Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) Review

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers follows Matthew Bennell, who, after his friend reports that her boyfriend is acting strange, stumbles on a mysterious truth that the whole city is being overrun by aliens disguised as people, sending him and the few remaining real humans on the run. 

Arguably considered one of the greatest remakes of all time, the 1978 iteration of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is one of the few movies in recent memory where I was genuinely glued to the edge of my seat, enthralled and horrified by what was happening on screen. Kaufman expertly never tells us much regarding the story or why it’s happening, giving way to an intense air of paranoia that is only further exacerbated by the urban jungle that is San Francisco. Where the original was all about the tight-nit qualities of small-town America, where everyone knows everyone, the remake uses the opposite to equally jarring effect, where everyone is a stranger, causing Matthew and Elizabeth to rely on their few close friends, who may or may not have already turned into pods. 

All just to leave us with that ending, one of the most unexpected and shocking twists of all time, made all the more harrowing by the knowledge that he likely wasn’t forced into it; giving up in the face his friends having died and the grim realization that even children weren’t spared from such a dark fate. It speaks to many of the themes and allegories to communism and the Cold War of the original, while building on them and the fears of the era, which is what makes this such a riveting film that far surpasses what came before. 

Invasion sports a hell of a cast too, starring Art Hindle, Veronica Cartwright, Leonard Nimoy, Jeff Goldblum, Brooke Adams, and Donald Sutherland. Sutherland probably puts in the performance of his career here, steeping Matthew in an uneasy amount of paranoia and fear, not just for himself, but for his friends, for whom he does all this for seemingly. 

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, directed by Philip Kaufman, is a profoundly disturbing tale of alien possession that knows how to scare its audience without ever trying to hard, invoking a deep sense of paranoia that is justly rewarded with every shocking twist and turn.

9.7/10