From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.
Today I'll be reviewing the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers released in 1978 brought to you by my Patreon supporters as a special request.
Starring:
Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum
Directed by:
Philip Kaufman
Genre:
Horror, Sci-Fi
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Rating:
PG
Budget:
$3,500,000 (estimated)
Current IMDb Rating When Reviewed:
7.4
The Synopsis is:
Space seeds drift to San Francisco, California, and grow duplicates of nearby sleeping humans from pods. As they slowly replace the inhabitants of the city, four friends fight for their life and their individuality.
Peter, sent me a request to review this film. He said: "There's been a fair few versions of the legendary Invasion of the Body Snatchers, originally released in 1956 and based on the science fiction novel by Jack Finney. I love the '56 version but my favorite is the 1978 one with Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Veronica Cartwright and Jeff Goldblum. (Also Leonard Nimoy!) This film scared the crap out of me when I first saw it, and it still unnerves me to this day with its discordant pulsing sound, eerie visuals and creeping paranoia. Pretty grim movie. It's great though, and one of the best alien invasion stories out there if you ask me."
So Peter this review is for you!
Story:
The idea for the film began as a science fiction serial in Colliers Magazine in 1954 before becoming a novel, The Body Snatchers published in 1955 written by writer Jack Finney.
Hollywood snatched up the rights and produced the classic sci-fi film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers in 1956. There have been several remakes, however, this was the first remake after 22 years, and get this, it could be a possible sequel to that film, however you choose to decide.
It has been labeled by many, one of the best remakes ever made and I have to agree. Some would even say that this rivals the original movie, and to that I have to say that I enjoy them both equally for completely different reasons. During this review I will be referring to the book and the original movie for comparisons and explanations.
The climate in the 1970 had its problems, but it had become more inclusive and there was an importance in individuality and expressing one’s uniqueness. It was the heyday of the conspiracy theory as well, wherein there were many intellectual movies made upon the subject as well as more sophisticated thought provoking sci-fi.
Director Philip Kaufman was a fan of the 1956 film and intended for it to be a “new envisioning that was a variation on a theme”. W.D. Richter, who was a writer, director and script doctor, took to the screenplay to adapt the novel.
One of the biggest changes in the film was the location from the small towns of Mill Valley (in the book) and Santa Mira (in the original movie) to the big city of San Francisco.
There is also a change of the main protagonist which assists the theory that the film is a sequel and not quite a remake. In the original film he is Doctor Miles J. Bennell, in this film he is a health inspector, Matthew Bennell. In fact all of the names of the main characters are different except the last names in this story. Bennell’s trusted colleague was completely renamed, from Dr. Dan Kauffman to Dr. David Kibner.
The first film was also interpreted as an allegory for socio-political history like the assimilation of colonialism and the threat to democracy like America experienced during McCarthyism. This film really focuses more on the biological and psychological horror of this invasion, conspiracy theories and the individual alienation of the loss of relationships. It's more interpersonal and we get more fleshed out characters.
Interestingly enough, the audience isn’t given more juicy information about the aliens or the invasion and it compares to the simplicity of the original film. However the biggest difference this time around is that the story is packed with so much visual and emotional storytelling which fills in a lot of questions movie goers had about the original film.
It also builds a world that is still in conflict by the end so there is more story for you to imagine long after you’re finished watching.
Pacing:
At 1h 55min it can seem too long, and on the first viewing, a lot of the slow moving and long scenes don't really seem to matter. However, on multiple viewings you can see that every visual on screen are sculpting the details and coloring the tone of the story, filling it out with more realism and believability. As well, it’s important to know that the film starts out slow and ramps up. We don’t get to the full chase until about the one hour mark. And truthfully, I feel as if every moment works for me because of the detail involved and every time I watch this film I learn something new about the characters and the story. Making the film shorter might remove a lot of the texture I find wonderful about the film.
Challenge:
The challenge in the film are the invading aliens whose function of life is to survive. They were spores that drifted to planet earth on solar winds and landed on plants and matured into attractive sweet smelling flowers to attract their victims.
While the victim is asleep, the pod grows until it gives birth to a duplicate of the nearest human being. Touch is not needed but it seems to speed up the process. Every memory and physical attributes are duplicated. However the human is completely consumed in this manner and only a hairy flakey husk remains. However, the biggest detriment to the pod people is that they do not duplicate the human’s personality. This is the very reason so many people find out what’s happening and resist the process.
There is a misconception that the pods don’t show any emotion, they do. But the emotions are very subdued and cold, not warm and loving. They are very good at looking suspiciously at humans and they appear to be pissed off and horrified whenever one of their kind is killed and chasing down humans.
As in the first movie, there is an implication that the humans are just transferred into the new bodies. One of the pod people, Dr. David Kibner tells us that subjects would “be born again into an untroubled world, free of anxiety, fear and hate.”
They use this tactic to subdue the humans. I think that this strategy gets us a little deeper into the aliens’ psychology. The aliens don’t see themselves as actually killing humans because the minds and memories of the consumed are “absorbed intact”. They think that they are helping humans evolve. But let's face it, they are killing the humans and they are very aggressive about eradicating them completely.
What makes the pod people scary is that “they get you when you sleep”. We are very vulnerable during the sleeping process and we all have to do it. It reminds me of the thrill of seeing Nightmare on Elm Street 1984 for the first time. I just spent the whole time yelling at the screen, “don’t go sleep!” The ultimate boogie monster always gets you in your sleep.
Empathy:
The empathy for me was actually stronger for the first film. I really attached myself to the character of Miles Bennell and how much he was so traumatized by the end of the film.
I still enjoyed the characters in this movie and there was way more character development as I mentioned before.
The film starts out following Elizabeth Driscoll bringing home a pod flower and then realizing that her boyfriend has transformed the next morning. Her instinct was to tell her colleague and best friend Matthew Bennell.
Matthew acts as the audience for most of the film, trying to apply real world logic to the occurrences in the film. His first instinct is to take Elizabeth to his trusted friend David Kibner and it never occurs to him or anyone else that David could be a pod person. Matthew’s fundamental belief is that the government, authority, public officials and doctors can help them. He exhausts all of the ways to logically handle the situation.
A great example of that was when he witnesses a possible death and says, “The policeman will help.”
And wouldn’t we all assume that. He’s often seen on the phone throughout the film calling some authority and basically tipping off the pods exactly what he’s up to. It’s only by the end he realises there is no one he can turn to of authority.
The anchor for him in this film is his love for Elizabeth. They are friends but you see that he’s crazy about her and is just trying to help her. When faced with the end of the world as they know it, they sweetly show their love for each other. I love the way that it is very subtle and we don’t get a passionate love scene.
Jack Bellicec is a poet that makes a living as a bath house owner. He starts out the film very arrogant and entitled. However, there is more to it as we see that he is struggling to break out of his day job and into the life he wants. Once the world changes, he makes a heroic move by sacrificing himself in order to save the others.
His wife Nancy Bellicec is in my opinion the one person in the film that is equipped for this invasion. She is the one who calls out David Kibner for intentionally trying to make the group think that they are going crazy. She pretty much figures out that the pod flowers are from space. She is a conspiracy theorist queen and she can adapt quickly too. She is the only person that didn’t fall asleep at Matthew’s apartment and she saves them all from being consumed. Then she is the one to discover that you can walk among the pods if you don't show emotion. I thought it was ironic that she was the most emotionally expressive character of the group.
She doesn’t have a lot of screen time and we don’t get to see much from her point of view, but she is the closest thing to a hero we’ve got in this film. I love that character.
Technical:
Ok guys I’m about to get super nerdy on you.
The technical aspects is where this film really excels and much of it still holds true over time. Yes, there are some distinctive things about the film that are dated such as the city and the fashions of the day. However, the look of the film, special effects and edit excellently serves the story and transcends time. This is a piece of art.
It was a bold move to depict the space spores on their last conquered world taking flight into the cosmos. Viscous material was bought for $12 from an art store, dropped into solutions and the film was reversed. This was brilliant because it was just the visual storytelling we needed to see to understand how this all began. It’s such a simple solution but it has a wonderful pay off.
Seeing the gelatinous material root into the leaves of other plants looks so authentic, which makes me question what year this was made. Wow, it looked amazing. It was great to see the film start out so strong with this science fiction element and it helped to set the tone without explaining everything away in the dialogue or in a narration. It’s just so much more powerfully done this way. Show don’t tell.
The rooftop scene is a very memorable scene meant to mimic the powerful greenhouse scene in the original movie. This is when Matthew falls asleep and the pod closest to him grows to maturity with his likeness. As well there are two more pods developing nearby. I really love the fact that such an awesome scene from the original movie rose to the challenge of not only being as visually stunning, but superseding the horror, as the revolting layout of bodies writhe, tremble, and moan.
The pod doubles in their unfinished stage were highly disturbing, covered in visible veins, slime and hair. Yuk! They are truly gross and that reaction helps us to understand how horrible it is to see these things. They really upped the game on these creature effects.
In his book Danse Macabre, Stephen King wrote "There is a moment in that film which is repulsively horrible. It comes when Donald Sutherland uses a rake to smash in the face of a mostly formed pod. This 'person's' face breaks in with sickening ease, like a rotted piece of fruit, and lets out an explosion of the most realistic stage blood that I have ever seen in a color film. When that moment came, I winced, I clapped a hand over my mouth . . . and wondered how in the hell the movie had ever gotten its PG rating.”
Some critics say that it is too grotesque and usually I’m not a fan of body horror, but in this case, wrapped in such a thought provoking story, I found it fascinating and I craved more.
One thing that added to the special effects was the sound production by Ben Burtt, who also worked on Star Wars a year earlier. He used the heartbeat from his pregnant wife’s ultrasound. The natural atmospheric sounds or what is called diegetic sounds that both the audience and the characters can hear in the film really makes the audience feel as if we’re actually there. It just fills in every conceivable space for storytelling.
One of the most horrific sounds were the screams of the pod people. This was a new element added to this version of the film. The screams were actually manipulated pig squeals mixed with other sounds which were blood curdling and like nails on a chalkboard. It really helped to ramp up the terror when a pod person uses it to alert their comrades that a human was nearby.
The cinematography bears special mention because the camera takes so many unconventional angles and lenses to get a unique style. Cinematographer Michael Chapman worked with Phillip Kaufman to get a very beautiful film noir look using light and shadow to support the mysterious element of the film. Not only that, I have to say that the shots taken of the city of San Francisco were breathtaking, gritty, grungy, and very textured. I loved it.
I also think it bears mentioning that Michael played the creepy janitor in the film.
We got two incredibly slow moving scenes that are just the camera moving down a hallway to build the next beat. It gives us the sense that mundane activities are about to be changed. Something is wrong here.
There are scenes with the camera seeing the world from a cracked car window because our characters can only see fragments of the world. And there is a scene where the characters are facing a distorted mirror telling us that they are not really seeing the truth.
One scene that was very uniquely shot was when Matthew was trying to get help by calling government officials and the scene transformed into a phone calling montage that started in his office and then moved to a phone booth in the streets of San Francisco. Again, more beautiful art.
I adored the details put into Matthew’s office. This is the kind of staging that really makes the space feel lived in. I adored the way it’s very intimate shot shows us how small his world is.
Denny Zeitlin, an American jazz pianist and composer, scored the film and it was his only venture into film scoring. Listening to the score, there were so many moments that the score had a very nostalgic classic orchestral horror feel, but he also used a synthesizer to insert an oddity to it that feels alien. The opening scene is a great example of that. There were even some moments when it felt a little like the score for Forbidden Planet released in 1956. But the music is so subtle at times. You hardly recognize that it’s guiding your emotions.
Near the end, Amazing Grace plays as we see the world through the eyes of the pod version of Matthew. Amazing Grace is a song typically played at funerals and I felt it was signaling the death of Matthew’s ego self. Matthew as all of the other pod people have been led to see the light of becoming a pod person and life is theoretically better without pesky human emotions.
Performances:
I kid you not, every single performance was superb. Even the extras were amazing, immersing you into this conspiratory world. I have watched this film so many times, looking to find all of the details and that was one that I found. Each actor played their role with sincerity and authenticity from their point of view.
Phillip Kaufman told his actors to use facial expressions between dialogue to add humanity and compassion to the characters. It worked brilliantly. As well, many characters talk over each other. It’s a little chaotic when that happens, but it works to help plump up the urgency of their motivation.
Donald Sutherland plays the part of Matthew Bennell as a practical man with a passionate concern for others. He doesn't try to repeat or imitate the performance of Kevin McCarthy who played Miles Bennell in the original.
Donald puts his own spin on it by being a little more practical and even a bit naive. There is an innocence that he imparts upon the character. I think that the character was meant to be even more less like Kevin, by having Donald in a curly hairstyle and would have to set his hair with pink rollers every day. He had an outstanding dedication to the role and even at one point performing his own stunts at the pod factory without harnesses or nets.
Brooke Adams played Elizabeth Driscoll. Her performance was an important piece of the puzzle for making this movie believable. Her eyes emote so much expression ranging from curiosity, trust, love, and fear. The scene when Elizabeth meets Matthew by an elevator, Brooke’s eyes are just filled with fire. Then when her character becomes a pod, the vacancy in her eyes is just chilling.
Donald and Brooke had to do a lot of running and Brooke did it all in heels. On the set the two had a playful race during one of the chase scenes. They continued after the director yelled "Cut!", and Brooke won!
Dr. Kibner was played by Leonard Nimoy to branch out from his famous role as Spock on the Star Trek TV show. He wanted to make his character stand out so he opted to wear a strange half-glove. I think casting him as Dr Kibner was a great move because initially it was hard to determine if he was a pod or not.
Veronica Cartwright played Nancy Bellicec and wow, I just love her in this. Veronica is very well known for playing characters that get hysterical in films such as Alien 1979 and The Witches of Eastwick in 1987. I can’t say how much I loved her in this. Without her over the top freak out at the end, the moment would not have the same impact or the same lasting effect. Some could say that it was over-acted, however, I react the same way whenever I see a spider. I am not kidding. Even seeing the web is enough to freak me out and keep me up all night. Her character under the circumstances has every right to freak out and I felt she nailed it.
She was not told that Sutherland's character became a pod, so her reaction was improvised and captured on the spot. It was fantastic and I just wanted to stand up and slow clap during that scene.
Veronica Cartwright also appeared in The Invasion, the 2007 adaptation of this story.
Jeff Goldblum plays Jack Bellicec using the typical rambling energy he puts into all of his characters. In this film, his character isn’t as charming as his other characters. He plays Jack a little immature and intellectually unheard. There is a sadness and vulnerability to the character and the connection to Veronica Cartwright playing his wife are about two people who look out for each other.
Kevin McCarthy makes a powerful cameo in the film, credited as "Running Man". There is no indication that he is Dr. Miles Bennell, but there is no indication that he isn’t. His appearance supposes the idea that Miles has been running from town to town trying to spread the word that the invasion is happening for the last 22 years. This is yet another clue that the events of this movie is in a world that has already had a visit by the aliens.
The director of the 1956 original film, Don Siegel made a cameo in the film as pod Taxi Driver. I enjoyed his character, though small, and there was palpable tension in the moment. One of the reasons for that was quite terrifying actually. Don had limited vision and he was actually driving in the scene, so the actors were very worried for their safety.
Other cameos include, Philip Kaufman appears as a man tapping on the window of a phone booth and Robert Duvall played the priest on the swing at the beginning of the film.
Wish List:
So if you thought I got nerdy when it came to the technical aspects, I am about to get even more nerdy, if there is such a thing.
I love this film. There is no doubt about that. And I really think that the film couldn’t actually fit more information without being ridiculously long and it may lose a lot of the impact of the pacing.
With that said, I really want to say that this film just made me more interested in learning more details about the aliens that we didn’t get in either of the two movies. The book offers a little more information, but it still falls a little short by presenting cool ideas, but not really making a lot of sense.
For instance, the book has the added detail that the aliens cannot sexually reproduce and only live to about 5 years. Both films omit this information, but I think that explains why these spore aliens are such a threat. It leaves the question, how do these spores or seeds reproduce. Do they produce new seeds in the pods the duplicates come from? That would be interesting because that would mean that the aliens only eat once and then die five years later.
In this story, why are the pod people so obsessed with hunting down all of the humans. Why can’t they co-exist with mankind in secret? And perhaps they have been for 22 years. There are subtle clues that the first people we see on screen in the opening of the film are pod people, making this either a second wave or one of several waves of a calculated invasion. There is a lady looking out of the window during their arrival and a school teacher urges her students to take home the alien flower to their parents. The priest on the swing could be a pod person as well. He’s on the swing, but he has no emotions while he’s doing it.
Perhaps this new arrival makes it impossible to keep the invasion a secret.
The invasion itself seems so unsustainable, if the aliens are only interested in surviving, why are they exhausting everything, instead of harvesting the planet. Is it that the life form is so simple that it is not that intelligent? That’s a possibility.
If so, it would be scarier to see them gain some intelligent sustainable plan.
I also am so curious why the pod people become so angry at seeing humans by the end. I wish that was explained.
Then there is the duplication process. It’s interesting too. The movies concentrate on showing us that the pods duplicate humans, however, in the book, inanimate objects like a tin can, a handle of an axe and model skeletons. So these creatures feed on matter. Technically they could duplicate a whole building that would vanish in 5 years, turning Earth into a wasteland! Wow that’s even scarier!
The book explains pods choose to duplicate humans because they are more resourceful in aiding the invasion. I would have loved to learn more about this process and how they are able to duplicate things without taking a sample of DNA.
The hairy tendrils of the pods don’t always touch the people they copy. How do they copy memories and scars? Are the copies biologically human with human organs or just a shell that looks human? Why does sleeping activate the process? I can imagine so many answers.
Is this some kind of superpower that they have? I want to know.
One reason could be a psychic ability or connection. The film shows that the aliens can communicate with each other without speaking. Could be that it is easier to feed on the nearest conscious being at rest than the nearest chair or cup?
It would have been so cool if they were able to capture one of the pod people for a short time and question them; learn all that they know.
Now, I have also wondered, if the pods have all of the technology and scientific knowledge of humans they duplicated, can they now use it to acquire more worlds.
Also, I thought it would be really cool if near the 5 year mark, the pod person can be consumed by another pod to continue their scientific work to continue the species. So someone like Dr. David Kibner would be valuable to reproduce if there were still more humans to consume.
I'd also love to learn more about how the pod people mobilize. Are they a hive mind? If so, where or who is the keeper of their accumulated knowledge and how is it distributed? Can a pod person be disconnected from the hive?
I don’t think this could be done in one film without making a big mess of things, but I think it would be super duper cool if it was a very well produced tv series or mini series. Amazon, Netflix, HBO, I am looking at you! Please do it and try to remember why people love this version of the film for the practical effects.
There is so much more story to tell here, either starting from scratch with a brand new starting point using this movie as the model, or continuing where this left off. If it is a continuation, it could be set in the late 70’s and 80’s, or a version set in modern day, detailing several waves of invasion.
There is no reason to assume that Nancy did not escape, because she had done so before in the middle of a mob twice no less. It’s totally possible to tell the story from her point of view. Oh, the possibilities here!
One actual wish for this film is that I wished that the film kept some kind of consistency with the character of David Kibner or at least give us an idea when he becomes a pod. When we first meet him at the book party, he exhibits many emotions. However, a few hours later, he is definitely more of a dry character until the end and so I assume that he went home after the book party, took a nap and the pod replacement is the one who shows up at the Bellicic bath house, thus helping to dispose of Jack’s duplicate body.
However, he still exhibits plenty of emotions and I wish, we were given a reason why. Is it because he’s a psychologist that he is able to manipulate his response, whereas other pods can’t. I am reaching so much on this one, but it’s a possibility.
Enjoyment:
The ending of the film is a very iconic moment in cinema and it turns out that the story behind it is that in the original film Don Seigel wanted a darker ending but the studio shut that idea down firmly.
However, before filming, Siegel, Kevin McCarthy and Philip Kaufman got together and talked about this bombshell of an ending which was a beautiful collaboration with a phenomenal outcome. The studio executives first learned of it when a cut was screened for them at, get this, George Lucas's house!
The night after the movie's release, pods were anonymously placed all over Los Angeles, which freaked out the locals. That would have freaked me out too.
It opened to decent reviews, but accrued more acclaim over time. And for me, this is a movie I saw at the movies when it came out and it really didn’t wow me. I was only 7 or 8 so it may have been too over my head to fully appreciate. I did like it, but after revisiting it over the years, I’ve just come to appreciate it so much more and it grows with each view. In my opinion this is a beautiful piece of art that offers us a simple tale that tells us so much more visually.
My Rating:
9.1
This is Retro Nerd Girl signing off!
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