Body Snatchers series

Body Snatchers (1993)

Body Snatchers (1993)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, October 2019) I have now seen four different film versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers —1956, 1978, 1993, and 2007, and they each have the singular distinction of being worse than the previous one. I saw the now mostly forgotten 1993 version out of a sense of completion, but I can’t say I’m feeling fulfilled now that I’ve seen it. The problems start early with Body Snatchers, as a moody teenager’s voiceover opens the film with a soliloquy more at ease in an overdone coming-of-age drama than a full-blown horror movie—it’s a strong cue about the film being aimed explicitly at teenage audiences rather than tap into universal paranoia. Then the script makes a dumbfounding decision to set the story on a military base, completely undercutting the suburban (or urban) this-could-happen-anywhere anxiety that made the reputation of the earlier entries. The parallels between pod people and military rigidity isn’t as clever as the screenwriter thinks, and the result plays safely at a remove, defanging a lot of the innate terror that such a scenario should have. To be fair, there are a few things I do like about this version—director Abel Ferrara usually knows what he’s doing, and Meg Tilly is pure sexy evil here. But as for the individual components that I liked (the shrill shriek, the big-budget military hardware and explosions, the special effects depicting the pod people taking over) all seemed to have been taken from other better movies. A muddled ending that seems to rescue disaster from the jaws of victory is a further irritant. Within the context of its handicapped scope and repetitive nature, this Body Snatches does OK, but it falls far short out of the best versions of the story.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, July 2019) The premise of Invasion of the Body Snatchers has been made and remade so often (often with the serial numbers filed off, meaning that the 1956 film’s three official remakes only hint at a much wider legacy) that I expected a return to the original to be, well, a bit dull. Hadn’t I seen all of this in 1978, 1993 or 2007? But as this predecessor played, I found myself gradually taken with the sure-footed execution of director Don Siegel and even more so by its atmosphere. Setting a story of viral conformity in a small town of the mid-1950s now feels like the best of all possible choices despite how on-the-nose it feels—a then-contemporary setting now accumulates a great deal of subsequent respectability: one imagines that if nothing of the sort had been made, a later filmmaker would have done it. The execution also dovetails into the growing nightmare of realizing that your friend and neighbours are being replaced by alien doubles—as the film advances, the period black-and-white cinematography (widescreen!) becomes harsher as the night falls—while one can remain unconvinced by the framing the device, the voiceover narration and the high-contrast cinematography combine to evoke a delicious sense of late-period noir science fiction that definitely underscores the film’s origins. And there’s the thick political allegory of the story, which (fascinatingly enough) can be read as either anti-Communist, anti-McCarthyism, or both, or neither. In more timeless matters, the performances of Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter are essential to the film—their characters’ obvious love for each other tightens the screws of the conclusion (the real conclusion, not the tacked-on happy epilogue) and makes the film much stronger as well. It’s not only that Invasion of the Body Snatchers has aged well—it’s that, from the get-go, it nailed down the essentials of the story in such a way that its predecessors could not improve upon.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, June 2017) on the one hand, there isn’t much in Invasion of the Body Snatchers that hasn’t been done elsewhere. The idea of seeing neighbours becoming alien is pure paranoia fuel, and it’s exactly the kind of stuff that leads to remakes (2007’s rather dull The Invasion), uncredited rip-offs or overall spiritual successors. Still, what it does here is done well, whether it’s Donald Sutherland’s eccentric protagonist, Brooke Adams as a decoy heroine, the steadily mounting sense of tension or the various set-pieces. Plus, hey, there are minor but solid roles for Jeff Goldblum and Leonard Nimoy. Late-seventies San Francisco is worth a look no matter how long it’s been, the special effects aren’t bad (wow, that mutant dog!) and director Philip Kaufman knows what he’s doing in steadily cranking up the tension. The paranoia grows throughout the film, and perhaps the best thing about it is that its third act does not shy away from consequences or magically resolves the increasing bleakness of its plot. Frankly, Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ ending is still very effective—and is likely to remain so even as modern studio-driven movies desperately try to avoid anything that may upset audiences.

The Invasion (2007)

The Invasion (2007)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In theaters, August 2007) By now, “pod people” is such a well-known expression that any film attempting another treatment of the subject has to do better than just going through the motions in order to keep our attention. Alas, <strong class=”MovieTitle”>The Invasion</strong>, the fourth cinematic take on the Body Snatchers story since 1953 is as bland as its title: the first half hour is particularly annoying as the filmmakers seem happy to re-invent the wheel all over again, seemingly unaware that we’ve seen all of this before. Things improve slightly once the invasion properly gets underway: The film shows effective signs of post-production desperation (by inter-cutting a number of cause-and-effect scenes together, for instance), ending with a series of meaningless action scenes that work well at waking up the viewers in time for the end credits. Otherwise, well, it’s full generic mode as the film lurches from one plot point to another. Occasional projectile vomiting may be good for a laugh or two, but there’s little else to enjoy here. Even the actors seem determined to out-dull the emotionless aliens — both Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig are wasted here. Thematically, perhaps the most intriguing thing about this twenty-first century take on the basic premise is a muted wistfulness for the simplicity of the “being alien” solution. Yet that theme is better expressed in one late line (“For better of for worse, we’re human again”) than an entire scene around a dinner table. “You won’t feel a thing,” promise the aliens, “you’ll wake up as if nothing had happened.” For the viewers of <strong class=”MovieTitle”>The Invasion</strong>, that’s only too true.