{"id":1909,"date":"2009-10-12T23:39:48","date_gmt":"2009-10-13T03:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/?p=1909"},"modified":"2022-10-23T09:37:37","modified_gmt":"2022-10-23T13:37:37","slug":"pod-people-film-festival-body-snatchers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/pod-people-film-festival-body-snatchers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pod People Film Festival: Body Snatchers (1993)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yet another remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers<\/a><\/em> might seem an odd project for iconoclast director Abel Ferrara, known for gritty urban crime sagas centered around profoundly compromised protagonists. In stark contrast, the lead in Ferrara’s most conventional movie is a good-natured teenage girl, a world apart from the crazed Harvey Keitel of Bad Lieutenant<\/em> or Christopher Walken of King of New York<\/em>. Marti’s (Gabrielle Anwar) biggest problems are a nomadic lifestyle, a moody little brother, and a new stepmother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This version of the bodysnatchers story sheds “Invasion” from the title, which is strange considering it ought to be the key word for a movie focused on the U.S. military, at home not long after the first Gulf War — a conflict thought to be resolved at the time. With America at peace and a Democrat in office, Body Snatchers<\/em> was probably one of the first mainstream feature films to directly mention the conflict, along with Courage Under Fire<\/em> (1996) — David O. Russell’s ruthless satire Three Kings<\/em> being still some ways off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abbreviating the title was a missed opportunity to play with the ambiguity between a military confirmed as professional, government-sanctioned invaders, and an extraterrestrial force that easily infiltrates them. But don’t worry, the word “Invasion” would be picked up again for Oliver Hirschbiegel’s 2007 abomination<\/a> starring Nicole Kidman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Gabrielle
Gabrielle, sweetie, you should know better than to take a bath during a horror movie…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On home soil, an Alabama army base under the command of General Platt (who else but R. Lee Ermey?) must suffer the indignity of bending over for The Environmental Protection Agency as it investigates the army’s storage of chemical weapons. The sympathetic Major Collins (Forest Whitaker) reports increasing cases of mental illness in his infirmary (paranoia, fear of sleep, etc.). He suspects the toxic chemicals, making it impossible to miss the allusion to the controversial Gulf War Syndrome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marti falls in love with helicopter pilot Tim (Billy Wirth), so bland and flat that it’s hard to tell if he’s a pod person (to be charitable, maybe this was a deliberate casting call, meant to keep the audience guessing). She is befriended by Platt’s punk daughter Jenn (Christine Elise), a refreshing dose of nonconformism among the rank and file – indeed her rebelliousness serves as a canary in the coal mine to measure the progress of the invasion. We genuinely feel for Marti’s little brother Andy (Reilly Murphy, a rare child actor that does not annoy) as he senses his school playmates are “bad” and witnesses his stepmother (Meg Tilly) die firsthand. Incidentally, Tilly’s performance as the pod-stepmother is excellently weird.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Meg
“Where you gonna go, where you gonna run, where you gonna hide? Nowhere… ’cause there’s no one like you left.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Like Philip Kaufman’s 1978 version<\/a> of the same material, Ferrara indulges in the gore and female nudity de rigueur<\/em> to the horror genre. Marti disrobes for a very close encounter with groping alien tendrils in a bathtub, and later runs through an infirmary full of gross, half-formed pod people. The very pretty Anwar is so convincingly young-looking that her unexpected nude scenes make one feel decidedly uncomfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all three versions of the story so far, a pod person delivers some variation of the following warning to human resistors: there’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and there’s no one else left like you. So why do the pod people always work so hard to chase down the few remaining humans? On the evidence of Body Snatchers<\/em>, they’re still very easily defeated, and the climactic ending is something of a dud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The infected army base plots to distributes pods to other bases, and eventually amass an armed force capable to taking over the world. But Marti and Tim manage to blow up the base and as entire convoy with just one helicopter. Why was it fully armed during peacetime, anyway?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first film ended with humans just beginning to mobilize against the invaders. The second ended with humanity totally overswept. Now the third ends with us winning. How will Nicole Kidman fare in Invasion<\/em>? Tune in after our next review, an interlude to look at Robert Rodriguez’ enjoyable homage The Faculty<\/a><\/em>, to find out…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Welcome to The Pod People Film Festival, our third mini movie retrospective. After catching up with Ridley Scott<\/a> and George A. Romero<\/a>, we now take a look at four adaptations of Jack Finney’s novel The Body Snatchers<\/em>, plus one unofficial homage \/ satire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Invasion of the Body Snatchers<\/a> (1956)<\/li>
  2. Invasion of the Body Snatchers<\/a> (1978)<\/li>
  3. Body Snatchers (1993)<\/li>
  4. The Faculty<\/a> (1998)<\/li>
  5. The Invasion<\/a> (2007)<\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Yet another remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers might seem an odd project for iconoclast director Abel Ferrara, known for gritty urban crime sagas centered around profoundly compromised protagonists. In stark contrast, the lead in Ferrara’s most conventional movie is a good-natured teenage girl, a world apart from the crazed Harvey Keitel of Bad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,2],"tags":[1947,704,378,707,705,90,693,695,706,85],"class_list":["post-1909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2-stars","category-movies","tag-1947","tag-abel-ferrara","tag-alien-invasion","tag-forest-whitaker","tag-gabrielle-anwar","tag-horror","tag-invasion-of-the-body-snatchers","tag-jack-finney","tag-r-lee-ermey","tag-science-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/body-snatchers-1993.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa9lhB-uN","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1929,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/pod-people-film-festival-invasion\/","url_meta":{"origin":1909,"position":0},"title":"The Pod People Film Festival: The Invasion","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"October 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Nicole Kidman must be one of the unluckiest stars in Hollywood, having recently starred in at least two big-budget catastrophes. Frank Oz's The Stepford Wives (2004) was sabotaged by cast members dropping out, extensive reshoots, and competing script revisions that left significant logical plot holes in the finished film. Next,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "1 Star"","block_context":{"text":"1 Star","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/1-star\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Nicole Kidman in The Invasion","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/invasion-2007.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/invasion-2007.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/invasion-2007.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/invasion-2007.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/invasion-2007.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1902,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/pod-people-film-festival-invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-1978\/","url_meta":{"origin":1909,"position":1},"title":"The Pod People Film Festival: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"October 10, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Philip Kaufman's re-imagining of Don Siegel's 1956 classic paranoid nightmare Invasion of the Body Snatchers immediately signals its uniqueness with a strange and beautifully abstract opening sequence. Psychedelic spores float off the surface of an alien planet, traverse through outer space, and fall to Earth as gelatinous rain. 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Its themes of identity, mistrust, and subversion have remained relevant and influential for decades, inspiring\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"2 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/2-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1956","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-1956.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-1956.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-1956.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-1956.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-1956.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1918,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/pod-people-film-festival-faculty\/","url_meta":{"origin":1909,"position":3},"title":"The Pod People Film Festival: The Faculty","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"October 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"We interrupt this retrospective look at the four official feature film adaptations of Jack Finney's novel The Body Snatchers with a kind of bonus track, a remake in all but name, Robert Rodri\u00adguez's The Faculty. 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