Overrated

Great Film overall

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Don Siegel's '50s sci-fi classic gets the '70s remake treatment, with Donald Sutherland starring as Matthew, a San Francisco health department inspector whose close friend Elizabeth (Brooke Adams) believes that her boyfriend Geoffrey (Art Hindle) has somehow been replaced by a duplicate devoid of emotion, and that others in the city are also not what they seem to be. Although sceptical at first, Matthew is convinced after he is called to examine a partially formed clone of his friend Jack Bellicec (Jeff Goldblum). As more and more people are replaced by unfeeling doppelgangers, Matthew and his pals correctly surmise that the planet is under attack by aliens.Invasion of the Bodysnatchers is a lesson in how to do a remake properly: the film takes the basic premise of the original, but smart changes here and there keep things fresh and interesting (the most notable being the switch of location from a sleepy town to a major city). The result is a creepy, ominous and occasionally freaky film (the dog with the human head has haunted me for years) that is hugely enjoyable, even for those who are very familiar with the original. The movie also benefits from a terrific cast (Leonard Nimoy, as psychiatrist Dr. David Kibner, proves that there is more to him than a pair of pointy ears, and Veronica Cartwright is excellent as Jack's wife Nancy), an unusual but effective score, great special effects (courtesy of Tom Burman), and a well-developed sense of unease that really helps to crank up the tension.

When the first "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" culminated with the image of Kevin McCarthy frantically alerting passing drivers that 'they' were coming', and the camera zoomed on his face with his fourth-wall breaking "You're Next!", I wished it was the point the film could fade out, it couldn't get any better or iconic than that. But the film was told in narration and we had to get back where we started and get a rather flat and uninspired happy ending. Don Siegel didn't intend to make a political allegory but wished it could end on that apocalyptic note, studio politics interfered. Those were the 50's... and thankfully, not the 70's. So when I started the 1978 remake by Philip Kaufman, I knew similar mistakes wouldn't be made. What also enhanced my expectations is that I recently saw the two versions of "The Thing" and I thought John Carpenter transcended the low-budget B-movie feel of the original and made a moviein a league of its own. 1956 "Body Snatchers" was far superior to "The Thing" and the material even more promising because in the post-"Star Wars" era, the visual and sound effects had reached unprecedented levels of efficiency. Just like Carpenter or later Cronenberg, Kaufman didn't 'retell' as much as he enriched a story, amplified it.And it was the smartest move. Kaufman didn't ignore that viewers were familiar with the original concept: a small town, odd behavior, pod people spreading all over the territory. So the 'surprise' effect wasn't the priority, we knew what it is all about. But Kaufman doesn't care for the "what" but rather the "how". The opening credits, with the patience and meticulousness of a gardener, shows us the whole 'invasion', the way gelatinous alien creatures leave a planet at the verge of destruction to land on Earth, literally to be dropped on vegetation so that mysterious flowers with tentacle-like tendrils cover tree leaves. This is not only a triumph of special effects but a foreshadowing of the scenes that will show, step by step, and in growingly macabre detail the whole assimilation process. And then one of the flowers is picked up by health inspector Elizabeth (Brooke Adams) and the first to be affected is her husband. One day, he's cheerful, flirtatious, funny and cares about sports, the day after, he's dressed formally and doesn't let any emotion slip. We're confronted to the dramatic shift of personality, having a foretaste to these deceptive moments where characters we got used to got infected. Siegel told then showed, Kaufman shows then tells.One method isn't better than the other, each one fits the format of its respective film. The original starts with a mystery that can fit a small town, but San Francisco in the late 70's isn't obviously the likeliest place to spot these changes on a high scale... unless they escalate quickly. So, being more ambitious in terms of thrills and special effects, Kaufman had to get right to the point and once the suspicion is arised and Elizabeth's colleague and former boyfriend Matthew (Donald Sutherland) starts his investigation, the story picks up.And we get the cameo of Kevin McCarthy reprising his trademark role, warning drivers that they're still here. What happens to the man and the emotionless reaction of the onlookers leave no doubt that we're already in a critical situation and the countdown has started. There is just enough time to be introduced to the couple of friends played by Jeff Goldblum and Veronica Cartwright and Leonard Nimoy steals the show as the cheerful doctor ending all Mr. Spock at the end. And being aware that we expect new stuff, once the film gets too close to the original, Kaufman gets showy again in the "how" department. There is a moment that is too great for words, resembling that long close-up in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", Matthew is sitting in the garden and slowly falls into sleep, his eyes keep open for such a while I thought the image was paused, and then he closes his eyes, and what we have is one magnificently repulsive creation or procreation moment, even more effective than "The Thing". Stop motion animation can be effective for practical effects involving quick and fast movements, but here we deal with vegetal livings and plants, their movements are smooth and slow and when a plant deflowered, the image was so disturbingly sexual I wasn't surprised by what came from it.The film features many moments like this that are both disgusting and scary yet visually hypnotic, one of the creatures start growing and moaning and then you realize it had a frizzy crop of hair, you've got to wonder if Sutherland's curly hair style wasn't chosen for that scene only. Kaufman gives the story a visual and scary edge, accentuating the level of horror and terror while the original was more in the realm of science fiction. And there's always this kinship with Carpenter's "Thing" in the way the horror is amplified, take that awful shrill sound whenever the pod people spots a human and point their fingers at him, just like pigs being slaughtered, take these awful jump scares involving dead, unfinished or "finished" bodies, hell, just take the ending. Of course, ending on a good mood would have been a bad move and Kaufman knew it. Personally, when I saw Mccarthy reprising his role, I knew Kaufman would be foolish to end with the same image with Sutherland, because it was too predictable and one tribute was enough, but gosh, I didn't expect it to end in such a horrific way. And when the most horrific part of a horror film is the end and it doesn't seem contrived or gratuitous, you know you've just had experienced high-art cinema. This is perhaps one of the greatest remakes ever because for all its replications, it had found an originality of its own.

I watched this a few days after I saw the original, since it's this one I've heard the most praise for. I'm conflicted in how I watch horror movies compared to other movies, because people who love horror movies almost indiscriminately look for other qualities in horror movies than in other types of genres. I'm in a little bit of both, I look for quality in several things, but there are some things I forgive more in horror movies than I normally would. This review will also compare it to the original quite much since it's so fresh in memory, but I'll try to avoid doing it too much.I found this one better than the original. It has some flaws itself, going to get into that, but it has some moments that I found more genuinely chilling.Like the first one, this didn't scare me (I'm 23 as I write this), as in it's not going to make it hard to sleep. But I don't really look for it to scare me, but to catch my interest, it doesn't have to be scary, just intriguing. And this movie has many really intriguing moments.I still like the special effects, even more in this than the original (naturally, better resources in the 70's than the 50's). The body they find in this version is way more convincing and unsettling than in the original (where it looks like more or less a normal person, without any close-ups). The pods are even nastier and the bodies coming out are even creepier.Though I have to already here file a complaint that this movie does wrong like the first one: there seems to be few stated "rules" for how the bodies work. The first we see are motionless, doesn't breathe or make any sounds (except one time where it opens its eyes, then closes them again). The same with the second, although the second body has plants surrounding it. Now the third time we see them, they come out of the pods, and the move A LOT and makes a lot of noise. Plus they develop super fast it seems. It's probably for a scare effect (it works, though, it's super creepy) but the movie seems to forget the rules it has set for the bodies so far.Most of the actors are really good, like Sutherland, and Adams. Even Jeff Goldblum is quite fun to watch with his odd personality. I also do get a good sense of the friendship between Sutherland's character and Adams's character. They smile and laugh together with a kind of chemistry I don't often see in these kinds of movies. There's also a great warmth in Sutherland's way of just being.This film is also very, very dark, and I'm not talking about the theme now, I'm talking light. I think it's both good and sometimes not-so-good. Sometimes I can barely see what's going on, other times, it works perfectly.One thing, like in the first one, people seem to very quickly come to the conclusion that "my husband/uncle aren't my husband/uncle". There is some more hints of them not necessarily meaning it literally in this version, without any big changes in the script, but how they say it. They seem to think something's wrong instead of just concluding that yep, they're impostors. But it's very quickly thrown into the movie. It's forgivable I guess, since it's a horror movie and the audience wants the suspense, not deep three dimensional characters pondering about what is happening.Another thing, going back to the "rules" of how the pods and new bodies work, there's the scene with Elisabeth turning. She falls asleep at last from exhaustion, then seems to turn into a crumbled human shell (a thing we haven't seen before now). Then out of nowhere, the new Elisabeth pops up, naked, behind Matthew. Where was the pod she came from? How did it happen so quickly? It happens in a kind of weird way that doesn't seem too well thought through. Sorry, but just bad decisions, I was hoping that the director would come up with a better solution, but it was just as lazy as in the original.I have to say, though, I really like the shrieks, it makes the body snatchers seem more alien than they look like. It's a chilling sound, and there are some shrieks really early in the movie even before one is really introduced to the concept of them shrieking to draw attention to humans. And really, the very ending of this movie the best part of the whole movie, because even though I already knew about the ending, I was really looking forward to seeing it, and I still felt a little shiver.The movie has several flaws, but it's very much worth a watch if you like sci-fi, horror, alien movies or just like movies from the 70's, where both many great films and plenty of awful movies also were made. But there are few decades that escapes having made bad movies of course.

"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/