- Appreciation of Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1978

Glad to see the love for this version. i went to see it twice in the theater. I thought it was an excellent film. Just found the poster in my collection, so I must have really liked it!

 

This is my favorite of the many versions, even over the original. And it's rare for me to prefer a modernized remake.
It was actually the first movie I ever saw on my own at a theater, just going to a matinee and buying a ticket myself. I was 16.

 

I agree, and she's had a long career using "that look"..... I especially liked her
in Hitchcock's "The Birds" (1963).

 

One of the greatest endings ever, in my book!

 

i love it. i saw it in the theater when i was 14. great cast, maintained creepiness, surprises that made me jump in my seat. i love the original as well. it messed with my head when i was a young child. some of those effects in the original truly stood out to me compared to many movies of the type from that era.

one of the few other great remakes to me, strangely enough, was from a similar slant about aliens overtaking human identity... the thing. sure, pods worked differently, but i thought the thing remake out-creeped the original, and it taps into an idea scary enough at the core to lead to multiple remakes. (that being said, i made my mother go with me to the thing remake, since she loved the original so much when she was young. probably not one of my wisest moves.)

 

I remember seeing this one on the big screen in a movie theater, and then I recall it being one of the films that got caught in the "exclusive" deals at cable outlets. At the time, I was a newish subscriber to HBO and my sister had the local Philadelphia outlet known as PRISM. Bidding wars among channels, studios, and distributors would send some movies exclusively to one outlet, like SHOWTIME, and not the other (HBO). As I recall, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS may have gone to the SHOWTIME side of things and not HBO. As A result, I had to have my sister tape the movie for me and I picked it up on a visit to her house. PRISM, being an independent pay-channel that focused on sports and movies, was able to secure the rights to a lot of stuff that was exclusive to the big guys and got INVASION...

I can also recall the scrunched images. Back then, these cable outlets would either create a pan'n'scan version, or scrunch the picture to include more side stuff, even if it was messing up the aspect ratio. This had the effect of making Donald Sutherland's already thin appearance become even more alien-like...

At some point, I bought a LaserDisc of it in widescreen and now own the two-disc DVD set. I've not contemplated upgrading to Blu-ray.

Harry

 

I've always loved this movie (as well as the 56 version). The US Blu-Ray includes most of the special features from the two disc DVD set. The most noticeable absence is the commentary by director Philip Kaufman. This commentary was originally recorded for the original DVD issue, which was released in the waning days of laserdiscs. I had a laserdisc player but it would still be several years before I upgraded to a DVD player. It wouldn't be until the two disc set released many years later that I bout IOTBS on DVD and then I never listened to the commentary.

The commentary is included on the UK Arrow Blu-Ray (I have the spiffy tin box version) which is where I finally got to hear it. All in all, not a great commentary unfortunately. I love the Arrow release but I believe the US release is pretty good as well. The Arrow includes a lossless version of the original 2 channel sound mix. It appears that both the US and UK release feature very similar image quality.

As for the movie itself, I've always appreciated the crazy paranoia the film wallows in. It's quite effective and leads to an ending that really gave me nightmares when I was young. I've been meaning to re-watch the 93 version. My memory is that it has the atmosphere but not much logic. I also recall that it was quite short so maybe there was a better movie left on the cutting room floor?

I just watched THE INVASION again last month to see if it was better than I remembered. Definitely has some good moments but it's not a good movie.

 

I know I've written about this before, but don't know if it was on the SH forums or elsewhere. The various versions of both Body Snatchers and The Thing reflect society's fears at the time they were made.

Body Snatchers - The original reflected the Cold War fear of a socialist state crushing individuality. The '78 version showed the paranoia at the influx of non-Western ideas into our culture. The 3rd version showed the fear of militarization of our society, and the latest version reflected the fear of immigrants and terrorism.

The Thing - The original showed Postwar gung-ho Americans working together to defeat the faceless enemy. The Carpenter version portrayed the 80s late Cold War era when we were paranoid about infiltration from within, and thus distrusted ourselves.

 

It was the first version i saw as a kid,i love it,as i kid i voted for my class to be called "THE BODYSNATCHERS"
and the fact that Jerry Garcia plays the banjo on it makes it supercool for me!

 

If this came out in 1978, that means I most likely saw it on cable in 1979 or so, when I was 9 years old. It scared the CRAP out of me. The dog with the human head, the pods, the whole paranoia vibe, the final scene....jeebus I was completely creeped out big time. I don't think I've seen it since 1980 but I can see those scenes, still, clearly.

 

well-said. i agree entirely. we could go through most of our "monsters" as projections of human fears of an era: nuclear radiation, nature's "revenge" on industrialization, our own technology getting the best of us, genetic engineering, etc. i'm not going into detail, but you get the drift.

sometimes i wonder if this recent thing of faster-moving zombies is somehow in response to a current era demanding more plastic surgery and botox.

(i'm kidding.)

 

To me, it's a subconscious response to the homeless situation encountered by those living in larger cities.

 

that would work, zombie plagues... nameless, faceless hordes (so to speak). overpopulation. there are so many variations of the dead coming back to life and preying on the living, the interpretations could be (and i'm sure have been) rich.

but perhaps i'm getting too far away from body-snatching. happens to me all the time.

 

I've told my wife for years that there are sections of our downtown that look like the apocalypse has occurred but nobody has noticed yet, so your theory may not be far off.

 

Today I found a copy of the US bluray at FYE for only $6.99. It looks like it has most of the special features. And at a decent price!

 

I saw it in the theater when it came out. I had never seen the original at that point so it was all new to me. I thought it was good.

 

I really like the 78's version of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, it has a dark and apocalyptic tone from the very beginning that I find very engaging. I have the US Blu ray and a couple of days ago bought the UK Arrow BD just for the few extra features more it has, I've read on a couple of website the movie looks as well as the US BD.

 

On the latest episode of the Dana Gould Hour podcast, he and Patton Oswalt discuss this film. Patton was really unsettled by it as a kid - rewatched it recently as an adult, and it was even more disturbing to him! Great discussion. You can find the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts (iTunes, etc.): http://www.danagould.com/bride-of-halloweenery/

 

Any thoughts on which might be better of the org, blu-ray or DVD? Since they have seemed to stop showing the org anymore I guess I'll buy it.

 

I saw the original when I was 9, loved it and have loved it ever since. Never really cared for the remakes; I've only seen the 1978 version, though.

 

I recently saw Invasion, the remake with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, and the original, both for the first time. The 1978 version remains my favorite.

 

The '78 version has my vote, the '07 version is terrible (lets tell it like it is). Haven't seen the '56 in a long time, but I liked it when I was a kid.

 

The '56, '78 and '93 versions are all worth watching. The original is still my favorite.

Can't recommend the Nicole Kidman version.