Jakester The 1970s saw an explosion of conspiracy movies including "The Conversation," ""Chinatown," "The Parallax View," "Three Days of the Condor," "Marathon Man," and "All the President's Men." The deep cultural instigators of this trend were, of course, the JFK assassination, Vietnam, and Watergate, and the McCarthyism of the 1950s. "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is a member in good standing of this category (a shade behind "Chinatown" and "The Conversation" in terms of quality). It's also part of a trend that might be summarized as "1970s Sci Fi Explosion That Started With 'Star Wars.'" Conspiracy....sci fi....green light from Hollywood!"Invasion" is creepy, intense, and deeply paranoid. It's got a million things going on to keep you jumpy including some near-subliminal stuff.The cast is outstanding. Leonard Nimoy is an inspired choice as the shrink - his Spock-ness plays perfectly into how his role develops here. Veronica Cartwright is splendid - what a fine, authentic, beautiful, under-rated performer. Her joy at the thought that the space invaders might be defeated (when she's standing in the staircase with Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams) perfectly sets up the last section of the film - she's shrewd and insightful about the invaders, so her fighting spirit convince us that victory is nigh, and we carry this optimism forward. The film isn't perfect. The chase scenes go on a shade too long. I'm not sold on the factory burning although I understand the need for a boffo blazing attack. I think that pods probably should NOT be loaded onto the big ship - I think the film should generate as much hope as possible at that juncture - but I do see that Donald needs to be gotten back downtown. Jeff Goldblum's character is not delineated well - his beef with Nimoy is murky. I probably would have steered clear of the Kevin McCarthy cameo, but plenty of people like it, including McCarthy, no doubt.It's one of the great San Francisco movies, chock-full of SF references, including Donald Sutherland being Mr. Cool Chef, cooking up a lovely SF dish in a wok with perfectly-sliced garlic and ginger. (Does that sequence owe anything to "The Godfather" where Clemenza cooks for the boys? The two scenes are shot in almost exactly the same way.) I love the shot where the SF fog rolls in (that's JUST what it looks like) and you wonder if it's fog or more of the pesky space plants. (Northern California fog gets major play in another film of this era,"The Fog.") The film is mostly shot in low light - night-time, minimal indoor lighting, overcast and/or rainy days. This works nicely, adding to the oppressive atmosphere. (The film stock shows definite graininess, as one might expect with low-light film; I have no problem with that.) The ending is the best ending of any horror/sci fi movie ever made.
ashild-blovvig I watched this a few days after I saw the original, since it's this one I've heard the most praise for. I'm conflicted in how I watch horror movies compared to other movies, because people who love horror movies almost indiscriminately look for other qualities in horror movies than in other types of genres. I'm in a little bit of both, I look for quality in several things, but there are some things I forgive more in horror movies than I normally would. This review will also compare it to the original quite much since it's so fresh in memory, but I'll try to avoid doing it too much.I found this one better than the original. It has some flaws itself, going to get into that, but it has some moments that I found more genuinely chilling.Like the first one, this didn't scare me (I'm 23 as I write this), as in it's not going to make it hard to sleep. But I don't really look for it to scare me, but to catch my interest, it doesn't have to be scary, just intriguing. And this movie has many really intriguing moments.I still like the special effects, even more in this than the original (naturally, better resources in the 70's than the 50's). The body they find in this version is way more convincing and unsettling than in the original (where it looks like more or less a normal person, without any close-ups). The pods are even nastier and the bodies coming out are even creepier.Though I have to already here file a complaint that this movie does wrong like the first one: there seems to be few stated "rules" for how the bodies work. The first we see are motionless, doesn't breathe or make any sounds (except one time where it opens its eyes, then closes them again). The same with the second, although the second body has plants surrounding it. Now the third time we see them, they come out of the pods, and the move A LOT and makes a lot of noise. Plus they develop super fast it seems. It's probably for a scare effect (it works, though, it's super creepy) but the movie seems to forget the rules it has set for the bodies so far.Most of the actors are really good, like Sutherland, and Adams. Even Jeff Goldblum is quite fun to watch with his odd personality. I also do get a good sense of the friendship between Sutherland's character and Adams's character. They smile and laugh together with a kind of chemistry I don't often see in these kinds of movies. There's also a great warmth in Sutherland's way of just being.This film is also very, very dark, and I'm not talking about the theme now, I'm talking light. I think it's both good and sometimes not-so-good. Sometimes I can barely see what's going on, other times, it works perfectly.One thing, like in the first one, people seem to very quickly come to the conclusion that "my husband/uncle aren't my husband/uncle". There is some more hints of them not necessarily meaning it literally in this version, without any big changes in the script, but how they say it. They seem to think something's wrong instead of just concluding that yep, they're impostors. But it's very quickly thrown into the movie. It's forgivable I guess, since it's a horror movie and the audience wants the suspense, not deep three dimensional characters pondering about what is happening.Another thing, going back to the "rules" of how the pods and new bodies work, there's the scene with Elisabeth turning. She falls asleep at last from exhaustion, then seems to turn into a crumbled human shell (a thing we haven't seen before now). Then out of nowhere, the new Elisabeth pops up, naked, behind Matthew. Where was the pod she came from? How did it happen so quickly? It happens in a kind of weird way that doesn't seem too well thought through. Sorry, but just bad decisions, I was hoping that the director would come up with a better solution, but it was just as lazy as in the original.I have to say, though, I really like the shrieks, it makes the body snatchers seem more alien than they look like. It's a chilling sound, and there are some shrieks really early in the movie even before one is really introduced to the concept of them shrieking to draw attention to humans. And really, the very ending of this movie the best part of the whole movie, because even though I already knew about the ending, I was really looking forward to seeing it, and I still felt a little shiver.The movie has several flaws, but it's very much worth a watch if you like sci-fi, horror, alien movies or just like movies from the 70's, where both many great films and plenty of awful movies also were made. But there are few decades that escapes having made bad movies of course.
