The earlier, cinematic versions of Jack Finney’s Invasion Of The Body Snatchers are as vital and important as any science fiction film released in their respective decades. Don Siegel’s 1956 version is virtually the pinnacle of 1950s, cold war paranoia, invoking the worse fears of Mccarthyism as its lead has arguably the best, end reel melt-down of any genre flick ever. Alternatively, Phillip Kaufman’s 1978 remake takes a different track, swapping out the denizens of small town America for the disenfranchised population of San Francisco as a more bohemian cluster of people realise that everyone around them has undergone a terrifying attitude adjustment as they’ve been replaced by emotionless pod people.
With two versions both utterly superlative in their own ways, to chance your arm to go for the hat trick seemed not only foolhardy, but thoroughly unnecessary and yet a third version popped up in 1993 from a wholly unexpected source – Abel Ferrara.
The fracturing family unit of the Malones arrive at a military base in Alabama in order for father, Steve, to do his thing as an agent for the Environmental Protection Agency. In tow is his second wife, Carol, their young son Andy and Marti, Steve’s teen daughter from his first marriage and the tension is palpable, especially after she has a tense run in with a crazed, paranoid MP in a gas station rest room who warns that “they get you when you sleep”.
As Marti and Andy struggle to settle into their new surroundings, they can’t help but notice that even for a military base full of stone-faced guards, the population seems to be uncomfortably conformist. On top of this, the camp’s medical officer reports to Steve that people have been suffering from extreme paranoia and even narcophobia (a fear of sleep) and the actual reason for this is something that goes far beyond the stoic nature of the U.S. military.
The camp is in the midst of being taken over by an alien force that take the form of pods that grows emotionless duplicates of its hapless victims while they sleep, only for the original form to crumble away to dust and the clueless human population is on the tipping point to becoming outnumbered. The Malones get a preview of the horror to come when Carol is the first to undergo the patented pod person attitude adjustment, but when she tries to enact the same extraterrestrial treatment on her family a strange twist of fate and a weak bathroom ceiling mean that the surviving Monroes better get their skates on if they’re going to stay a step ahead of this creepily passive takeover. However, even with a dashing helicopter pilot on their side, their chances seem slim as the tendrils of the pod people are steadily spreading ever outward.
When you think of the sort of director’s who would helm a glossy, 90s, Hollywood remake, possibly the last name to pop up in your mental rolodex is Abel Ferrara, edgy creator of such violent and controversial fare as Bad Lieutenant, King Of New York and legendary video nasty, Driller Killer. While you might think that this sudden shift from viscerally raw indie fare to big budget might be Ferrara suffering from an attack of the pod people himself, the provocative director actually adapts to this change incredibly well and while Body Snatchers may not quite equal the timelessness of its predecessors, it comes damn close.
Firstly, the script (scribbled up by the Re-Animator gang of Stuart Gordon and Dennis Paoli) scores a noticable hit by having this recent update start by having our disintegrating family enter the picture with the invasion already well under way meaning that the dropping of the “Invasion Of The” from the title us completely apt as this proves to be a much quicker, slicker adaptation at a scant-but-lean 87 minutes. Maybe it’s because the army base setting means that this particular version of the invasion is planned with more precision as the regimented nature of the troops means that the alien not move with literal military precision. In fact, the military thing is also an inspired choice as an imposing group of blank-faced jar heads isn’t out of the ordinary and their rigid, professional manner is virtually indistinguishable from that of a feelings-challenged, plant based alien.
Ferrara dives into these comparisons with gusto, delivering scenes utterly dripping with foreshadowing dread that prove to be genuinely creepy from the random discovery of a set of false teeth in a field to the unforgettable moment when little Andy looks about, utterly flummoxed by all the other children in his nursery somehow painting the exact same picture when his is so radically different. The director’s outsider nature allows him to play with the paranoia nicely, actually giving our younger characters a distinct fear of individualism before the true insidious nature of the conformity reveals itself in suitably gooey ways.
Modern effects are deployed to keep those aforementioned gooey bits extra gooey and provide some appropriately jarring instances of body horror such as pod people being left in a twisted, gasping, unborn state as a timely interruption leaves them looking like they’re made of squishy, beef jerky. Similarly, the sight of Andy witnessing his mother collapse into dust while her double emerges, nude and fully formed from a closet lingers in the memory for its ballsy cruelty.
The cast, which contains a young Gabrielle Anwar, a moustached R. Lee Emery and a jittery Forrest Whittaker, are mostly in fine form although Billy Worth’s Jame’s Dean-esque pretty boy pilot feels a bit forced. However, best them all us an unfeasibly creepy Meg Tilly whose warning speech as a podded-up Carol ends up being one of the most haunting moments out of any version. A laser focused mixture of gas lighting, thinly veiled threats and genuine appeal for common sense, her “where you gonna run” speech proves to be a thoroughly quintessential Body Snatcher moment that even makes you forgive Ferrara for cheekingly stealing the old point-and-shriek from Kaufman’s version.
However, it ain’t all gold as a rushed ending marrs some of the mounting tension with that tries to soften some of the brutal blows landed by the cold-blooded screenplay. Not helping matters is that the movie’s harshest twist is diluted by some of the worst blue screen work of the nineties, but after an explosion heavy climax, Ferrara still wisely avoids an overtly happy ending, finishing matters on deeply uncertain terms.
While often usurped by the admittedly superior, earlier versions when ranked; Body Snatchers is still a slice of underrated gold that ironically proves that assuming the form of an existing property isn’t always a bad thing.
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