Rocket Ramblings

31 DAYS OF HORROR: INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

Here at Rocket Ramblings we try to cater to our readership (all six of you) in new and exciting ways. First there was the "Did You Know?" feature which ran a whole total of one time (with more coming soon though!) and now we present you with "31 Days of Horror" which is basically a guide to the author's (that would be me) favorite horror movies of all time... all for you, the readers (all five of you, cause I think I lost one during this long winded intro) to use as a guide to picking some fine viewing for Halloween. Each day (actually more than once per day since I'm seven days behind on the list... today being the 7th of October) you will see a new movie listed throughout the month of October. I do not claim these are the BEST horror films ever made... just my favorite (in fact I will not even cover some of the more standard stuff people would think of like Friday The 13th, The first Halloween, Dracula, etc). There is no particular order to this list. Please fell free to comment and agree or disagree in the comments section, because the author (again, me) is a total comment whore and craves feedback like a junkie needs his "H"...' kay? Kay.

Now, without further adu...

Invasion of The Body Snatchers (1956 AND 1978 versions)
1956 Version: Directed by Don Siegel. With Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter and Larry Gates.
1978 Version: Directed by Philip Kaufman. With Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum and Leonard Nimoy.

Ok, this is one of the VERY rare instances that I love both the original AND the remake. Both follow the same basic storyline: A group of people discover that the population of their community is being replaced by seemingly emotionless exact duplicates. Both have an everyman main protaganist who tries in growing desperation to alert people to what is going on. In each case it is discovered that plant-like pods actually can grow exact replicas that look and sound like the original people and as time goes by, no one seems to 100% be sure just who is human and who is not.

Both have rather dark endings (I am TOTALLY discounting the lame 'tacked on' happy ending the original used briefly but thankfully rejected and returned to the original ending) and both do a fantastic job creating a mood of deep paranoia.

I don't really consider the 1978 version to be a 'remake' as much as it is a continuation. It's not an exact sequel per say... but it has a very distinct connection to the 1956 version by basically inserting the ending of the original as a scene early in the remake and using the same actor (Kevin McCarthy). While the 1978 version never actually give you the characters name, it's fairly obvious (to me at least) he's playing the same character.

The theme for both films is a chilling "Whom do you trust?" done in a very effective way. The feeling that no one you see is what they seem is an effective way to elicit a feeling of dread from the viewer and the somber mood the comes from the two films is much more of a horrific feeling than most slasher and monster movies manged to project to their audiences.

Not surprisingly, the popularity of both films sparked enough interest over the years to spir two addtional "remakes": Body Snatchers - Directed by Abel Ferrara and Starring Gabrielle Anwar, Billy Wirth, Forrest Whitaker and R. Lee Ermey came out in 1993 and The Invasion - Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel and starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig came out in 2007. Both were fairly well done movies using the same ideas in totally different settings.

All of the movies were based upon the sci-fi novel The Body Snatchers, by Jack Finney.