Bit of a shorter post as my day job was very demanding this past week.

Watching

Last Saturday may partner and I decided, on a whim, to watch all the Invasion of the Body Snatcher movies. We didn’t plan to watch them all in one day but that’s how it turned out. So well worth it, not only because they are -mostly- good movies but because they reflect each generation’s paranoia. This is why Invasion of the Body Snatchers is one of the few movies¹ that deserves to be remade over and over again.

This is not a horror series in the traditional sense like Hellraiser or Friday The 13th. These are not sequels. The movies have little in common other than base plot points but even those are often shuffled around for narrative impact and to better serve the temporal zeitgeist.

There will be spoilers, you are sufficiently warned.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

The common knowledge anecdote about this movie is that the writer wrote the movie as an Anti-McCarthyism piece while the director shot it as a Red Scare movie and it still works on both levels.

The ambiguity of its paranoia allows it to remain a very creepy movie to this day. Its small town setting is really effective for conveying that unease of entering a tight-knit community as an outsider. Everyone knows everyone in Santa Mira but suddenly they become people you don’t know. Its a very frightening idea, especially as someone who grew up in a small town.

It surprised me that almost all the major beats of the later movies are directly from this version. It’s a solid film that is saying a lot about relationships, institutions and hierarchy. Subjects I thought, before watching, would be reserved the more overtly subversive remakes.

Though I despise the tacked-on feeling ending, the scene just before the ending where Dr. Bennell is walking in traffic screaming at people that “they’re already here!” is so perfect it almost makes up for it.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

This is easily my favorite take on the Body Snatchers idea. Done in all the glory of the 70’s golden era of film: Naturalistic and overlapping dialog, character development and perspective, and an inventive camera all make this a true work of cinema. I don’t think the original would be as fondly remembered if weren’t for this remake.

The choice to move the story from a small town to a major metropolitan area like San Francisco is such a brilliant choice. It expands interpersonal relationship paranoia to a more generalized “fear of the other” dread that permeates the film. In the scene above there are looks shared among strangers and people looking at the main characters, who is already changed or is this just normal behavior? The film feeds this paranoia subtly throughout the first half.

The sound design is my favorite detail of the movie. Throughout the first half the sounds of a bustling and alive San Fran are constantly bombarding the the viewer. Conversations, traffic, diegetic noise and police sirens are always happening off screen and around the camera. About half-way through the film, as the invasion is reaching market saturation, the city is eerily quiet. All the sounds of a chaotic and unique city stop as the controlled and homogenized populace fall into line.

I really liked this take from Will Menaker on Letterboxd.

Improving on the original film’s mandatory happy ending, 1978’s is gleefully horrific and grim.

Body Snatchers (1993)

I spoke briefly about this movie before:

It is still a deeply disturbing movie.

Cgavin from Letterboxd has a wonderful take:

While this is a great reading from the context of 1993, the movie feels almost prescient when watched today: The Desert Storm era military sucking up mindless bodies like a tornado to serve the impeding forever wars of a post 9/11 America.

The most 90’s and bombastic ending is too uncertain to deliver much catharsis. The survivors, lash out at their tormentor like cornered animals in one last act of defiance.

The Invasion (2007)

I won’t say much about this movie because itself isn’t saying much. It too has distrust of the nuclear family but is too concerned with explaining everything that little is left for metaphor.

One of the few highlights of the film is Nicole Kidman. Her accent floats all over the place but the entire watch time I kept saying, out loud, “Jesus, Nicole Kidman is stunning.”

This movie also resorts to a happy “we beat the aliens, yay!” ending that feels cheap.

Other than seeing Kidman drop-kick a child into a bed post not much of this film sticks with me.

Other Notables

** Fanfiction sites have been knowing this for years

** Loving this breakdown of why Disney live-action remakes suck.

1   Cannonball Run being another, though no one in Hollywood thinks so.