Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

ElMaruecan82 Science fiction taught us to be scared or at least highly suspicious over emotionless creatures (or creations), but what if they are family? What if their emotionlessness is also the promise of a life devoid of the tormenting effects of feelings? How would that premise, so scary back then, holds up today?I don't think Jack Finney, author of the original novel could have predicted that at the dawn of the 20th century, his "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" would inspire three movie adaptations, and three damn good ones at that. I guess he foresaw that there was something universal and timeless about the story, which explains how it could regularly reinvent itself. Indeed, each film reflects the social mood of its era, each one borrowing a little something from the predecessor yet providing a novelty that fits its own context.In 1956, Don Siegel entered "pod culture" with a story set in small Californian town. In Philip Kaufman's version of 1978, the town was San Francisco, the era made soullessness even less visible and the film was more generous in horror artistry and introduced the now iconic pod scream and signal. Intentionally or not, the first was an allegory of conservative conformism while the second a commentary of the failure of counterculture with modernity alienating people from each other and maybe the pointed finger as the brutal demonization of social outcastsNow, we're in 1993, and the director is Abel Ferrara. It's been a while since I saw his movies but they always struck me with their nihilistic feel and the way violence could have an exorcising effect without being enjoyed in the proper term of the word. His characters are often prone to bitterness, devoured by their own demons and barely capable to show emotion. It's not a coincidence that one of his fetish actors was Christopher Walken, who's so intimidating you could never tell if you had to fear him or avoid him, a natural-born pod man. So there wasn't many joy in his films but a form of subtle introspection within doomed but not meaningless lives.His 1992 "Bad Lieutenant" was a masterpiece and highlighted one of his greatest talents which is not to sell out for cheap and predictable genre tropes. One can say that his use of violence could make him a good candidate for a horror film, but even then, you can sense there's a Ferrara touch in the story, it is faithful to the novel in structure and story, but in spirit, it is different. And even by tackling the genre, Ferrara doesn't indulge in an exercise in style and, he sticks to his guns and dares to play it in a surprisingly low key way. His most inspired idea was to flip the genders and center the story on a young teenage girl played by Gabrielle Anwar, in fact, he tells a totally different story.Marti is 16, she lives with her father (Terry Kinney), her step-mother (Meg Tilly) and little half-brother and strikes you as the typical angry teen who gets alone with nobody. This is an interesting departure from the first films where the shifts of personalities occurred within happy couples or families. We're in an interesting case of new marriage where members seem estranged one to another, quite an irony when the change is meant to be the pivotal point. So if the little boy feels the children in school all act bizarrely the same or that his "mother is dead", the dysfunctional thing will serve as a perfect alibi. Ferrara tricks the card already by making the slights change more difficult to notice. Another example the the film is set in a military base, so the emotionless façade is in line with the soldiers' rigid conformity, as pointed out by Roger Ebert who gave the film four stars. I liked the film but within its short runtime, it doesn't try to play with our minds for too long, Ferrara knows that we all wait for the first pods to appear and on that level, he gets as graphic and visually generous as Kaufman, but in a rather sordid and disgusting way, the tendrils don't have this macabre but bizarre sensuality and the sight and sounds of "unfinished" bodies are pretty unsettling, not to mention those damn finger-pointing screams.Kaufman's art was almost beautiful and give the film a sort of hypnotic beauty, "Body Snatchers" is gloomy from the start, there's no cheerful neighbors to welcome the family, the means of socialization are quite minimal: people drink and sleep all day and barely talk to each other. Even Marti makes only two friends, the general's daughter and a handsome soldier, the rest of the environment involvement military police under the commandment of the late R. Lee. Ermey, far less colorful than his legendary Hartman but even more intimidating. His confrontation and speech to a mentally cornered Forest Whitaker and is perhaps the most depressing "explanation moment" of the trilogy. Even the Alabama military base is a sort of anachronistic sepia-toned town so typical of these "Great Depression" movies of the 70's. In the end, we don't know if the body snatching either is a predictable evolution or a deliverance. It's interesting that the only outburst of pure humanity are either suicide or intense hatred, not our most positive assets. Ebert said that the film reflected the "no future" depression of the 90's, the AIDS period, I think Ferrara took an interesting angle that fit the disillusioned spirit of his characters, driven yet undefeated. Indeed, just because one hates his life doesn't mean he should accept someone to suck the life out of him, that's the point.As usual, the 'body snatchers' say something about what we are, but also what we don't want to be. Maybe as long as we'll be "afraid to sleep", the story will be relevant enough to inspire more remakes like the 2007 one.

SimonJack This is a second Hollywood remake of a sci-fi thriller, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" of 1956. It was based on a novel of the same title by Jack Finney. The original was a suspenseful sci-fi with a film noir look that didn't have a single ugly creature. It held the audience in suspense for most of the film. But this film, "Body Snatchers," is a major revision of the story. The setting, characters and situations are quite different. And, it clearly is more of a horror story. It's not too bad for that, but with horror stories being a dime a dozen, neither does it offer much of anything better or original. The performances are just OK. There are many other good sci-fi thrillers out there, so one doesn't have to settle for lesser films like this one.

Leofwine_draca The original story by Jack Finney is thrown headlong into the 1990s in this, the third adaptation of the original classic of paranoia, following the other versions released in 1956 and 1978. While this film could have been a total fiasco, much like other remakes we've been seeing in the '90s, the one saving grace is the presence of director Abel Ferrara, who, along with Stuart Gordon and Larry Cohen lifts the average material to more than it might have been. However, it might not be enough...The trouble with horror films of the 1990s is that even when they do get something right, they do just about everything else wrong. WISHMASTER had great gory ideas, but a tepid plot. I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, well... that didn't really have anything did it? Anyhow I digress. BODY SNATCHERS is full of atmospheric imagery and bursting with style, but sadly the plot and script are turgid, relentlessly chewed up hundreds of times before in other films, and therefore lacking any real sense of menace.Ferrara gets carried away with the Raimi-like diagonal camera angles, filling every scene with haunting shadows. Which is great, you know, but somewhat...pretentious? Unfortunately the cast is populated with dense, unlikable characters, and even the little boy turns out to be a stereotyped whining American brat. The females are bland, the actor playing the father is expressionless, with the only believable character being Forest Whitaker (ironically his character is almost an exact replica of Kevin McCarthy's hero in the original classic). This really drags down the attention level. Plot wise, the idea of setting the story in a military base is quite effective, but once you realise that it's just a one-note idea which is never fully explored, then you feel that it's quite a letdown.The film is in two halves. In the first half, there are vague shadows and sounds but nothing much really happens. After an effects-laden scene in the middle of the film, it becomes one elongated chase movie, all set at night and involving people running in a variety of settings. Does this sound like your idea of fun? Not really. The film does benefit from some good special effects in the form of the alien pods, although they're almost exact replicas of the pods from 1978's sublime INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.There is some nudity put in to spice things up which seems quite desperate, and two great scenes which make the film worth watching. However apart from these key moments and an ambiguous ending, the film never really goes anywhere. If it was original I would give it a higher mark but the trouble is that we've seen it all before, twice before, and it was better both of those times so the third outing just appears to be a tired rerun of the earlier events.

Ben Larson 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.