Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
The seed is planted... terror grows.
Year of Release: 1978
Genre: Science Fiction/Horror
Rated: PG
Running Time: 115 minutes (1:55)
Director: Philip Kaufman
Cast:
Donald Sutherland ... Matthew Bennell
Brooke Adams ... Elizabeth Driscoll
Jeff Goldblum ... Jack Bellicec
Veronica Cartwright ... Nancy Bellicec
Leonard Nimoy ... Dr. David Kibner
Art Hindle ... Geoffrey
Kevin McCarthy ... Running Man
Don Siegel ... Taxi Driver
Robert Duvall ... Priest on Swing (uncredited)
Philip Kaufman ... City Official on Phone (voice) (uncredited)
Summary:
Under cover of darkness, while an unsuspecting city sleeps, an alien life form begins to sow the seeds of unspeakable terror.
One by one the residents of San Francisco are becoming drone-like shadows of their former selves. As the phenomenon spreads, two Department of Health workers, Matthew and Elizabeth, uncover the horrifying truth: Mysterious pods are cloning humans - and destroying the originals! The unworldly invasion grows stronger with each passing minute, hurling Matthew and Elizabeth into a desperate race to save not only their own lives, but the future of the entire human race.
Review:
Invasion of the Body Snatchers, remindin' us that tryna convince a Vulcan we're bein' infiltrated by Pleiadian pea pods is highly illogical.
And speakin' of pleas almost certain to be ignored - there're some things man is simply not meant to know, and I'd appreciate it if you people would stop immortalizin' 'em on videotape and dumpin' 'em off at the goodwill with your obsolete copies of Titanic.
I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea about my motivations, so lemme just start by sayin' that I was on an archaeological archival expedition at Lunk's Trunks of Fantastic Junk, mindin' my own business, lookin' for forgotten footage to upload to Youtube. That's all. I do not seek out America's Horniest Home Videos for my personal entertainment, and even if I did this particular tape was labeled "Motel Hell," which, while not technically inaccurate, still turned out to be pretty misleading.
To tell ya the truth I was pretty excited 'cause I thought it was gonna be an old Monstervision airing, and I was so certain of it that I invited Billy Hilliard over to share in my discovery. Unfortunately, while the tape did yield a Ballbreaker, it wasn't Beulah.
"Vuh heow am I wookin' ah?" Billy squinted, gettin' his face close enough to the TV screen to cause permanent retinal damage.
"Dunno. Somebody's home video I guess. Flick must be after this - lemme fast forward," I suggested.
"Hang on... ain' vah..." he paused, examining the picture.
"The Stop and Flop... yeah, look - there's the hole where Brenda Stahl put Kord Skogerboe's head through the drywall after she found out he'd been under the bleachers with Shirley Gimlin," I clarified.
"'ah wuv a louvy fing da do," he chided.
"So was pantsin' me in front of the girl's kickball team," I replied.
"Ugh.. dude, vah'f Trixie Willager," he gagged, suddenly realizing where the video was likely headed.
"Almost hadda be, didn't it?" I chuckled, before panicking and shuttin' off the tape.
"Whaddya doin'?" he asked, confused but not especially upset.
"Math! What was the date stamp on that? March... 1998?" I asked, tryna calculate my potential prison sentence.
"Niney-nine," he corrected.
"So she's... oh, thank cripes," I relaxed, resuming the tape.
"Who've vuh guy?" Billy pondered, tryna identify the face that always seemed to be just out of frame.
"How the hell should I know? Ask to see the visitor's log on 'er nightstand. What I wanna know is, what's she gonna do with that Reddi-wip can--" I trailed off as I got my answer.
"Oh God, why?!" Billy shrieked, coverin' his eyes.
"Well, I'll never eat pumpkin pie again," I winced, swallowin' a little vomit that'd worked its way up outta my stomach.
"Fah-forward! Fah-forward!" he begged, before turnin' green and makin' a run for the bathroom.
Ultimately, fast-forwarding wasn't the answer. Granted, it reduced the *duration* of my trauma, but the Jack Bennyness of it increased its impact by a factor of five. I could hear the dry heaving and the sound of Apollo whinin' at the bathroom door as his concern grew exponentially by the minute, but by that time I was transfixed - I had to know who this guy was and what psychiatric facility he'd been placed in following the encounter.
I continued to watch in horror, afraid that the mystery was gonna end up just one more for Robert Stack's backlog, until finally Trixie climbed off the guy and got up to collect the camera. There, for a split second, after she picked it up to shut it off, I was able to make out his face when she momentarily panned up and revealed the broken man sucking his thumb - the man was Richard Fawner.
I was stunned but managed to maintain my composure.
"Holy Jesus jumping Christmas!" I screamed.
"Iv ih over?" Billy moaned, stumbling back into the living room lookin' like a 9-year-old that'd just consumed six pounds of Halloween candy.
"It's Richard Fawner!" I hollered again, pointing at the screen hysterically.
"Don' be fupid, Richard'v gay," he insisted, sittin' down slowly, tryna avoid sudden movements.
"IS gay, yes. She musta..." I couldn't finish the thought. It was simultaneously too disturbing and hilarious to cope with, and before long I broke into a fit of horrified laughter.
"You mean fee furned 'um?" he managed, chewin' a hand fulla trail mix tryna get his nausea under control.
"Yeah! Well, maybe. Hell, I dunno. HE at least musta thought he was straight until she got ahold of 'im," I snorted, enduring another conflicting attack of sympathetic horror on Richard's behalf and boundless schadenfreude at the prospect of Trixie's wiles inadvertently draining her own dating pool.
"Fo... whadda we do?" he shrugged, scratching Apollo's ears and reassuring him that he was no longer at death's door.
"Well, first thing, we make sure no other human being ever lays eyes on THIS again," I said, ejecting the tape and pitchin' it into the wood stove.
"And ven?" he asked.
"I guess we start cuttin' Richard a little slack. I mean, that could just as easily have been one of us," I shuddered.
Billy said somethin' else but I couldn't understand most of it 'cause he was clutchin' his guts and makin' another run for the can. I'm probably not gonna tell him about the disappearing Twinkie routine he missed while he was blowin' chunks though - partly because it's the most disgusting thing I've seen since Skunky Hernandez did The Hustle on toppa the concession stand at the Grime Time, but also because I watched that part of the tape at regular speed twice and I still don't know how she did it.
Anyway, you probably don't wanna hear about that so I'll keep the graphic stuff to myself and shift gears to somethin' a little less terrifying - namely, the total annihilation of humanity by intergalactic bean sprouts. It's a shame that even more genre hits from the '50s weren't remade during that sweet spot from 1978 - 1990, 'cause each and every one that did get an update blew the original out of the water despite their having been cemented as classics for upwards of 20 years. I always hafta cover Apollo's eyes durin' the scene where the dog with the man's face starts stickin' its dog tongue outta its man-sized mouth 'cause the first time he saw it he stuffed his head down into a crease in the BarcaLounger and purt'near suffocated 'imself, but I think his reaction speaks to just how unnerving the flick is when it really decides to regurgitate cosmic horror all over your livin' room carpet.
I'm not gonna spend a lotta time toutin' the story's virtues since chances are you've seen at least one of its four iterations, so instead, let's just do a quick brush up on a few of the calamities we can expect to endure should the space squash menace select Earth as the location for its next greenhouse.
First, if outer space Caesar salads arrive and launch an interstellar sleep study we'll all be beggin' the methheads for some medicine. Second, when we've all become plant-based life forms there'll be no whistleblowers left to warn us that the Impossible Whopper is people. And third, in a world where fallin' asleep is tantamount to death - Partridge Family reruns constitute weapons of mass destruction.
The movie begins on the planet of the cock socks where some of the interplanetary prophylactics get picked up by a solar wind and blown zillions of miles through space until they decide to sit down on Earth where it's previously been established that the girls are easy. Meanwhile, in local news, Donald Sutherland is raidin' a French restaurant lookin' for health code violations and ends up findin' somethin' that dropped off a rat's tatushie floatin' around in the bouillabaisse, 'cept when he shuts down the place the manager gets P.O.'d and orders his gazpacho police to put a bottle of cold duck through Donald's windshield. Elsewhere, an amateur botanist and avid rose sniffer (Elizabeth) finds a parasitic posy latched onto the leaf of some domestic flora and takes it home to identify, only when she wakes up the next mornin' she discovers the flower missin' and her ordinarily ambition-deficient boyfriend (Geoffrey) out of bed and emptyin' the trash into a garbage truck with this look on his face like he's been watching C-SPAN for three days straight. When Geoffrey fails to leave his underwear splayed out on the bedroom floor Liz realizes something is terribly wrong, and after observing Geoffrey's clandestine transfer of oversized cabbage with other catatonic weirdos she begins to suspect that she may not be the only one fetishizing the contents of their vegetable crisper. She tells Donald about what she saw and he decides to take 'er to see a shrink, only about that time Kevin McCarthy stops 'em at a red light and warns 'em that "they" are here before bein' chased into traffic by Freedom Caucus zombies demanding to see Hunter Biden brought to justice.
Then Donald takes Liz to see Mr. Spock and Spock tells 'er that kids these days rush into pon farr before they really get to know their partners, and that she needs to lower shields and do a little mind meldin' with 'er boyfriend instead of runnin' around claimin' the guy's changed just because he lost interest following a successful probing of Uranus. Elsewhere, Jeff Goldblum is P.O.'d 'cause Spock's hoggin' the psychiatric spotlight, so he goes to Veronica Cartwright's mud hut to relax until the two of 'em find a body that's transitioning to Veganism before their eyes, but instead of goin' in search of an industrial strength Salad Shooter like they ought to, they call Donald and ask him to inspect it for botulism. Donald can't help but notice how the body looks like a Goldblum mannequin that somebody bought at RealDollar General until he freezes up like Mitch McConnell at a press conference and hauls butt over to Liz's place to rescue 'er before she ends up in a persistent vegetative state. While that's goin' on, Goldblum starts noddin' off and allows his clone to further dopple his ganglyness until Spock shows up at the last moment lookin' like the Enterprise never recovered his brain from those interstellar spuds on the planet of the bimbos, and while he's questioning Jeff and Veronica about the corpse a coupla graveyard shift garbage collectors sneak in and pitch the body into a trash compactor.
Next thing, Donald calls the cops and tries to show 'em Liz's corn husk but by the time they get over there it's gone and Spock hasta explain that Donald's just exhausted from tryna crack a counterfeit chow mein ring over in Chinatown so he won't get tossed in the drunk tank. Then Donald, Jeff, and Veronica spend the night tryna convince Spock that they're all gonna end up stir fry if they don't get a handle on this thing soon but Spock just lays on the couch lookin' like he's been inside an agony booth for a month before climbin' into a car with a buncha steamed vegetables. So now Donald figures the thing to do is call up every federal agency in the Yellow Pages until he's on more watch lists than the M*A*S*H series finale and everyone decides to crash at Donald's place where a buncha substitute creatures start sproutin' all over his patio as soon as they start fallin' asleep. He again calls the police and this time the entire SFPD, neighborhood watch, and the local chapter of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Lentils show up shriekin' like howler monkeys and start chasin' 'em all over town like they're The Beatles until Jeff and Veronica volunteer to draw 'em away and leave Donald and Liz sittin' on the dock of the bay plottin' their next move. They end up sneakin' into Donald's office where they watch as the Cabbage Patch Kids load up a buncha busses with seed pods until Spock, Jeff, and Geoffrey find 'em and explain that utopia is within reach if they'll simply embrace their inner potato.
Spock just wants everyone to live long and prosper, only he dunno about the Trucker's Choice Stay Alert Capsules Donald and Liz pounded before their capture, and when Spock tries to sedate them they fight back and Donald puts the Canadian nerve pinch on Jeff's jugular while Liz busts a bottle of Saurian Brandy over Spock's head, and just like that, they're on the loose again. Then Donald and Liz run into Veronica in the stairwell and she explains that the clones can be tricked as long as you conceal all traces of humanity and make like a repo man collecting baby cribs, but when they try to assimilate, a dog with a human face runs up and starts singin' folks songs until Liz breaks kalefabe and blows their cover. Veronica dummies up and wanders off while Donald and Liz stow away in a semi on its way to the pier where Donald gets the idea to hide inside a pallet of government peas that's headed out to sea, only by the time he comes back to get Liz she's fallen asleep, and before he can wake 'er up he finds that his figurative tomato has taken a turn for the literal. Gonna stop here before Donald goes apeshit and proves that even Canadians can only be pushed so far, but you're gonna wanna track this one down both to get an eyefulla Brooke Adams' cornfed yams, and for one of the best twist endings ever put to film from an era before that kinda thing became a staple of the genre.
Alrighty, and with that we've knocked out another of the exceedingly rare remakes that manage to better their predecessors - apparently the secret is to cast Jeff Goldblum. 'Course this iteration wouldn't be the last, as Abel Ferrara would cook up another excellent version 15 years later, and 14 years further still, Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig would continue the tradition by starring in a fourth interpretation that I have no intention of watching unless it's being screened Clockwork Orange style. I'm sometimes accused of giving a pass to remakes made in the '70s and '80s because those happen to be the decades that I consider to be among the best, but another interpretation would be to simply acknowledge that remakes from those particular decades chose the best (frequently black and white) stories upon which to improve, removed the overall stuffiness inherent in most '50s flicks, enlisted the best special effects crews available, and cranked up the fear factor to previously unseen levels to produce something the likes of which people had never seen. Additionally, the increased budget allows the filmmakers to briefly *show* the spores leaving their own planet rather than explaining how it happened with an exposition scene, eventually showing the duplication process in glorious, gooey detail previously deemed unfit for society. And it is for these reasons that many people, including prominent critics of the era, consider this '78 version to be the best of the bunch. Besides, it's the only one that's got a dog stickin' its tongue out of a human face, which is simultaneously horrifying and hilarious, so as far as I'm concerned, that's case closed right there.
Circling back to that ending though, sans spoilers, it's interesting to note that at the time of filming the only people who knew the true ending were the director, writer, and Donald Sutherland. The original ending was to feature Veronica Cartwright and Donald Sutherland meeting on the street with only a brief acknowledgment of each other so as to avoid blowing their cover. That ending was never shot out of Philip Kaufman's fear that the studio would axe his preferred ending in favor of the one that offers hope (as happened to Don Siegel when he directed the original version in 1956). And thank cripes Kaufman made the decision to cut that possibility off at the kneecaps when he had the chance, because not only is his conclusion absolutely perfect, but it also embodies the bleak theme of disillusionment that makes the '70s the honest, if decidedly grim cinematic era that it was.
One thing that remakes rarely do, however, is follow exactly the script of their forebearers, so let's pop this pod open and see how much these two peas have in common. The plot is fairly faithful to the '56 version - preferring to expand upon the mythology of the first film without deviating too far from its brilliant, thought-provoking story. It is often assumed (though perhaps not always correctly) with remakes that the audience knows what to expect going in, having seen or at least become acquainted with the original concept, and this knowledge gives the filmmakers the opportunity to trim down exposition and tighten up the flick's pacing. Kaufman seems to have politely declined this offer and exceeded the original film's running time by over half an hour, and yet you're so invested in his characters and their plight that you'd never believe the flick brushes up against the two-hour mark if you didn't glance over at the counter clock on your VCR and see it for yourself. One also can't help but notice the way so many films get eviscerated for the bad decisions its characters make - yet this movie seems to be universally liked despite Donald Sutherland taking the worst possible course of action and trusting the shadiest people imaginable at every turn. I'm not knocking the script, mind you, but the man never seems to learn from his mistakes and continues to dig the hole deeper with each passing scene - all while somehow remaining sympathetic and likable. It is, as Leonard Nimoy would say, fascinating.
The acting is phenomenal, and although Sutherland is exceptional as the pragmatic straight man perpetually one step behind the aliens, the movie simply would not work without the supporting efforts of Leonard Nimoy, Veronica Cartwright, and the increasingly manic Jeff Goldblum. Nimoy's character and the timing of his duplication make for an interesting thought experiment, and it's fun to speculate at exactly what point in the story his character was replaced by the doppelganger given that the first time we see him he's already grinnin' like a used car salesman as he tries to calm the concerns of a woman who believes her husband is not who he appears to be. Goldblum, meanwhile, carries with him the air of a brilliant man who's been skipping his medication, and his semi-chaotic persona presents both a realistic portrayal of the mental deterioration one might expect to experience under similar circumstances while simultaneously setting the viewer on edge wondering whether he's gonna be able to hold it together or inadvertently do something that leads to the group's demise.
Then there's Veronica Cartwright, who seamlessly bounces back and forth between Goldblum's calming influence and New Age whackadoo seemingly capable of speaking authoritatively on just about any topic presented by Leonard Nimoy on In Search Of (she even gives a speech about her plants having feelings and enjoying music, which was the subject of the very first In Search of episode in 1977). She's far and away the strangest of the bunch, and consequently, comes across very convincingly as the person best qualified to survive such an invasion, despite going to pieces early on. Because of these four incredible performances Brooke Adams just kinda gets left out in the cold, unable to add much in the shadow of so many other strong characters, and that's unfortunate because she's just as talented as everyone else - only she's stuck playing a character that's simply less attention-grabbing. I don't wanna ramble on too much longer for this section but I'd be remiss if I failed to mention the cameo by Kevin McCarthy, who shows up in rush hour traffic screaming much of the exact same dialogue he did in the final moments of the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers (but appearing here mid-feature as a doomsayer). Between this and Don Siegel essaying the taxi driver that carries Sutherland and Adams to the farmer's market checkpoint, I don't know if it's even possible to scorn the film for its reimagining of a science fiction classic, but Kaufman certainly did everything in his power to pay tribute to the '56 version, and the flick is that much more accessible for this consideration.
Here's who matters and why (less the more star studded members, including: Donald Sutherland, Jeff Goldblum, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Duvall, and Kevin McCarthy): Brooke Adams (The Dead Zone, The Unborn, Sometimes They Come Back, The Stuff, Shock Waves, Murders in the Rue Morgue 1971), Veronica Cartwright (The Birds, Alien, The Dark Below, The Town That Dreaded Sundown 2014, The Invasion 2007, Scary Movie 2, The Last Man on Planet Earth, Candyman 2, Mirror Mirror 2, Nightmares 1983), Art Hingle (Black Christmas 1974, The Brood, Woodland Grey, The Void, Monster Brawl, Offspring, Saint Sinner), Lelia Goldoni (The Devil Inside, The Unseen, Good Against Evil, The Spell, Theatre of Death), Stan Ritchie (Nightmare in Blood), Tom Dahlgren (What Planet Are You From?, The Deliberate Stranger), Garry Goodrow (Circuitry Man, Once Bitten, The Lost Empire, The Prey, Eating Raoul, Glen and Randa), Jerry Walter (Star Wars: A New Hope, Nightmare in Blood), Wood Moy (Howard the Duck), Joe Bellan (Bicentenial Man), Sam Hiona (Droid Gunner, Warlords 1988), Al Nalbandian (Wacko), Michael Chapman (Suspect Zero, Evolution, The Abyss, The Howling), Anthony Garibaldi (Stigmata, Vampire 1979).
And the mainstream credits: Brooke Adams (Abby in Days of Heaven), Veronica Cartwright (Jemima Boone on Daniel Boone), Art Hingle (Ted Jarvis in Porky's 1 & 2).
The special effects, for their time, are stellar - though a few have begun to show their age some 45 years later. Still, this is an area where the case for remaking the film can be strongly argued, as advances in special effects makeup and creature creation had taken huge strides forward in the twenty years since the original film graced theaters. Here we get a much gooier view of the transformation process from start to finish, and what it may occasionally lack in its representation of a rapidly developing human body, it more than makes up for in its unsettling nastiness. Roughly halfway through the flick we get to see the duplication halted midway when the intended target wakes up, and the results come across as a surprisingly authentic rendering of what you'd imagine an organism that began its life as a plant gradually transforming into flesh to look like. The start-to-almost-finish effects are less impressive, though that's not surprising given that those creations had to be made from scratch step-by-step (the earlier effect was made by adding appliances to a man) and regardless of whether or not you buy them as living creatures they're still incredibly repulsive.
The leftover husks that dissolve into dust are a little cheesy as well, but at the time there's no question that they would have achieved the desired effect on people in the audience, watching in terror as the last vestiges of what was once human shrivel into an empty shell before collapsing into nothing. Of less significance are the unconvincing flower petals on the plants that disgorge the clones, the spiffy space protoplasm that attaches itself to the native flora, the much-improved seed pods, the excellent opening sequence that sees the spores swept from their home planet, and, of course, the ridiculous, yet highly disturbing dog with human face. In short - phenomenal for their time, but beginning to lose ground as the years go on.
The shooting locations capture the big city atmosphere essential to the success of any outbreak-style film dependent upon a large population packed into a small space, and although I prefer the gritty, cinematic filth that was New York City during this period, I think the movie works a little better if the setting isn't already in the advanced stages of urban decay. Shooting took place entirely in San Francisco and includes scenes filmed at the United Nations Plaza, the San Francisco Health Department, Alamo Square, Golden Gate Park, Union Square, and the Transamerica Pyramid - giving it a strong regional flavor despite the fact that the majority of the movie takes place indoors. The residences honestly don't do much for the flick, but the low-rent mudbath spa is something you don't see too often, and the various hotel lobbies and clubs Brooke Adams passes through while stalking Art Hingle as he conducts extraterrestrial vegetal business provide a lot of variety that further establishes the grandeur of San Francisco and the concern that, in so large a place, bizarre things such as this may well be able to fly under the radar.
The soundtrack opens with a deliberately dated brass/string composition that pays homage to the story's 1950s origin before shifting to a more contemporary sound that includes ominous, tinkly piano pieces, soft jazz, nervous horns, and some of the most nerve-wracking string music this side of Psycho. It definitely has moments where it comes across as dated, but on the whole, the score holds up admirably with its use of odd sound effects (including some very effective bits that utilize a sonogram), as well as what is alleged to be the first usage of the Prophet 10 synthesizer for any film soundtrack. The bagpipers playing Amazing Grace as Donald Sutherland walks the shipyard planning his next move feels tonally out of place despite the implication that he seems to shift from a state of hopelessness to the possibility of having found salvation via sea liner, but for the most part, the flick features a very effective soundtrack and one that's probably among the top ten for 1970s science fiction/horror movies.
Overall, you'll do no better than the '78 version of this story, and though the effects may be showing their age, everything else is as solid as the day it hit theaters nearly a half-century ago. Its balancing of the science fiction and horror genres is nearly flawless, the characters are distinct and likable, and the way the story is allowed to develop naturally somehow manages to ratchet up the ever-increasing sense of paranoia and claustrophobia despite the flick being set in one of the nation's most populous cities. One of the best remakes of all time, and a perfect title for anyone looking to expand their horizons from science fiction to horror or vice versa. Call in sick and check it out.
Rating: 87%