbing atmosphere with the skewed angles, deep compositions, and dark shadows which only adds to the bizarre qualities of the film. It is an eerie sci-fi movie with some memorable sequences (who can forget the moment that mutant dog with a human face suddenly shows up on screen?) and you never know what direction the story is going to go. Unfortunately the film is a bit outdated and the effects don't look as great. The performances are solid, but sometimes they were over sold. Invasion of the Body Snatchers wasn't as fun as I had anticipated it to be, and the pacing began to drag at times. I probably would've enjoyed this film more if I had seen it several years ago, but by now the plot is overly familiar so the suspense and the scares don't work as well. Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams play the two lead characters and they manage to engage the audience and allow us to sympathize with their cause. Adams is especially cute here and she can move her eyes like no one else. Nimoy gets a very conventional role and his character doesn't do much for the film. We've seen Goldblum play very similar roles as well and he did manage to get on my nerves during some of his freak out scenes. The cast delivers, but they were all far from being memorable. I can imagine the story freaked audiences out during the 70's and 80's, but for today's standards it isn't as effective. http://estebueno10.blogspot.com/

I've seen Phililp Kaufman's film several times over the years - but always on t.v. or video, and viewing the blue-ray, which came out a while back but which I only just got around to watching last week, I'm struck by how clever the use of lighting and colour is in the movie; subtle but highly stylised. I've always liked it a lot, while thinking Don Siegel's 1956 movie a masterpiece. But it's unfair to compare the two. They attack the story from different eras and different directions.Donald Sutherland leads an interesting cast, including Brooke Adams, Leonard Nimoy, Veronica Cartwright and Jeff Goldblum. And they tell the story very well. Nimoy is relaxed, Sutherland manages to make a public health officer cool, and Goldblum and Cartwright are agreeably cooky. Adams is also very good here, showing vulnerability without being the stereotypical horror movie female.It's the story you'll remember, though, and rightly so. Jack Finney's classic tale has stood the test of time, and with the aid of excellent effects, so has the movie. And of course that final scene remarkably manages to match Kevin McCarthy's jolt down the highway in the original. He has a great cameo in this, doing exactly the same thing, and it's fun to spot Robert Duval and Don Siegel himself.Kaufman's direction is highly unusual and highly effective -shooting one scene early on in a hallway while the scene goes on inside a room, steadily tracking in - it actually makes an exposition scene interesting.Gripping, compelling, and yes, very frightening. So rare for a remake to be this good. Perhaps only Carpenter's The Thing has matched it.