Review of Body Snatchers (1993) by Michael W — 17 Jan 2012

Body Snatchers is the third cinematic retelling of the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers story. Rather than setting the film in a town or city like in the previous Invasion of the Body Snatchers films this one is set on a military base.

While the sense of claustrophobia and paranoia is present, it's not enough. The whole draw of having this occur in your own city is seeing everyone you've known for years turning into these emotionless and disturbing "pod people".

The fear of seeing your family members turn is still present in this version but as I said before, it's just not strong enough. The main protagonist in this version only knew a handful of people on this military base so there wasn't that major sense of seeing, for example, a person you encounter on your way to work or school every day.

In my opinion, that'd be extra terrifying. This epidemic needs to move at a slow pace to be the most effective it can be. Having people turn into the unexplainable very slowly would mess with ones mind more and would heighten the sense of paranoia someone would feel.

One scene that does stand out though is the particularly disturbing daycare scene where all the other children had the same exact painting on their papers while the main families young son had a completely different one and just kind of had a youth "oh shit" moment.

The characters aren't too developed here leaving us little to desire with the outcome. Plus, I hate when a kid not even old enough for the first grade can figure out that people are replacing others before a grown adult can.

The effects were actually pretty well done aside from the final scene which utilized some form of green screen. Surprisingly enough they put together a decent cast of actors for this film. Forest Whitaker, Meg Tilly and Gabrielle Anwar are all very solid in their roles, but it's still nothing to write home to.

Regardless, "Body Snatchers" gets a few points for not being a bland pure copycat remake like so many other films. In fact, it's a tad bit original while utilizing a fantastic source story.

It doesn't stack up against the '56 and '78 versions but it holds it's own. Abel Ferrara definitely referenced plenty of things from the first two while adding his own original ideas to make this an admirable telling of a classic story.