Review of Body Snatchers (1993) by Victor M — 01 Feb 2015

It's a big step down from the first two body snatchers movies, that's for sure. The original was a sci-fi classic. The 1978 remake is one of the best remakes ever, updating the original material, making the characters a bit more human and injecting a bit of horror into the movie. This 1993 remake kind of stands alone in the series of movies as sort of the black sheep.

It's not that bad though. There are some neat special effects with the pods and humans deflating. Forest Whitaker shows up briefly to ham it up. Not his best performance, but it's pretty funny. The build up is pretty nice with the little kid feeling awkward in his daycare and the soldier freaking out in the bathroom. The pacing is good and it doesn't feel too slow or overstay its welcome. I also liked the explosive finish. It was something different that we don't see in these body snatchers movies. If only the rest of the movie went in that sort of direction.

It's also a very cheap looking movie though. The entire thing looks like a made-for-HBO movie from the late 80s/early 90s. There's also a sequence with a little kid being thrown out of a helicopter that is so laughably bad looking. Half of the kid's body is cropped out right in the middle of the frame. I'm assuming the filmmakers thought nobody would notice with it being so dark and home video quality not being that great to notice the difference (like a lot of early 90s movies with special effects [ie Ninja Turtles 3]), but they didn't know that digital quality would come around years later and show all their errors! It was glorious and had me laughing and rewinding just to see it again.

Overall, it's a middle of the road movie that is a big step down from the original movies. It's not as bad as some of the body snatchers ripoffs (Seed People) and it's probably better than the Nicole Kidman remake, but I would still say to skip it.