You’re still next!
Over 60 years later, the pod population keeps growing as the Invasion of the Body Snatchers continues.
Its been held up as a shining example of Cold War paranoia, reflecting American fear of communist infiltration.
Finney would deny all those things, insisting he was just trying to write an exciting sci-fi thriller.
Director Philip Kaufman has said the same thing.
They may well be right about that.
First came the wrangling over the title.
So it all worked out for the best.
The real trouble, though, came in post-production.
was too much a bummer, so they ordered Siegel to shoot a cheap framing gadget.
Certainly not Siegels, who remained bitter about it to the end.
Skip those bookends, though, and it remains one of the most chilling endings in film history.
Indeed, a number of people have cited this as a direct descendant of the Finney novel.
It seems to make sense at first.
Maybe he was inspired by the Heinlein novel andInvaders From Mars, too?
Joe McCarthy was ancient history, and commie infiltration wasnt exactly at the forefront of most American minds anymore.
We had other things to deal with.
More of a cousin.
But those are neither here nor there, the realBody Snatchersconnection comes by way of director Tommy Lee Wallace.
What they had in mind was pretty obvious.
They wanted to make some comment about the military as a dehumanizing force.
Nothing terribly new or radical in that, but fine.
Audiences were getting dumber, so maybe a reminder was due.
In fact, its sometimes difficult to shake the notion the film itself was directed by a pod person.
We go in knowing exactly what to expect.
Worse still, its a teen romance set on a military base full of alien pods.
In the end, and oddly, the film (unlike its two predecessors) today feels painfully dated.
I get the idea Rodriguez saw the Ferrara version and decided to push it one step further.
Why not take it to the next logical and fundamental level of teenagedom?
And why stop there?
Why not suggest all adults are pod people?
What else could explain why they simply cant understand the Young People of Today?
In a blink, all the teachers start acting strange.
Then the cops, then the parents, even a couple of the other students.
to bodies appearing then disappearing inconveniently, to anything else you might imagine.
The big difference here is that the transformations dont happen silently as you sleep.
Lets just say theyre a little more action-packed than that.
Also, instead of pods, the aliens take the form of slimy parasites with bad tempers.
No, about 20 minutes in, the audience and our two protagonists see exactly whats going on boom-boom-boom.
Then its back toBody Snatchersfor a bit before switching to, Christ, I dunno,Blade?
but it has a happy ending, and thats what matters.
The Invasion (2007)
Ive long been convinced Nicole Kidman was a pod person.
Sure, shes pretty and everything, but there was nothing behind the eyes.
Acting catatonic just seemed to come naturally.
My God, what a confounding and misguided trainwreck of a film this is.
It shouldnt necessarily be blamed on director Oliver Hirschbiegel.
By most accounts Hirschbiegel was trying to do something interesting here.
It spreads across the American South when the shuttle explodes on re-entry.
Five minutes in, were given the whole premise.
And for that conspiratorial angle, its made scrub the government knows whats going on.
The highly resilient virus grows in human hosts, taking over their minds much like what happened inQuatermass 2.
Those pesky emotions and opinions just mess everything up.
Well, Hirschbiegels initial cut seemed to argue, what if theyre right?
Yes, its a movie made by pods, for pods.
