Les profanateurs, l'invasion continue

Abel Ferrara is a talented and interesting director. He's made some great films ("bad lieutenant", "china girl") and he always seems to bring out the best in his actors. With "Body Snatchers", Ferrara tackles the task of directing a big budget, studio sci-fi film. And for the most part, he succeeds. Ferrara injects the film with tight closeups and experiments with tilted and off balanced framing. Making the viewer feel like something in the film is off and eschewed. But the film just isn't that exciting. It's more of a slow burner. It never really lives up to it's own potential sadly. But the effects are solid and some of the semi-transformation scenes are disturbing.

The acting for the most part is solid with Meg Tilly giving the best monologue in the film. Gabrielle Anwar is gorgeous to stare at and Billy Wirth (Lost Boys) plays the chopper pilot hero. It could have been a better film, but "Body Snatchers" is entertaining, well-acted, and often creepy. I'm always surprised that an independent director like Ferrara was the guy chosen to helm such a big budget studio film...

Entertaining, but totally unnecessary and uncalled for remake of the classic 1956 movie makes the fatal mistake of moving the action to a military base which has fallen victim to pods that kill everyone in site and replace them with cold emotionless replacements. Very unmemorable fare with an appealing cast and decent visual effects.

Rated R; Nudity, Violence, and Profanity.

Okay, the 1956 original paved the way and has to get the credit for that, but from an objective point-of-view, both the 1978 and this 1993 remake are better, scarier, more developed. In comparison to the second version, this one has a nowhere nearly as brilliant, rather disappointing ending, but the pacing is must faster. Abel Ferrara keeps the movie running for only a tight 85 minutes, and pushes all the right buttons along the way; the horror ranges from the gory (the melting heads) to the supremely subtle (the scene in the classroom, where all the kids draw the exact same picture, except for one, who naturally realizes that something is wrong - the teacher seems to want to punish him for being different). This is a spine-chilling, absolutely terrific little picture - but even if it wasn't, it would still be worth seeing just for Meg Tilly's exceptional performance - her "where are you gonna go?" monologue is as scary as anything in say, "Psycho" or "Rosemary's Baby". (***1/2)

Everyone knows the plot of THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS because they`d already been two adaptations before the 1993 remake . The same basic plot had also been done in the 1955 television serial QUATERMASS 2 which was also remade by Hammer films in the late 1950s and we`ve seen DOCTOR WHO stories like Spearhead From Space that uses a very similar premise . In short the idea had been done to death by the 1990s

On its own BODY SNATCHERS isn`t a terrible film , it is moody and dark as it should be , but it does have a rather mechanical script with a scene featuring some teen angst followed by a mysterious scene followed by a scene featuring teen angst followed by a mysterious scene followed by a scene featuring teen angst . Everyone knows that the plot revolves around alien infiltration so do the audience get to find out why the aliens come to Earth ? Not really , unlike the 50s original there`s no real ambiguity as to the aliens motive or subtext either . I should also point out that aliens taking over military bases makes perfect logical sense if they want to nullify humanity but unfortunately setting the story on a military base where through necessity human individuality is disallowed and where the newly introduced protagonists don`t know the other characters means we have a story that lacks compelling and terrifying drama . We find it somewhat difficult to care about the people involved because they lack individuality to begin with .

As I said it`s by no means terrible but BODY SNATCHERS fails alongside the 1978 version which I rate as the greatest paranoid thriller ever made

The Malone family move to a military base to help contain a toxic spill. Many of the soldiers and families are behaving strangely but is it the toxins or something more sinister?

I'm not a fan of remakes, many try to just copy the success of other films while some lift the original scene for scene to poor effect. However this at least tries to do something slightly different with it by setting it in a military base and bringing the drama into the family setting. In fact this setting creates some of the best scenes – my favourite being where Carol tells her daughter Marti that `there's no one like you left'. The greater effects are good but really I preferred the paranoid tension of the 50's original rather than the horror of effects.

However I still think this is a very workable horror from a good director. Of course it suffers with comparison with the original – that's because the original is a sci-fi classic. But as it's own film it is pretty good. Indeed the ending is what director Siegel intended – but he was forced into having a more hopeful epilogue ending. Naturally it has it's weaknesses – the effects overpower the story at times but really I found this to be enjoyable as a horror.

The cast are one of the weak links. I love Kinney because I'm a big Oz (HBO) fan, but here he doesn't really make a mark. Tilly has all the good lines and she is actually quite good. Anwar is also very watchable. But Ermey is type cast in his usual military role and Whitaker is far too calm and reasoned to do the job – he needed to be more like McCarthy in the original.

Overall, this should be watched and not compared. In it's own right it is a good horror with only a few weaknesses that spoil it slightly. And if you do want to compare it to the 50's version then please remember than this is the type of ending that Siegel wanted and to me is one of the strengths of this film.