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Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman, 1978)
Thirty years ago when I saw this on the humongous Big Newport screen, I just wasn't impressed. I'm not sure what my problem was. I was never that big a fan of the original, true, but I was having a hard time empathisizing any more with the lead characters than I did with the pod people. Three decades and several viewings later, I can safely say I was full of it back then. This film may actually qualify to me as the ultimate paranoid thriller. Everything is in place. The shiny photography, the dark shadows, the killer sound effects, the scary music (actually, I'd probably tone down some of the music because it's the quietest parts which are the scariest). I like the performances and the black humor, as well as just the weird touches, like Robert Duvall's "priest" swinging in a children's playground.
To me, this is Kaufman's first full-blown success, and if he was ahead of me in the power curve, at least I could see it just a short while later. I thought he went even more into paranoia and dark comedy with his next film, The Wanderers, but that's for another post. This film is pretty-much textbook, as far as basically showing you what's happening, then slowly allowing only one character (Brooke Adams) to know about it. Nobody believes her, but eventually a group of three others (Donald Sutherland, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright) are forced to believe her because they cannot deny their own eyes, no matter how much pop psychiatrist Leonard Nimoy tries to rationalize away everything "paranoid". That's enough for now, but be sure to watch for Sutherland's friend's dog near the end.
Thirty years ago when I saw this on the humongous Big Newport screen, I just wasn't impressed. I'm not sure what my problem was. I was never that big a fan of the original, true, but I was having a hard time empathisizing any more with the lead characters than I did with the pod people. Three decades and several viewings later, I can safely say I was full of it back then. This film may actually qualify to me as the ultimate paranoid thriller. Everything is in place. The shiny photography, the dark shadows, the killer sound effects, the scary music (actually, I'd probably tone down some of the music because it's the quietest parts which are the scariest). I like the performances and the black humor, as well as just the weird touches, like Robert Duvall's "priest" swinging in a children's playground.
To me, this is Kaufman's first full-blown success, and if he was ahead of me in the power curve, at least I could see it just a short while later. I thought he went even more into paranoia and dark comedy with his next film, The Wanderers, but that's for another post. This film is pretty-much textbook, as far as basically showing you what's happening, then slowly allowing only one character (Brooke Adams) to know about it. Nobody believes her, but eventually a group of three others (Donald Sutherland, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright) are forced to believe her because they cannot deny their own eyes, no matter how much pop psychiatrist Leonard Nimoy tries to rationalize away everything "paranoid". That's enough for now, but be sure to watch for Sutherland's friend's dog near the end.