Film Review
Philip Kaufman's slick and exciting reinterpretation of Don Siegel's
1956 sci-fi
classic (both adapted from a novel by Jack Finney) is a rare thing
- a remake that is practically as good as the original. With the
benefit of a much greater budget, Kaufman manages to make the threat of
an alien takeover by overgrown marrows appear even more frighteningly
believable than in Siegel's film. Whilst the film has one or two
niggling flaws (mostly to do with the calibre of the acting) it still
holds up as one of the most gruesome and chilling entries in the sci-fi
horror genre. It can just as easily be enjoyed as a scurrilous
black comedy, if you are in the right frame of mind.
Busy San Francisco is the setting for this take on Finney's story, in
contrast to the sleepy small Californian town seen in Siegel's
film. Contrary to what you might expect, this change of location
makes for a far more claustrophobic and intense kind of film, which is
partly down to the fact that most of the action takes place at
night. The neon-lit urban setting contributes a great deal to the
film's unrelenting mood of oppression, achieved through some highly
effective camerawork, with camera movement and unusual angles serving
to create a terrifyingly dreamscape that is suffused with a gradually mounting sense of
panic and disorientation.
At the time of its initial release, this film, whilst highly popular,
was criticised in some quarters for its showy mise-en-scène, and
yet today it feels surprisingly modern, almost an auteur piece
(certainly by the standards of Hollywood at the time).
Kaufman would go on to make one or two other notable films - including
The Right Stuff (1983) and
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
(1988) - but rarely would he show this degree of inspiration, ambition
and creativity in his directing.
The rampant cinephiles will doubtless appreciate Kaufman's overt
references to the 1956 film. Don Siegel makes a cameo
appearance as a taxi driver in one scene, whilst Kevin McCarthy appears
briefly as a man shouting hysterically at passing cars, replaying a
sequence seen near to the end of Siegel's film. The ending to
this version of
Invasion of the Body
Snatchers is much closer to the one which Siegel had planned for
his film, before the studio execs stepped in and vetoed it.
If the original film can be regarded as a parody of the anti-Communist
paranoia that swept America in the 1950s, this remake equally serves as
a satire on 1970s conformity, which had come about as a result of the
consumer revolution and the growing power of the large
corporations. This notion, of the fascism of mindless capitalism
in a world bereft of cultural identity and political ideology, would
find an even more powerful expression in George A. Romero's cult horror
masterpiece
Dawn of the Dead, released the
same year.
© James Travers 2010
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
Government scientist Elizabeth Driscoll becomes concerned when her
partner starts to behave strangely, doing odd things like getting up
early and emptying the dustbins. Her colleague, San Francisco
health inspector Matthew Bennell, is initially sceptical over her
anxieties but comes around to her way of thinking when several other
people make similar claims, only to retract them a few days
later. The clinching proof comes when Jack and Nancy Bellicec
contact Bennell and show him a strange body in the mud bath
establishment that they run. The inanimate creature is
recognisably human, but its features are not yet fully formed.
Elizabeth and Bennell soon discover the terrible truth. The Earth
has been invaded by an alien life-form from a distant galaxy, one that
intends to replace the entire human race...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.