Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

The 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a perennial classic that absolutely terrified me as a child and still holds up after nearly 30 years and is one of the best and rare examples where a remake actually surpasses the original ala John Carpenter's The Thing. Director Philip Kaufman crafts a suspenseful science-fiction masterpiece about the dehumanization of humanity by investing in the personalities of very emotional human characters that break the mold of two-dimensional cookie-cutter stereotypes. Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams have a genuine chemistry with great supporting roles by Jeff Goldblum and Veronica Cartwright. Adding to the eerie atmosphere we also get a very creepy and surreal performance by Leonard Nimoy as a pseudo-intellectual psychologist that will completely alter your perception of Mr. Spock forever.

I had the pleasure of watching this film again late at night after an exhausting day of work which is the perfect state of mind to be in. Struggling to keep myself from nodding off I could relate even better to the characters and their conflict by forcing myself to stay awake, not because the film is dull or boring, heavens no, but because as a child I believed, however irrational it may seem, that if I fell asleep watching this film that I too would be transformed and replaced by a pod. Funny how the innocent superstitions of childhood can resonate in our subconscious after so many years.

The new 2-disc collectors edition DVD is definitely worth replacing the old one if you own it, which seems almost like an analogy of the film itself which is finally presented in anamorphic widescreen with Dolby digital sound and director commentary by Philip Kaufman if you really want to test your insomnia. The second disc contains some nice featurettes like "Re-visitors From Outer Space, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Pod" featuring new interviews with Donald Sutherland, Veronica Cartwright, Phillip Kaufman and screenwriter W.D. Richter who reflect on the lasting appeal of the film and provide some interesting anecdotes about making the film. "Practical Magic: The Special Effects Pod" goes into the the organic photography of the alien spores and "The Man Behind the Scream: The Sound Effects of the Pod" features Lucasfilm's sound guru Ben Burtt who designed and mixed the sound effects after completing Star Wars to create the film's unforgettable and disturbing sound design. "The Invasion Will Be Televised: The Cinematography of the Pod" also goes into the production design and chiaroscuro lighting used to compose the forboding look and mood through light and shadow to invoke dramatic Hitchcockian suspense, and lastly the original theatrical trailer is included as well. There's more than enough material here to keep you awake for hours but should you find yourself feeling a bit tired just remember one thing; no matter what happens... DON'T FALL ASLEEP!

The best of three very good big screen adaptations of Jack Finney's classic sci-fi novel is the closest thing to a filmed nightmare you're likely ever to see.

This entire picture is a horror masterpiece. Director Philip Kaufman puts together a hell of a movie, colorful, claustrophobic and atmospheric. Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams head-up a stellar cast, including Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright, Leonard Nimoy, and even Robert Duvall in an early blink-and-you've-missed-him cameo. Kevin McCarthy reprises, more or less, his role from the original 1956 film, initiating Sutherland and Adams on a nightmare ride of alien invasion that escalates to apocalyptic proportion.

There's not a thing wrong with this movie. Denny Zeitlin's eerie, atonal electronic score highlights the often very unsettling visuals, which include disintegrating people, fibrously materializing doppelgangers, and a dog with a human face. The script is flawless, succeeding like Finney's novel and the original movie by presenting us with recognizable people facing an impossible reality, updated for modern times. The actors underplay the tense melodrama, making it all the more dramatic when they're ultimately driven to screaming madness.

I can't recommend this movie highly enough. If you're a horror or science-fiction fan, or simply love a wonderfully performed, tensely scripted melodrama, this movie is for you.

Warning: this film is very, very disturbing, at times. You might want to keep it on the upper shelf.

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"Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is one of the earliest science fiction films I remember seeing. A superior remake of the 1956 original, it's both chilling and funny.

In San Francisco, people are beginning to "change". They seem to lack feeling. This is because they are not human, they are replicas, grown from seeds that came to Earth from space. Donald Sutherland plays a health inspector. His friend and co-worker (Brooke Adams) tells him that her husband seems different. Over time more and more people are becoming unlike themselves. It feels like some sort of conspiracy is afoot. Sure enough, an alien invasion is slowly unfolding.

This film is about four people's fight to preserve their humanity. The basic message is, if you are not an individual, your own person, you are virtually dead. Love, hate, fear, and anger are what colour our lives.

There are certain things in the film that suggest dark humour. Whenever you see the rubbish truck, you know another person has been "replaced". If you listen carefully, you sometimes hear that alien shriek among the everyday noises of traffic and city crowds. Kevin McCarthy, who starred in the 1956 version, has a cameo, again trying to warn people what is happening (to no avail). The film's ending is completely unexpected.

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We all know the story, so there's no point in my discussing that here. As a movie, this version stands as positive proof that some remakes are just as good as -and sometimes better than -the original. Leaving behind the small-town setting of the earlier B&W version from the 1950s, the locale is changed to a large city, San Francisco. Some interesting changes were made that lent it a hipper feel, and, of course, the acting style is completely different: the dialogue all sounds so much more natural. For enhanced chills, more of the transition from human to pod-person is revealed, accompanied with an eerie sound of a heartbeat and swooshing circulation. It's a good movie, preserving what was best in the original and making some creepy alterations. So those of us who owned the DVD of this version were very disappointed when we played it on our BD players. Expecting at least a half-decent upconversion, we found instead that the picture was a wriggling mess. Even worse, the picture was shrunken down to a letterbox presentation. I found it unwatchable, so this movie needed a BD upgrade in a big way.

The simple report is, the BD image is patently superior to the DVD edition. After making a comparison, I saw that some minor image cleanup has taken place, removing flecks from aging. If any DNR went into it, it wasn't done to the extreme of sacrificing details. It also appears as if little or no sharpening was applied, which is a good thing: sometimes these older movies can become a mess once every defect from age is brought into bold relief. The color palette has remained natural, fitting for its noirish intent. However, taken in total, the improvements don't really POP OUT at you, like they often do when you first see the Blu-ray of a favorite movie. At times, a soft, fine, snow-like noise is visible in some dimly lit scenes, but it's not consistently so, and I found it negligible in any case. In all, the end product is just sufficient enough to make it worth the purchase, if only because the DVD edition is so horrendous.

So while it's definitely sharper than the DVD, it wouldn't be worth the PREMIUM price you see for other BDs, that have gone through frame-by-frame restorations. It is, however, easily worth the $10 or so you can get it for here. If you like this film, you might as well jump at it, as I don't think it'll get any better than this.

For extras, there are these featurettes: "Re-visitors from Outer Space, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Pod," about sixteen minutes, with a few words from the producer and director, with a few of the cast members pitching in; "Practical Magic: The Special Effects Pod," about five minutes long, explaining the special effects; "The Man Behind the Scream: The Sound Effects Pod," describing the sound design, about thirteen minutes long; "The Invasion Will Be Televised: The Cinematography Pod," about six minutes long, about the dark camera work. There's also the original theatrical trailer. The soundtrack comes in stereo or 5.1.

There is one very puzzling failure: The commentary track by director Philip Kaufman was not ported over to the BD. For that, you'll have to play the second two-sided DVD (SD widescreen on one side, fullscreen on the other). That's where you'll find the commentary. Why didn't they put it on the BD? Go figure. It shows me that the manufacturer saw this merely as a quick fix to the awful DVD. It's a sufficient, but minimal, effort.

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One of the creepiest movies I've ever seen. Instead of the humanoid-appearing aliens so typical in most sci-fi films THIS movie goes in the other direction by portraying the aliens as seemingly harmless plants, which adds a rather terrifying irony to the proceedings. What these plants do once near a sleeping person (or animal) has to be seen to be appreciated because the special effects here are unsettlingly real.

All of the actors do a splendid job in portraying their characters, from the quirky and nuerotic Jeff Goldblum to the intuitive and resilient Veronica Cartwright. The stolid but slightly off-beat Donald Sutherland, to the emotionally suspicious Brooke Adams. All are terrific here!

Another thing that makes this movie so suspenseful is the masterful use of paranoia, which starts on a low simmer, building gradually, till by the movie's end everything is turned up to a heart-pounding, raging boil. All along the way you're virtually on the edge of your seat.

So the next time you're out walking and find a rather strange looking plant growing amongst the shrubbery, think twice before bringing it in your home.

But why worry, it's only a plant right???

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