Body Snatchers

Body Snatchers (1993)

Directed by: Abel Ferrara
Written by: Stuart Gordon, Dennis Paoli, Nicholas St. John, based on the novel by Jack Finney
Starring: Gabrielle Anwar, Billy Wirth, Terry Kinney, Reilley Murphy, Meg Tilley, Christine Elise, R. Lee Ermey, Forest Whitaker

Third adaptation (out of four) of The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney takes place on a military base.

For the uninitiated, it's about alien pods that copy peoples bodies while they sleep (I couldn't sleep for a while after seeing the 1978 version of this story. I'm okay now, though).

This movie wasn't all that great. It had some pretty creepy moments, and the pod FX were pretty cool, but it felt somehow too obvious. I mean, they kept saying over and over again 'they take over your body when you sleep, and everybody sleeps. It's hard not to sleep. Remember? Everybody sleeps. Even you'. Yeah, I knew that. I make a habit of sleeping on a regular basis.

Also, the acting wasn't terribly good (they made it about teenagers, too, which bothers me. But nevermind that). Say what you want about The Invasion, but it had a pretty good cast.

This one just had Forest Whitaker and Meg Tilley. And R. Lee Ermey, for once playing a guy who isn't a drill sergeant (he's barely in it though). I didn't like any of the other people.

On the other hand, they killed the annoying little kid, which is a plus.

This movie was also less 'yay, America' than The Invasion, having a whole 'the U.S. military is scary as fuck' thing going on.

So I kind of liked parts of it, but generally I didn't think it was all that frightening. As opposed to the 1978 one, which scared the living bejeezuz out of me (watched it again recently - man, I hate the end of that movie. I almost couldn't watch it. Fucked up shit).

Anyway, this one wasn't terribly optimistic (as opposed to The Invasion) and not too bad. Worth seeing, anyway. Yep.

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