Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978): MGM/ United Artists
Rating: USA: PG/ UK: 15/ Australia: M

This review is part of a "write-off" between myself and my esteemed colleague ZentropaJK. We’ve both written reviews of Phil Kaufman’s 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, so be sure to check out his review if you haven’t already.

Lots of films scared me as a child, but few more than Philip Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (in fact, the only one that I can think of that scared me more is Spielberg’s Jaws—a film that I still adore to this day). So, when ZentropaJK asked me if I wanted to do a write-off style review with him discussing the film, I was all for it. I hadn’t seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers since I was a child, and I was eager to see if it would hold up to an adult re-viewing…and I’m happy to tell you that it did.

Based on Jack Finney’s novel, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a feature film length study of the power of paranoia. It’s often conveniently mislabeled as a science fiction film, but to be honest, it’s really more of a horror flick with some very pointed social commentary concerning just what it means to be human. It’s also often referred to as a remake of Don Siegel’s 1956 version—which it is, but only in spirit. Truth be told, the 1978 version plays more as a continuation of the original film—expanding on the ideas first formed in the novel and original film—than an actual retelling.

Donald Sutherland is Matthew Bennell, a health inspector in San Francisco. When co-worker Elizabeth (Brooke Adams: The Dead Zone) notices that her live-in boyfriend is acting weird, she and Bennell begin to investigate. It seems that there are a lot of people acting different than they normally do, and when friends Jack (Jeff Goldblum: Mr. Frost, Jurassic Park) and Nancy (Veronica Cartwright: Alien, The Witches of Eastwick) find a weird, half-formed body in their health spa, Bennell begins to suspect that something otherworldly is afoot.

Bennell and crew turn to Dr. David Kibner (Leonard Nimoy: Star Trek), a new age psychiatrist, to help them figure out what’s going on. Kibner believes them, but seems somehow off. Eventually, Bennell, Elizabeth, Jack, and Nancy are on the run—as everyone around them has been turned into a pod person. Can these four survivors thwart an alien invasion? The answer may surprise you.

Director Philip Kaufman (The Right Stuff) does a magnificent job of creating an atmosphere of extreme paranoia. While the film bears something of a resemblance to Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, Invasion is slightly more effective—mainly because there’s no way to tell who’s a pod person and who isn’t. Honestly, the film has a lot more in common with John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing—another movie that jacked the paranoia level up to a fever pitch. However, Kaufman’s got a much broader canvas to work on than Carpenter—Carpenter’s film had a small cast trapped in an isolated Antarctic research station. Kaufman’s got the entire city of San Francisco at his disposal—which he uses to maximum effect. This allows the alien conspiracy to infiltrate every level of the human power structure…making those we turn to for help into the enemy in the process.

Still, Kaufman’s best trick is the way he manages to take everyone and everything in the film and make it look extremely menacing—even if it isn’t. Weird pans, camera angles, and the performances from the actors create tension in even the most mundane of situations and scenes. This causes the audience to become as paranoid as the cast—reading into every facial expression, every action. Kaufman keeps the paranoia amped up to the maximum level for much of the film’s nearly two hour running time—making viewing the movie an exhausting, but intriguing experience.

Another of the film’s strengths is the performance of the cast. Sutherland, who’s always a delight to watch (has the man ever given a bad performance?), really shines here. He’s an everyman, one that the audience can almost immediately identify with and pull for. Adams and Cartwright are pleasing as the female characters—Adams is fairly stronger than most of the female leads in these kinds of films and Cartwright is one heck of a screamer. Jeff Goldblum is his usual twitchy, quirky self, causing the audience to constantly wonder if he’s one of us…or one of them. Much of the same thing can be said about Nimoy’s performance—it’s quite a turn for a guy who’s still recognized as Spock, the noble Vulcan of Star Trek fame. Astute viewers should catch cameos from director Don Siegel (who helmed the original and appears here as a cab driver), Kevin McCarthy (who was the star of the original and turns up here as man running through the streets warning everyone of the alien menace), and Robert Duvall as well.

The film’s most intriguing angle is the social commentary. Siegel’s film was little more than a thinly veiled attack on McCarthy-isms hunt for the commies lurking amongst us. Kaufman updates that here, instead choosing to wage an all out assault on the "feel good 70’s"—particularly the pop psychology field. That the point man for the alien attack is none other than a new age style guru seems to speak volumes (and in a way, is strangely reminiscent of Cronenberg’s film The Brood). Kaufman’s film dares to say that the idea of utopia, a world where strife, anger, and even love, are no longer necessary isn’t worth trading our humanity for—even if we could vaguely recall what it meant to be human.

The pods, and the means by which they create new versions of sleeping people, are also somewhat Cronenbergian as well. While Cronenberg’s films often return to themes dealing with bodily betrayal from within, Kaufman’s movie shows us the same idea—only from an external source. Still, the pods themselves extend runners that burrow beneath the sleeping victim’s flesh in order to make a precise clone of the human—something that could be construed as a betrayal from within, especially when one considers that the human is then crushed like an empty husk once the replication process is complete. Of course, this isn’t to insinuate that Kaufman borrowed from Cronenberg, or vice versa—I only add this to demonstrate that the two filmmakers are tilling the same very fertile ground.

The FX work here is fairly minimal, but what is here is impressive. The early scene wherein we see the spore alight on a leaf and grow before our eyes is disturbing. If this thing can grow and replicate that quickly, what chance does mankind have of ever defeating it? Equally gruesome is the scene where Bennell falls asleep in the backyard and a nearby pod ‘births’ several clones of the apartment’s denizens. Bennell then destroys the one of himself with a spade—crushing the head in a particularly disgusting fashion.

Finally, the film boasts an impressive score (provided by Denny Zeitlin). The music is jangling and discordant in a lot of places, fitting perfectly with the slightly off kilter visuals. Add in the several instances where we’re treated to a sped up heartbeat, a phone’s busy signal, and other repetitive and bothersome background noise and you find a film score that perfectly accentuates the mood created by the movie’s visuals.

Yet, while Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a great movie overall, it does have at least two flaws. Running very close to two hours in length, the film drags a bit in several spots. It’s nothing too major, but while watching the movie, you often get the impression that some scenes could have been shortened (or even in one or two instances, dropped entirely) in order to create a leaner, faster moving film.

The other problem revolves around the pods/alien invaders themselves. These creatures (who’ve come from a dying planet, carried on the solar winds, adapting to whatever worlds they land on) are so evolved that they’re unbeatable. Now, I like a downbeat ending (probably a lot more than the average filmgoer) but it’s readily apparent from the very early stages of this film that mankind doesn’t have a chance against this threat. In and of itself, I could probably live with that—provided that our heroes actually came up with some kind of plan to try and thwart the pods. However, Bennell and his cohorts are so overmatched that the best they can manage is the destruction of a pod growing factory—which even they realize will never stop the invasion. Of course, this does set up the film’s final shot—which is a fantastic scene—I just hope that mankind would make a more concerted effort to defend itself if a situation like this ever really arose.

Those few faults aside, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a great film—probably even something of a classic. The performances, the direction, the story, the music, and the FX work all come together to create a film that manages to be more than the sum of its parts. Its social commentary is never subtle, but Kaufman doesn’t waylay us with it either (as so many other sci-fi directors are wont to do). There’s something intrinsically terrifying about the idea of losing ourselves while someone masquerades around in our skin (or having the same thing happen to those we love) and this film manages to tap into that in a big way. If you’ve never seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers, then allow me to recommend it to you—it’s a science fiction/horror flick that more than delivers the goods.





Recommended: Yes