RETRO REVIEW: INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978)

DONALD SUTHERLAND and the LEONARD NIMOY in a scene from INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. — **DONALD SUTHERLAND** and the **LEONARD NIMOY** in a scene from **INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS**.

Aliens have been a part of the movie-going experience since the early days of film. The very first acknowledged Sci-fi film was A TRIP TO THE MOON, a 1902 French adventure short film directed by GEORGE MELIES. The film was partly inspired by JULES VERNE’S 1865 novel, FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON and follows a group of astronomers who travel to the Moon in a cannon-propelled capsule, explore the surface, escape from an underground group of aliens, and return to Earth with a captive alien.

With 1953’s big-screen adaptation of H.G. WELL’S story, THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, the alien invasion blueprint was cemented, with the infamous film depicting aliens crashing to Earth in what appear to be meteorites, and the Martians emerging in vast, eerily-designed war machines, who immediately begin obliterating everything they see.

Nearly 70 years later, audiences are still obsessed with invasion films. Even up to modern day films like 2002’s SIGNS and 2016’s ARRIVAL, films that center around aliens invading Earth in spaceships still remain a popular sci-fi/horror construct for movie-goers. However, with the 1978 remake of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, the idea of a mass alien invasion was flipped completely on its head. What if an alien species didn’t use ships or flying saucers to invade Earth? What if it was something more insidious and subtle that centered around our very identity as human beings?

No one is what they seem in PHILIP KAUFMAN’S remake of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. — No one is what they seem in **PHILIP KAUFMAN’S** remake of **INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS**.

PLOT:

In this remake of the 1956 film of the same name, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS finds Matthew Bennell (DONALD SUTHERLAND) caught up in a tangled web of aliens, government cover-ups, and systematic plan to replace and eliminate all human life on Earth. When his friend Elizabeth (BROOKE ADAMS) complains of her husband's strange mood, he dismisses it at first as a marital issue. However, he begins to worry as more people report similar observations. His concern is confirmed when writer Jack Bellicec (JEFF GOLDBLUM) and his wife Nancy (VERONICA CARTWRIGHT) discover a mutated corpse. Besieged by an invisible and deadly enemy, Bennell must work quickly before the city of San Francisco is consumed.

Here come the pod people: DONALD SUTHERLAND and his alien doppelganger face off in INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. — Here come the pod people: **DONALD SUTHERLAND** and his alien doppelganger face off in **INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS**.

KILLS:

What makes this alien species so adaptable and strong is that they are parasitic, essentially attaching themselves to healthy organic hosts on different planets and taking over the vessel - in the case of their current visit to Earth, humans. The invasion is diabolical in its subtlety and simplicity, and the way that direct PHILIP KAUFMAN meticulously shows the cycle of that process, from these little clear, white globules floating down to San Francisco and attaching themselves to plants, to full-on baby-sized pods that are grown and distributed like the biggest, most efficient California weed production facility is nothing short of brilliant.

We realize early on that things are not as they seem, but it really isn’t until we meet Jack (JEFF GOLDBLUM) and his wife Nancy (VERONICA CARTWRIGHT) who run a health spa, that we finally get a physical explanation for what is happening. Nancy is finishing up in the spa for the night, and when she later goes to check on Jack in the sauna, she opens one of the curtains and finds a man lying under a sheet, looking like he is in some kind of flesh cocoon. Jack and Nancy call up Matt to come take a look at it, and they collectively realize that the man is not fully formed - he has a nose and a mouth, but no “character.” And no fingerprints. Nancy said she thought it was Jack under the sheet at first when she came in, and they also realize that this unformed person is about the same height and weight as Jack. Soon, Jack starts to complain that he is tired and feels dried out and we see that his lips are cracking. When he goes to lay down on one of the massage tables in the curtained-off area next to the pod guy, we have a great mirrored image of Jack and his doppelganger laying down. When Nancy goes back in to check on the cocoon guy, its eyes suddenly open and it looks even more like Jack. When she screams and runs into where Jack is lying down, he suddenly opens his eyes and we see the eyes of pod Jack close. Our protagonists quickly learn that, like in A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, falling asleep makes you susceptible to takeover by these parasitic aliens. But as in that film, they also learn that you can’t stay awake forever, despite their efforts later on in the film to take enough speed to stop an elephant’s heart in an attempt to avoid possession. I tried to do that myself in college, and trust me, it didn’t work then either.

This is why you don’t mess with genetics, kids: a pod person gone wrong in INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. — This is why you don’t mess with genetics, kids: a pod person gone wrong in **INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.**

VISUALS/SFX:

Everything in the film hits the mark in terms of story and performances, but when it comes to the visuals and sound, that’s where INVASION really excels. From the eerily beautiful visual of tiny green tendrils coming out of one of the clear, alien globules on a plant leaf, to appalling, raptor-like screech that the ubiquitous Body Snatchers emit when a human is spotted, INVASION makes the strange and bizarre both beautiful and horrific.

Case in point. When our plucky gang of humans all gather at Matt’s place to take shelter from the swarms of pod people now sprouting up all over the city, they quickly learn that falling asleep leaves you vulnerable to possession. Matt falls asleep outside on his patio, when we suddenly see these white hairs come up from the ground and attach to his hand. Nearby, we see a pod that’s grown extremely large, as it starts to move and open up with a loud, ominous pulsing sound. For the first time in the film, we see the full extemt of this takeover and cloning process as a human-like figure starts to birth itself out of the pod, quickly taking on the features of Matt sleeping next to him. Next to it, other pods taking on the forms of Elizabeth and Jack start to grow as well, twitching and covered with goo. It’s an absolutely chilling and visceral scene, almost reminiscent of the transformation scenes of another famous horror remake, THE THING, which would be released only four years later. Realizing what is happening when he is woken up by Nancy, Matt takes up a shovel, only hesitating for a moment before smashing his replicas head, in a fantastic and bloody moment.

The sound in the film is no slouch either. Sound designer BEN BURTT (who also had just worked on STAR WARS: EPISODE IV-A NEW HOPE that same year) created one of the most layered, yet understated soundtracks in Sci-Fi cinema, incorporating an unique score by DANNY ZEITLIN and a host of subliminal, yet effective, noises and modulations that lend itself to the films unearthly and foreboding feel. Among the sounds Burtt used for the pod growing scene, was the heartbeat sound that came from an ultrasound recorded on his pregnant wife. The pod people screams were recorded pig squeals. Additionally, the natural diegetic sounds (crickets, birds chirping) fade out as the film progresses and more organic life is taken over and thus, destroyed, until only mechanical sounds (sirens, the garbage trucks) are left. The location feeds into this almost apocalyptic feel as well, the film showing San Francisco in an ominous light, with dark shadows, alleys, and long, wide shots that add credence to the impending doom about to befall humanity in the city.

BROOKE ADAMS and DONALD SUTHERLAND in INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. — **BROOKE ADAMS** and **DONALD SUTHERLAND** in **INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS**.

PERFORMANCES:

INVASION is a who’s-who of late 70’s acting prowess, the kind of stacked cast you would see in today’s apocalyptic sci-fi blockbuster. We have JEFF GOLDBLUM in one of his early film roles doing the JEFF GOLDBLUM thing that he does so well, as well as the oft slept-on VERONICA CARTWRIGHT as Nancy, who surprisingly learns the most about these aliens and most importantly, how to escape their notice. But it’s really DONALD SUTHERLAND and BROOKE ADAMS that are the heart and soul of the film.

Sutherland’s Matt is a meticulous and determined health inspector for the Department of Health, the kind of stubbornly single-minded bureaucrat that restaurants in the city fear. But when his fellow Department of Health colleague and friend, Elizabeth, comes to him concerned about recent behavior changes in her husband Geoffry (ART HINDLE), he begins to investigate, uncovering a mass alien conspiracy that reaches even the highest offices of government. Sutherland plays the perfect leading man - he’s smart, determined, ethically moral, but with enough deprecating wit to still stay extremely likable.

As Elizabeth, BROOKE ADAMS is the perfect other half to Matt’s bulldog-ish coin. She’s fiercely inquisitive, smart, and intuitive, realizing what is going on before anyone else. She spots the unusual pod flowers that have started sprouting up around the city and brings it home, theorizing that it a “grex”, essentially the result of what happens when two species of flowers cross-pollinate, thereby creating a completely new species. Perhaps it is because of her background as a scientist that she seems uniquely tuned into the small changes happening around her, who knows? But, when little things start to seem off (Geoffry dumping a trashcan of gray ash into a conveniently idling garbage truck, and people running past her who are clearly not out for a jog), Elizabeth immediately starts to make the connections between the odd behavior and the appearance of these pod flowers.

Both Adams and Sutherland have terrific chemistry together, and from the beginning there’s a distinct “will they or won’t they” energy to their interactions, despite the fact that Adams character, Elizabeth, is married to the boorish Geoffry. They dive into the mystery with all the gusto of a WOODWARD & BERNSTEIN, and when they are the only two believed to be left standing in their group, having been able to evade alien contagion for most of the film, it is heartbreaking to witness their inevitable downfall.

You can’t escape the pod people in INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. — You can’t escape the pod people in **INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS**.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS:

The original INVASION doesn’t address what happens when your pod person self is born, but this transformation is an integral part of the remake. The first hint we see of that is that strange scene of Geoffry taking out that trashcan of what looks like grey lint to that waiting garbage truck. When we finally realize that it’s the remnants of the original human form they have overtaken, it’s an absolutely chilling moment. In most alien invasion films, the aliens come to our planet because they need something from humans, whether it’s resources or assistance with some kind of crisis on their own planet, and that need can either be benign and friendly in nature, or violent and destructive. The aliens in INVASION are no different, as they need our organic lifeform in order to continue to survive as a species. But what makes these aliens and their method of takeover so terrifying is how disposable we are to them, so much so, that we are literally thrown out like trash when they are done with us. As the band KANSAS and KEANU REEVES put it in BILL & TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE: “all we are is dust in the wind, dude.”

It’s exactly that kind of disposability that is so ghastly. As humans, we want to believe that our life has value, even in death, not just as individuals, but as a species - that what defines us and makes us special is our ability to feel emotion, to have what host of religions and belief systems call a “soul”. Right away in the film, Elizabeth clocks that something is different with Geoffry, saying that he’s missing something, missing emotions, and though he looks the same, it’s not him inside. It’s this very issue of identity, of humanity that is at the very heart of INVASION. These aliens may look and sound like us, but they lack the very constructs that make humans human.

Even more than 40 years later, INVASION remains a powerful allegory for the dissolution of society and personal identity. Director PHILLIP KAUFMAN even ruminated on the legacy of his film in 2018 to The Hollywood Reporter, saying, “it’s the loss of humanity that is scary, not just the fact that they’re beset upon by monsters or the monster within.” I would go a step further and say it’s not just that loss of humanity that makes INVASION scary, it is the calculating subterfuge the aliens employ in their takeover that elevates it even further. We are conditioned by years of Hollywood films to expect the takeover of Earth to happen by big spaceships carrying laser-wielding aliens that destroy everything in their path. We as a society are prepared for big, loud, obvious alien invasions: drop a nuke on them, boom - done. But would we be prepared for an invasion of a more cunning and duplicitous nature? What if the vehicle of our destruction was contained in the very innocuous objects that surround us every day?

Like VERONICA CARTWRIGHT’s character Nancy says in the film, “why not flowers? Why does it always have to be big metal ships?”

It’s a scream, baby: a chilling moment from INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. — It’s a scream, baby: a chilling moment from **INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS**.

THE GORY DETAILS:

Harry, the homeless banjo guy's banjo playing was performed by Grateful Dead frontman JERRY GARCIA. The song being played (and sung), is the traditional "Going Down the Road Feeling Bad," which is a regular tune played by The Dead in live performances, and appears on several live albums.

The night after the movie's release, someone put pods, like those in the movie, all over the streets of Los Angeles. Some people got so freaked out, that they thought they were real, and called the police.

The book the man in the spa is reading is IMMANUEL VELIKOVSKY’S WORLD IN COLLISION, a book which is considered to be the foundation of modern catastrophism, shaking up the doctrine of uniformity of geology, as well as Darwin’s theory of evolution. It is considered to be one of the most important and challenging books in the history of science and the book was found open on Albert Einstein's desk after his death.