Customer Reviews

Invasion of the Body Snatchers [VHS]

5 star:		(60)
4 star:		(42)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

"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.

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.
________________________________________

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???

Made at the height of communist fears and McCarthyism, the original version of Invasion was a film dictated by its time. Many critics see it as a metaphor for A)the effect of communism or B)a metaphor for McCarthyism. Both the original author Jack Finney and director of the first film Don Siegel denied this. For Finney it was an entertainment an example of the paranoid world we live in. For Siegel it was much more complex. It was a metaphor for the urbanization and denial of our humanity in an age of reason and logic. Both are rich interpretations and luckily neither one effects the marvelous entertainment value of the original film.

Phil Kaufman's update (it's not really a remake as little remains of Finney's novel beyond the concept and only the bare bones outline of Siegel's film)deals with the same theme of Siegel's film; it's about the dehumanizing aspect of the urban world we live in. Kaufman, though, daringly set in in the heart of the urban myth on the West Coast--San Francisco.

Donald Sutherland plays Matthew Bennel a public health inspector. He's got varied and interesting friends including one of his co-workers Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams). She comes to Bennel complaining that her husband isn't himself. He's uncommunicative, emotionless and won't really talk to her. She suspects her husband is having an affair and follows him. She discovers he's exchanging these odd looking packages with people they don't know. Bennel suggests that she speak with a pop psychologist he's friends with and that he might have a rational explaination. Dr. David Kibner's (Leonard Nimoy)suggestion is more down to earth. He's seen this a lot lately and compares it to a virus--but a psychological one. He suggests that she's just lost touch with him and that she needs to reach out to get him more involved.

Bennel's writer/poet friend Jack Belicec (a very young Jeff Goldblum)believes Kibner's explaination and his book are garbage. His supportive (quite literally as she earns the money with her mudbath salon)wife Nancy (Veronica Cartwright)believes Jack's a little jealous and that Kibner might be on to something. Until Nancy discovers a body in her salon. It resembles--vaguely--Jack who had fallen asleep in the salon. They call Bennel as they're afraid it might be the body of a customer with some sort of communicable disease (the metaphor at the cusp of the AIDS epidemic captures the pulse of San Francisco during this time). From there, stranger things begin to happen particularly when another friend appears to be in the process of being "duplicated".

Kaufman's film holds up very well. While not as important as Siegel's ground breaking film (Siegel has a cameo with original star Kevin McCarthy and Robert Duvall as a priest at the beginning), it is a valid and very good reinterpretation of the original classic film. Kaufman makes San Francisco claustrophobic and threatening. The brooding cinematography adds to the sense of menace as does the interesting at times atonal score. W. D. Richter's (Buckaroo Banzai, Big Trouble in Little China) screenplay plays with many of the elements of the original film and has a number of set pieces every bit the equal of the original film.

All the actors give strong performances. Nimoy in particularly plays off his well known character of Mr. Spock in the early scenes with his touchy-feely pop psychology. Sutherland and Adams have considerable chemistry. Interesting note is that Sutherland did many of his less physical stunts. Kaufman was game but Sutherland's assistant told Kaufman he had the "clumsiest man alive" running around twenty feet off the ground and implied he was inviting disaster.

The DVD transfer is good. It's a bit dark but the colors are fairly true to the original prints I've seen. The print is also quite good although there are quite a few analog artifacts that crop up throughout the film. Still, it isn't distracting. The stereo soundtrack sounds surprisingly good given the age of the film. It is a tad bit compressed.

The extras include a running commentary by Phil Kaufman and trailers. There's also a nice booklet with inside information and trivia included. The film is included in both pan & scan format and widescreen on a dual sided disc (not surprising given the year it was first manufactured --1998). It's a nice package altogether.

While Invasion lacks the surprise of the first film, Kaufman knows enough to play with audience expectations and familarity with the original film from the beginning. This is to his advantage. He also manages to include a considerable amount of social satire (something common in many of his films). While his direction isn't quite as self assured as it would be when he made The Right Stuff, he manages to keep the action moving and inspire intelligent performances from his ensemble cast.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a remake of the 1950's classic by the same name, is as much thriller as it is a science fiction film. Filmed in the 1980's, the movie stars solid male leads, Donald Sutherland, Jeff Goldblum, and Leonard Nimoy. Nimoy is especially good as a pop psychiatrist. Female leads, Brooke Adams and Veronica Cartwight, are lesser known actresses, but hold their own against the men. (Cartwright, by the way, still has one of the best screams in filmland (see "Alien".)

Unless YOU just landed in a pod from outer space, the plot of the film is pretty well known. Alien pods land on Earth and begin to take over human life by assimilating them while they sleep. In this film, San Franciscans are slowly being replaced by the aliens who continue to look and act like humans up to a certain point. The main personality difference is that the aliens are devoid of emotions thus making this the only way you can tell them apart from unaffected humans.

As our aforementioned protagionists begin to see that friends and family around them are "different", they begin to unravel the mystery and start running for their lives. Their "flight" is what drives the last third of the movie. I will stop at this point in order not to give away the remaining portion of the plot for those unfamiliar with either version of the film. Suffice it to say though, the paranoia and suspense builds throughout the movie making it a memorable experience.

RECOMMENDED to all lovers of Science Fiction films.

Philip Kaufmann's 1978 sci-fi/horror masterpiece "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" creates a sense of paranoia as effectively as ingesting a bad dose of LSD while being pursued by the local police, the Army, and Homeland Security.

Donald Sutherland plays Matthew Bennell, a local health inspector with a happy life in San Francisco who first appears admonishing a restaurant owner for trying to disguise rat feces in his customer's spaghetti as chocolate. "It isn't chocolate", Sutherland says as the camera closes on his huge nose: "It's a rat turd!" This otherwise humorous introduction is a fitting introduction for the film's content and underlying message: that somewhere, even in the calmest and most placid of situations, there is something very wrong.

Brooke Adams, a fellow scientist who works at Bennell's lab, begins to notice that her boyfriend is behaving very strangely. Once an average guy who enjoyed baseball and worked hard, he becomes numb and emotionless in his actions. Wondering if this is some kind of problem in her relationship, she makes the mistake of consulting Dr. David Hicks, the classic late 70's Freudian, self assured, Transcendental Meditation goofball. Kaufmann is obviously having fun ridiculing the post-1960's cultural debris: even the veiny, disgusting pink flowers that are slowly growing in the gardens of every SF resident suggests a rejection of the naivete of "Flower Power". Well here it is, Kaufman seems to be saying, and it can be used any way the establishment wants.

The Pod People, according to the logical Dr. Hicks, come from a dying planet and want to survive; they wait for human beings to fall asleep, and then create an exact double which eradicates memory and personality entirely. There are such repulsive, I-want-to-throw-up moments in this movie that I'm surprised it was rated PG-13. When Sutherland's Bennell is forced axe and torch his Pod duplicate, the special effects are so realistic as to make one churn. The streets of the city become gigantic Pod Production areas: people mechanically carrying what look like gigantic watermelons. The atmosphere of panic and terror (there is no real chance of Bennell, Adam's character, Jeff Goldblum's pretentious but noble poet actually escaping) grows to such a pitch that within half an hour it's pretty obvious what is going to happen. Perhaps the most chilling scene is when Bennell calls 911 to inform them of what is happening. The response on the other line is: "Stay right there, Mr. Bennell." They know exactly who he is and exactly where he is.

The ending of this movie is perfect, though I won't reveal it. This is chock full of surprises, gross-outs, and in it's own way serves as a sort of warning sign for what happens when we stop paying attention to controlling factors around us. A must see.

People keep asking me, is this movie worth the double dip?? My reply is YES!!!! I have been waiting for months to receive my copy of this rerelease Collectors Edition and it was worth the wait.

The story needs no recap, everyone in the world should know the story by now. However the special effects are awesome (that man/dog hybrid still works today and the space flowers at the beginning look very organic and real) and the acting is top notch. My favorite performance in the movie is Veronica Cartwright as Nancy. The movie also is still very scary and intense once the action gets going.

The picture on the DVD is a lot cleaner and sharper than the old disc. The widescreen framing appears to be correct, the old version seemed more zoomed in and the credits were slightly cropped off on the sides of the screen.

The sound also has more boom and clarity to it. Those pods hatching sound as creepy today as they did in the theater in 1978.

The extras while not excellent, are pretty good. Wish they would find more stuff for the Blu-Ray version, if they ever release one.

As for the Blu-Ray DVD, Yes I would definitely triple dip for that one if the picture is outstanding and true Hi-Def.

Some people see remakes as inferior films just as a rule and since the turn of the century when it seems every major horror film has been a remake many people forget that a remake can be just as good if not better than the original and that brings us to the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In many ways the 1978 version just might be the best version of this franchise.

The screenplay by W.D. Richter is top notch; this easily has to rate as one of the very best Sci-Fi-Horror scripts you will ever come across. This screenplay is very heavily based on the characters and how the react to the events surrounding them and all the characters are very well written for. They have depth and are very likeable. This genre may not always be known for great writing, but W.D. Richter shows how great a screenplay can be in the horror genre. Invasion of the Body Snatchers has some of my very favorite characters in a movie.

Unless you have the right director a movie like this can be a disaster. It's not loaded with action scenes. The movie is driven by the characters and the story, which can make for a boring time if you don't have the right director and thankfully Philip Kaufman was the right director. His scenes are well paced and very well shot. Visually Invasion of the Body Snatchers looks amazing. A lot of the camera shots are simple techniques such as the camera kinda moving wildly to show the confusion and paranoia of what's happening and simple close ups that sort of cut everything out except the characters. These are things many horror movies use and it's always effective.

Philip Kaufman manages to get the most out of every scene; he never lets the pace drag. He always is able to have something happening to keep the viewer interested. The tone of this movie is quite bleak and even in the slower moments that tone is never lost nor is the sense of pending danger. Every scene in some way moves the story forward. Either the plot is advanced or the characters are developed.

Like I said a movie like this you need a good director, but just as important is putting together a great cast. The best thing about this genre is you don't always need good acting. You can get away with weak actors, but in a movie like this where it's so character driven weak actors will mean weak movie no matter how good of a writer and director you have. Invasion of the Body Snatchers has one of the very best casts you'll ever find for a movie like this.

Donald Sutherland as Matthew Bennell and Brooke Adams as Elizabeth Driscoll are the leads and both are brilliant in their roles. The horror genre isn't always known for great acting, but you'll be hard pressed to find another horror movie with better acting than this. Sutherland gives maybe the best performance of his career. Jeff Goldblum is excellent as Jack Bellicec. In typical Goldblum fashion the character is a bit weird, but very likeable. Even the characters that have the least amount of screen time such as Nancy Bellicec played by Veronica Cartwright is a great character and one you will root for.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers isn't the type of movie that will have the audience jumping in their seats. The movie is quite chilling and that is there from the start. In many ways I think that's better. It leaves more of a lasting effect. Anybody can do the simple killer jump out of the corner scare. Making a movie creepy like this takes a lot more talent. It's not easy to creep people out through the whole movie, but Invasion of the Body Snatchers is able to do that all through the movie.