Kino Lorber
When something is really good, it continues to be reinvented generation after generation.
The new creators find the message and see how it relates to their current-day society and politics. Science fiction often has this staying power.
We’ve come to expect it from the literary/film behemoths like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451. They continue to be lauded as great works of fiction.
For some reason, Invasion of the Body Snatchers doesn’t seem to get the same fanfare. It often gets shelved with the B-movies of its day. What started as a serial story in Collins Magazine to then become a novel has subsequently been made and remade to date four films, and been the basis for even more thriller/horror films.
I can’t count the number of times I have seen the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatcher (R.I.P. Donald Sutherland). As a kid, I was oddly obsessed with the idea of what you do when you are the only one left with free thought.
Later, a college boyfriend introduced me to Abel Ferrera’s 1993 Body Snatchers. To this day, we will quote Meg Tilly’s famous lines back and forth to each other.
2007’s The Invasion flips the gender rolls around putting Nicole Kidman in the lead as the protagonist.
The base of the story is the same no matter the reincarnation. Aliens try to take over the world by replacing all humans with exact replicas devoid of all human emotion. Our hero has the Sisyphean mission of trying to stop them.
Until recently, I had never seen the original 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I expected it to be dated and somewhat silly. I hadn’t expected it to be as well crafted as it was. With its low budget and 19-day shooting schedule, it’s a testament to the cast and crew talent that it has more in common with Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil than Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space.
The first thing that struck me about the 1956 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers was just how beautiful the film was.
Shot in Superscope with the intention of being projected at the 1.85:1 rectangular ratio as opposed to the standard 1.66:1 squarer screen. It is black and white, lit with a rich contrast and dynamic framing. In the nighttime scenes, I found myself watching how the movement and lighting changes were meticulously blocked to work around the limitations of the cameras and film of the time. It’s this polished look that elevates the film and takes the alien invasion story from a B movie to a noir thriller. It’s no surprise that director Don Siegel went on to make the series and Escape from Alcatraz.
The special effects of the film are on par with its contemporaries.
Instead of relying on the special effects to tell the story, the filmmakers take a less is more approach. They sprinkled in the active pods and alien blank bodies just enough to enhance the story. The real ”monsters” are the duplicated humans. They look just like the person you know, but they’re not, and you can’t prove it. You don’t know who is and who isn’t already assimilated. You don’t know who to trust.
And that is the staying power of the Body Snatchers’ story.
Every generation has their own version of “the other” that they don’t trust. In the 1950s, it was the beginning of the Cold War and the Red Scare, in the 1970s it was the aftermath of the Vietnam War and anti-government sentiments. The 1993 version reflects the time’s view of the U.S. military use of chemical warfare on the environment.
You could remake the film 30 years from now and it would inherently reflect the political views of its time and create a snapshot of what that generation fears.
The story of fighting the invading “otherness” is timeless, whether it is a foreign or domestic threat.
The 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers is the seed that started them all and is absolutely worth viewing.
Extras include multiple commentary tracks, archival featurettes, two-part visual essay and trailers.
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