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.
