There are some stories in the history of film that end up being repeated over and over again. Some of these are just simple categories like vampire, werewolf, and zombie films. Some of them get a little more granular and specific like the story of Dracula or Frankenstein’s monster. Finally, we can get even more granular and look at a specific title that has made the rounds a few times. I Am Legend by the wonderful and prolific Richard Matheson was made into three different movies with Last Man on Earth, The Omega Man, and finally I Am Legend. While King Kong and Phantom of the Opera probably have the most, Invasion of the Body Snatchers has the most consistent offerings. The 2007 iteration was a bust but the other 3 are all incredibly solid. With the 90s version turning 30 we thought it was worth seeing if it was a generic replication of the real deal or if it stands the test of time.

Plot

A script for another version of Jack Finney’s seminal sci fi novel The Body Snatchers was written by the wonderful team of Dennis Paoli and Stuart Gordon and eventually Nicholas St. John with story credits by Larry Cohen and Raymond Cisteri. It was originally going to be directed by Stuart Gordon but when he had to back out, explosive and maverick director Abel Ferrara was approached to helm. It was already completely written and decently into pre-production when he took over and even though he wasn’t thrilled about some of the aspects, the love of the original, just like that of the 78 director Phillip Kauffman, kept him on the project. Its not like the script and story doesn’t have pedigree, either. Gordon and Paoli were a great team and between them or even together wrote some of the best horror of the 80s and 90s. Things like Re-Animator and From Beyond, Ghoulies II, Castle Freak, The Dentist, Robot Jox, and Dagon all came from these two.

Larry Cohen is a legend as well both in Blaxploitation and Horror with stuff like, well, The Stuff, Q the Winged Serpent, and the It’s Alive trilogy. He too was also a good writer for movies that he didn’t end up behind the director’s chair. The lesser-known gentlemen, namely Nicholas St. John and Raymond Cisteri, are no slouches either. St. John is actually Nicodemo Oliverio, and he would end up writing 9 movies with and for director Abel Ferrara. Cisteri only has one other title to his name from back in 1972. Ferrara is the gritty and hard shooting New York director behind things like Ms. 45, Bad Lieutenant, and King of New York. The Wikipedia page says that today’s movie is his first excursion into the world of sci-fi but I think this has a lot of horror to it just like the 78 version. He also did Driller Killer and a really cool vampire movie called The Addiction to add to his horror output.

The cast is a fun collection of talent that mostly weren’t huge stars. Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker is the exception here as he would go on to a star-studded career in both TV and film. For horror though he wouldn’t have much else in horror apart from his part in awesome creature feature Species. Meg Tilly may not be the horror mainstay her sister Jennifer is but her career has been great including horror like the Chucky TV show and Psycho II as well as being part of 80s classic The Big Chill and an Oscar Nomination of Agnes of God. The stunning Gabrielle Anwar had a heck of a run in the early 90s with Body Snatchers, Scent of a Woman, Three Musketeers, and Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead. She was also amazing on the underrated show Burn Notice but if I can make a suggestion, it would be to seek out The Grave from 1996. Christine Elise from Childs Play II and R. Lee Ermey need no introduction to horror hounds and the patriarch of the family is played by Terry Kinney who you will also know from his TV work in Billions, OZ, Inventing Anna, and Good Behavior.

The movie follows Steven Malone who works for the EPA and is sent to a military installation in Alabama with his wife, daughter, and son. He is there to check on what the military may have done to the environment there and what effects that may have on the soldiers. His daughter Marti is cornered in a gas station restroom by a hysterical soldier who tells her they get you when you sleep. The military base is full of what you’d expect with typical military soldiers and their nonmilitary families. Strange things start to happen with people not acting as they should, Steve’s son Andy getting scared out of school because the other kids are way too different, and reports of people not being who they say they are. The base doctor and Steve discuss the widespread fear of falling asleep that has swept across the base, but Doctor Malone doesn’t see any correlation.

His son sees what we have come to expect from this movie, a main character being taken over by one of the alien pod invaders that are taking over the base. While no one believes Andy, the very next night both Steve and Marti are almost changed into pod people and are chased out of their lodging with a screaming pod wife alerting the rest of the doubles of their escape. A soldier named Tim who Marti met the night before is also being chased and after Steve hides his two kids in a storage area, he witnesses the base doctor end his life rather than willingly turn into a drone. Steve goes back and grabs his kids, but it is revealed he has been replaced too. Marti, Andy, and Tim try to escape but the two siblings are captured. Tim goes back to save them and is successful with Marti but when Andy runs after the helicopter it is revealed that he, too, is now a pod. They dump him out of the ship and take revenge by blowing up the base and all the pods with missiles from the helicopter. They land at another base, but it is unclear if they are truly safe.

Signs of the Time

Look at these people enjoying their pod apocolypse with nary a cell phone in sight. Just really living in the moment. All jokes aside, this was a movie of the moment. The director, replacement and all, was a staple of the late 80’s and early 90’s. Abel Ferrara was all over the place and from 1986 to 1996 released a total of 12 movies on either the big or small screen. He did things his way and while this was his first big studio backed film, it still has some of the style he brings to all his projects. Its clear from the opening scene that while the Steve character would normally be the main protagonist, his daughter Marti is the real hero, and we know that from her narration which is also something that was a prevalent framing device in the early half of the decade.

Two other trends that were big in the 90s were the opposite of the 70s nihilism and that’s the relatively happy ending. While the 50s version went nice, the 70s version has one of the best and most down beat endings of the decade. While it is somewhat up in the air on what our main characters are landing into while the movie ends, you could at least interpret that its possible the threat is over. While on the subject of the 70s, the cyclical phenomena of environmental fears also decides to rear its head again with things like The Guardian, Alligator 2, Dust Devil, and later on Mimic to name a few. Finally, the 90s was also a time where horror went back to the literary world both with readapting some of the classics with Dracula and Frankenstein but also taking chances on this remake or the previously mentioned Guardian.

What Holds Up?

The movie is just a solid experience all the way around for the most part. All of the military stuff is great from the analogy of the pod people and the stringent and logic of the military system as pointed out by Roger Ebert at the time to the PTSD that the soldiers and doctor have. You could even throw in the angle of the doctor not wanting to do something that the military, represented by the pod people here, want to force him into. The script and story hold up really well too. While the change to the military base seems like an obvious layup, they could have screwed it up really easily. How they jump right into it with the reveal in the gas station bathroom to the horror of how the people change and how quickly characters die are all sharp and biting. They even give no effs about killing off a kid, twice technically, with his human form poofing away into dust when he changes and his pod version being noped out of a helicopter. The horror is real here even if the scream isn’t quite as haunting as the previous iteration.

The acting here is really good too particularly by the two female leads in Meg Tilly and Gabriel Anwar. Meg Tilly going from playful younger mom to cold and calculated pod creature really shows her range and Anwars Marti is a good mix of scared victim and angry survivor. The other stand out for the movie are the effects. They are natural progressions from the 70’s version and look creepy and great. The pod creatures are well done and absolute nightmare fuel when they die and melt away into puddles of horror. It’s the kind of stuff you look at 30 years later and wish that CGI was never created.

What doesn’t hold up?

Some of the other performances can be wooden and I don’t mean in the requisite pod like attitudes either. The little boy is neither good nor bad, but the love interest Tim falls a bit flat. I used to think that Terry Kinny was William Hurt but he does a good job here and I wont hold that against him. One thing that does stand out is the score not quite fitting the mood of the movie. It’s not outright bad, actually it’s a good piece of music on its own, but it’s nothing special when looking at a horror film. The camera work tries a bit too hard to be 70’s and Avant Garde at times and there are a few scenes that are derivative or outright stolen from other versions that aren’t as good as they were when originally used. None of that is a deal breaker though and even my last gripe doesn’t ruin it. The one thing that stood out as kind of a cheat was that the pod people use deception at points to trick the characters and not just deception but EMOTIONAL deception which they really shouldn’t even be capable of. They do it more than a few times and while I’m all for changing of rules with anything from werewolves to vampires to zombies, but this seems to go against the very conceit of the pod people’s core. Doesn’t ruin the movie but I feel it could have been changed easily enough too.

Verdict

It’s very rare for a story to be told this many times and still be good but all three of the first tellings of this book come out on top. While the 50’s is a classic Sci Fi classic of the highest order and the 78 version is a downbeat, downtrodden, and downright downer example of peak 70’s oppression, today’s version has a few tweaks that make it unique and special on its own. It has different metaphors and changes some of the main characters and outcomes enough that its unique outlook and presentation shine. The follow up in 07 is as dull as the pod people it shows on screen, but Abel Ferrara adds some punch and elements missing from the other adaptations of the original story. While the movie was a huge bomb and failure, it’s worth seeking out and stands the test of time now 30 years on.

A couple of the previous episodes of The Test of Time can be seen below. To see more, click over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!

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