The Revisited series takes a look back at the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, starring Donald Sutherland
With the passing of Donald Sutherland, I was looking through his catalogue for stuff I hadn’t seen yet as I like to look at the entire catalogue to find some hidden gems. What I was reminded of while looking was his stellar horror output over the years. Fallen, The Puppet Masters, Don’t Look Now, Virus, the Salem’s Lot TV miniseries, and of course Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors are all fun to great but for my money, his turn in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (watch it HERE) and really the movie in general, is his best stuff. After buying the wonderful 4K from Kino Lorber and rewatching it, I’m also ready to crown it as the best San Francisco based horror movie too. While it can feel every bit as long as it’s 1 hour and 55-minute runtime, it uses that slow build tension to really hammer home what you see on your screen. As remakes go, the 78 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is slept on far too often and ultimately one of the best out there. Its time for a revisit.
As I said, this movie is a remake of the 1956 Don Siegel classic that itself is an adaptation of the book The Body Snatchers by sci-fi favorite Jack Finney. I like that one a lot and it broods in many of the 50s political and thematic sci fi ideals and tropes. The reason I wanted to cover this one is because, make no mistakes, this is sci-fi horror. From the effects to the nihilism and downbeat ending that was prevalent in the 70s to many of the horrifying details you see with multiple viewings, the movie is scary in its execution and implications. The impetus for the remaking of this movie starts with how much director Phillip Kaufman loved the original. He hadn’t even read the book until after he agreed to remake the movie.
Kaufman is an Oscar nominated writer and director who also penned the story for Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Outlaw Josey Wales while also directing The Right Stuff and Rising Sun. He reached out to original director Don Siegel and ended up developing the ending of the movie with him and original star and Joe Dante favorite Kevin McCarthy. The two have cameos in the movie too, as a taxi driver pod person who rats out two of the characters and as someone who bares a striking resemblance to his character from the first movie. This is the kind of call back that is more than just the type of fan service we get when movie universes are tied together, and more thinking mans moment. The moment takes you by surprise even though the way the scene is shot should prepare you for a jump scare even if the conversation between characters goes on for longer than normal before the scare. Kevin McCarthy’s character looks like he’s been awake for days and he tries to warn us and the main characters of their impending doom. This man could, potentially, be the same character from the first film that made it to San Francisco, but he could also just be a wink and a nod to the original.
Kaufman wasn’t the only owner of this project as the script was done by W.D. Richter who was nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay for Brubaker in the early 80s but, let’s be honest here, he is way more important for writing movies like Needful Things, the 1979 Dracula, and, oh yeah, Big Trouble in Little China. While he only directed two movies, one of them was The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension. While we will never see that amazing character fight the Crime League we were teased about at the end of the first movie, I still want to put him in the sci-fi horror movie Hall of Fame just for those beautiful contributions.
The movie follows the basic idea of the original movie and book where there is an alien invasion of spores that slowly attempt to take over the population of the planet starting in one town. People begin to act strangely and slowly but surely the core main characters become aware of the plot and try to fight it. The alien race floats to earth as spores and when humans fall asleep, they are absorbed and replicated as unfeeling replacements of their former selves while their bodies are disposed of. While the new versions remember everything about their former lives, they no longer have the drive or will to do anything but exist and continue their lives. Kauffman does a wonderful twist here with transporting the action and story to his beloved San Francisco which also happens to be one of the most populus and busy cities in the U.S. He also wanted to weave into the story his own very progressive beliefs and those of that in the city in the 70s. The stark dichotomy between his own beliefs and the very city’s core itself and the result of the pods taking over people and making them into lifeless and more importantly belief less drones is great to watch unfold.
In addition to Sutherland’s great turn as a health inspector who is at first searching for a rational explanation for the woman he loves, he is joined by Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright, and Leonard Nimoy in supporting roles. Sutherland’s Matthew Bennell is one of the great characters in a horror movie. He is rational but emotional, makes the best decisions he can while also fighting until the very end, and has a good mix of bravery and intelligence that fleshes him out for the audience in a way that few characters in these movies are. Brooke Adams plays his love interest whose boyfriend, played by The Brood‘s Art Hindle, is one of the first characters to turn. It’s a great tell for the audience even if we already know what’s coming. He’s a sports obsessed dentist with Warriors playoff tickets one night but when Elizabeth (Adams) brings home a curious flower and pod for the night, she awakens to a new man both literally and figuratively when he cleans up the remains of his former human shell with zero emotions and in a suit that doubles as a metaphor for the alien race using us as suits for their new home.
What is something that may go unnoticed on a first viewing but is unavoidable and quite horrible after you do see it is when the boyfriend takes the trash out with the remains, we see a lot of what looks like dust or cobwebs in the garbage truck. We see more and more of these in dumpsters, trashcans, and additional garbage trucks throughout the movie and while our heroes never notice it, it’s the evidence of the city and mankind itself crumbling away. The horror of this movie continues in various ways with how the pods attach themselves to sleeping humans before spitting out unformed bodies that eventually copy the host, to Jeff Goldblum’s body double starting to look like him down to both of their nose’s bleeding. All of the effects are practical, and even quite cheap to produce by Kauffman’s own admission, and they all hold up well. Ok there is that one scene where the dog that was seen with the homeless guitar player appears again with his face on the dogs body and that doesn’t look great but the idea behind it is awful. The dog and man are getting absorbed at night and Matthew kicks the pod which makes it mix the two hosts together in a twisted fashion. That also means there is a human body out there potentially with a dog’s head and face on it.
Goldblum and Cartwright play a husband and wife who are friends with Matthew that get thrust into the plot when they stick with Elizabeth and Matthew. Goldblum has some great genre credits that include another all-time remake in The Fly as well as Jurassic Park and The Sentinel. Veronica Cartwright is wonderful here and will forever be known as Lambert from Alien along with parts in anthology Nightmares and The Witches of Eastwick. Finally, Brooke Adams, who I just discovered is married to Tony Shalhoub, is also no stranger to horror with roles in Naziploitation classic Shock Waves, The Dead Zone, and The Unborn. While I’m here I’ll also mention her episode of Wings because Lance and I need to get that show out there more. I say finally like I wasn’t going to mention Leonard Nimoy but that’s because the dude sung the Hobbit song, so everyone knows him.
With their world shrinking and getting outnumbered with each passing moment, the characters are chased, drugged, absorbed at times, made paranoid about who, if anyone, they can trust. One of my favorite moments is when Matthew tries to call outside the city for help and the person on the other line addresses him by name when they couldn’t have possibly known who he was. It seals the deal, but you still think there is a chance until right up to the end. With such a huge location that can lead to anywhere, the pod aliens use that transit ability to begin branching out, so to speak to other parts of the world. When it gets down to two characters, they try to get on some shipping boats to get out only to learn that these ships are also being used to transport pods, potentially worldwide. It’s a gut punch of a moment that also has one of the best uses of both Amazing Grace on the bagpipes and a blending of diegetic and non-diegetic music. Even though they are trapped, we do remember via a slight throwaway line that these pod people can be tricked but for how long. The final sequence leads to one of horror’s greatest endings that is still in many ways unmatched.
The movie was a hit for United Artists when it was released right before Christmas on December 22nd, 1978. I don’t have a budget listing for it but the movie made nearly 25 million at the box office and was a huge hit with critics and movie goers alike. It won multiple genre awards and has been listed amongst the best remakes ever even if there isn’t much press for it almost 50 years later. Its sense of paranoia oozes through every scene and almost matches other perennial remake favorite The Thing in that category. Its score, cinematography, acting, and directing are all top notch and its worth seeking out in it’s newest 4K iteration from Kino Lorber and all its special features after its initial bare bones DVD release. It’s the best version of this story on page or screen and the next best would be the next version from Abel Ferrara in the early 90’s but more on that sooner than you think. Donald Sutherland should be celebrated for his body of work as well as the person he was but don’t sleep on this late 70s horror gem. In fact, if you’ve seen it, maybe don’t sleep at all…
Two previous episodes of Revisited can be seen below. To see more of our shows, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals channel – and subscribe while you’re at it!