Body Snatchers, l'invasion continue

The EPA sends Steve Malone (Terry Kinney) to a military base in Alabama for a month. He brings along his daughter Marti (Gabrielle Anwar), his second wife Carol (Meg Tilly) and their son Andy. Marti is scared by a soldier who tells her that "They get you when you sleep". She befriends base commander (R. Lee Ermey)'s wild daughter Jenn Platt (Christine Elise). She falls for chopper pilot Tim Young (Billy Wirth). There are strange things happening and Maj. Collins (Forest Whitaker) asks Steve if it could be chemical toxins. Military personnel delivers mysterious boxes to the Malones. Carol is the first to turn.

The major drawback is that the premise is known to everybody. There is no surprises except for the sci-fi uninitiated. The bathtub scene is pretty good although it's nothing shocking. This is a solid execution. The army base location is pretty good. Body snatchers can be camouflaged by being stoic soldiers and they are pretty creepy. There is nothing wrong with this version but it adds nothing new to the idea.

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

In this remake of a classic, they used Bad Lieutenant and King of New York director Abel Ferrara, and cast the young beauty Gabrielle Anwar (The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines) and "thirthsomething" Terry Kinney in the leads.

Kinney went on to do The Laramie Project later and was fantastic.

If you want conformity, then setting your movie on a military installation ensures that you have an easier time of it. Younger people will love this version, but just updating to modern techniques and special effects doesn't always make for a better picture.

Skintastic Moment: Great view of Gabrielle Anwar's ta-tas waking up on a stretcher.

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.

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.