#1  
Old 12-14-2010, 02:44 AM
_____V_____'s Avatar
_____V_____ _____V_____ is offline
For Vendetta
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 31,677
Body Snatchers films

Originally a sci-fi novel written by Jack Finney in 1955, The Body Snatchers has been adapted for the silver screen four times :-


Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) (Dir - Don Siegel)




Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) (Dir - Philip Kaufman)





Body Snatchers (1993) (Dir - Abel Ferrara)





The Invasion (2007) (Dir - Oliver Hirschbiegel)



My first viewing experience comes from the early 90s, when I was probably 13-14 years old, and watched Abel Ferrara's version on VHS for the first time. The film shook me up...badly. The chilling premise of alien hosts taking over your body when you sleep was simply...umm, unnerving. Adding to the mood and atmosphere of the film was Ferrara's dark and gritty, almost pseudo-realistic nightmarish vision of the original premise. Till date, I consider Ferrara's version to be almost equal to the original in terms of atmosphere. Sadly, not many have seen this one yet (I urge strongly to all those who haven't, FIND IT!) and it wasn't a big commercial success either. Hence it went into the unsung, underappreciated section of films which people forget about. Two things which still stand out for me today - Meg Tilly's bone-chilling proclamation ("Where you gonna go, where you gonna run, where you gonna hide? Nowhere... 'cause there's no one like you left!" :eek:) and the uber-gorgeous Gabrielle Anwar, who made my teenage heart race!

Then I watched the 78 version some years later, again on VHS.

Lastly the original - 56 version, on DVD.

And some years back, the latest one. Which I rewatched last night again, to see if it really was as disappointing as I remembered it to be. Sadly, I was right. Not even once throughout the film, I even remotely felt the terrifying dread which I did when I stared into Meg Tilly's eyes (in Ferrara's version) all those years back on grainy VHS. There was no semblance of a plot, just a connection of various loose ends. Nicole Kidman was too visible, too gorgeous and too bland - I can't think of anything else to describe her. Daniel Craig was a waste. All the other supporting characters simply weren't upto par. Simply put, the film lacked atmosphere and coherency, and adding to that the sweet ending of the film took away any semblance of a possible apocalyptic ending one would have hoped to see. Overall, a major disappointment.

Thoughts?
__________________
"If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 12-14-2010, 02:57 AM
neverending's Avatar
neverending neverending is offline
Cranky

 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 12,416
I agree that Ferrara's version is really great. Like most of his films, really underappreciated.

I'm not a big fan of the 78 version. IMO the last shot removes all ambiguity from the story and therefore robs it of a lot of impact.

The original is my favorite version, and Kevin McCarthey's greatest role. The ending is one of the most chilling in cinema history.

I have not seen the recent one.
__________________
Lee Widener, Author Website

Cartoon Artwork, Underground Art, Other Weird Stuff
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 12-14-2010, 03:06 AM
TheWickerFan's Avatar
TheWickerFan TheWickerFan is offline
Whip In My Valise
 
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 3,647
I really enjoyed the original and 1978 versions. I really didn't like the 1993 version and never bothered to watch the most recent adaptation.

Has anyone read the book? I wouldn't recommend it.
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 12-14-2010, 03:14 AM
roshiq's Avatar
roshiq roshiq is offline
Pirate of Bengal

 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Dhaka
Posts: 8,691
Quote:
Originally Posted by _____V_____ View Post
Originally a sci-fi novel written by Jack Finney in 1955, The Body Snatchers has been adapted for the silver screen four times :-


Body Snatchers (1993) (Dir - Abel Ferrara)




My first viewing experience comes from the early 90s, when I was probably 13-14 years old, and watched Abel Ferrara's version on VHS for the first time. The film shook me up...badly. The chilling premise of alien hosts taking over your body when you sleep was simply...umm, unnerving. Adding to the mood and atmosphere of the film was Ferrara's dark and gritty, almost pseudo-realistic nightmarish vision of the original premise. Till date, I consider Ferrara's version to be almost equal to the original in terms of atmosphere. Sadly, not many have seen this one yet (I urge strongly to all those who haven't, FIND IT!) and it wasn't a big commercial success either. Hence it went into the unsung, underappreciated section of films which people forget about. Two things which still stand out for me today - Meg Tilly's bone-chilling proclamation ("Where you gonna go, where you gonna run, where you gonna hide? Nowhere... 'cause there's no one like you left!" :eek:) and the uber-gorgeous Gabrielle Anwar, who made my teenage heart race!
Ok, ok...don't worry man, surely going to download this version soon. Already added to my torrent download list.:)

I loved the 56's original film & the 78's remake. Both are undoubtedly fantastic; but I think 1956 original film was better in terms of metaphorical means & obviously the ending. But the thing is original is more like a beautiful classic sci fi thriller than a horror where 1978 Kaufman version unfolds the story somewhat like in a Cronenbergian way of body horror sub genre which is utterly creepy, dark & interesting also.

The 2007 version sucks!

From 1978, in every 15 years Jack Finney's this timeless classic gets a celluloid treatment in Hollywood. So in meantime, I wouldn't mind if there's some other film adaptation comes from different countries around the globe....like how about a Japanese or Bollywood adaptation of Body Snatchers?;)
__________________
@Letterboxd
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 10-31-2014, 12:59 PM
Sculpt's Avatar
Sculpt Sculpt is offline
ventricle


 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: USA, IL
Posts: 6,141
1978 'Bad guy' Allegory Target?

I couldn't help but to try to determine who the real 'bad guy' is in the film's allegory. In the 1956 film version, at the time, most said the aliens were communism. Others determined at a closer look, and considering the script writer Daniel Mainwaring, McCarthyism was the alien allegory target. Who is it for the 1978 version?

Sure, the film's for profit, and for entertainment; and maybe at most a nod toward a warning against sleeping through mass brain-washing, loss of freedoms, dehumanization and/or dangers of conformity. But does the film actually reveal it's alien allegory target?

I instantly knew I heard the answer during the book discussion of the mud-bath scene between Veronica Cartwright and the patron. I never heard of the books or authors before, and the titles have no intrinsic meaning. They didn't mean anything to me. So I watched the film and made my own determinations void of the two references.

The references I picked up on were the priest and the Amazing Grace song coming from the boat. First, a priest (Robert Duvall) on the swing, staring strangely at the children being handed flowers by a teacher. Was he angry at the site? Was he in favor of it? Was he an alien? I couldn't determine, but couldn't ignore this odd and blatant shot. At the end of the film, Sutherland hears an instrumental of Amazing Grace at the San Francisco bay dock. SMALL SPOILER HERE: He has hope to escape via boat; and the song evokes hope (generally to most). As he approaches the cargo ship, the song stops, and he see's pods being loaded on the boat. Does this scene indict christianity/religion, or does the music ceasing indicate christianity/religion, like all competing thought and anything emotional, has been squashed by the aliens? I'm not sure, but taking the film and scene as a whole, I would certainly guess the latter.

Thoughts?

Basically, I didn't grasp a specific bad guy allegory target on my own.

So what were the two books?: Worlds in Collision, by Immanuel Velikovsky, and Star Maker, by Olaf Stapledon. What do these books suggest are targets? Like I said, I never even heard of these, and (sorry), I'm not going to research these to point that I give a definitive answer. But for anyone interested, I'll quote the one source/opinion I happenstanced upon:

"These two books are clues – while on the surface, this is a standard-fare sci fi/horror film, yet underlying the cheese is a profoundly occult message. Jewish psychoanalyst Immanuel Velikovsky is famous for his alternative theory of cosmology and cosmogony, known as “catastrophism,” where ancient mythology and its representational assigning of the gods to specific planets actually plays a role in reconstructing primal history and human origins.

Velikovsky was lambasted by both modern science and his contemporaries, but whatever his flaws, my suspicion is that he was rejected for three reasons: He utilized the Bible as a document that reported actual historical events, was critical of carbon dating, and held to an electromagnetic view of the universe, as opposed to Newtonian atomistic ideas. The slightest hint of any of those three ideas is enough to be rejected wholesale by modern “science,” which makes Velikovsky all the more interesting and worth considering, in my estimation. The Velikovsky archive can be found here. This is not a full endorsement on my part, but that the ideas are worth examination, due to the incoherence of modern dogmatic materialism.

The other book is Stapledon’s Star Maker, which scientistic illuminist Arthur C. Clarke considered one of the most important works of science fiction. Star Maker was written in 1937 and actually utilizes the theme of genetic engineering far ahead of its time, while Stapledon’s works would go on to influence other top British technocrats, such as H.G. Wells and Bertrand Russell. This confirms my thesis thesis that Invasion is specifically referencing genetic engineering and cross-species manipulation with the bizarre “dog-man” scene, as the books were obviously chosen as specific clues as to elucidate this point. Like Star Maker, Velikovsky too was interested in the idea of other lifeforms seeding our planet, a close adaptation of the theory others have called “panspermia.” While Invasion is not dealing with panspermia specifically, the allusions to it in the film and in the authors suggest an emergent, time-bound deus ex machina “creation,” in the least. In other words, all three are proffering the cryptocracy’s relatively recently-constructed mythology of man’s creation, manipulation and/or guidance by “space brothers.”


Thoughts?
__________________
.
.
.
.


Last edited by Sculpt; 10-31-2014 at 01:00 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 10-31-2014, 01:19 PM
Giganticface's Avatar
Giganticface Giganticface is offline
Evil Dead
 
Join Date: Jan 2013
Posts: 950
My first experience was the '78 version -- I was maybe 8 years old. It scared me more than any movie ever has in my life. My dad still pokes fun at me a bit since I didn't sleep a wink that night, and kept asking if I could sleep in his & my mom's bed.

Quote:
Originally Posted by neverending View Post
IMO the last shot removes all ambiguity from the story and therefore robs it of a lot of impact.
That scene, more than any other, is burned into my brain, and was both heartbreaking and utterly horrifying.


I've never seen Ferrara's version, but realize that I absolutely must.
__________________
Avatar by Alejandro de Antonio Fernandez.

Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 10-31-2014, 02:06 PM
Sculpt's Avatar
Sculpt Sculpt is offline
ventricle


 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: USA, IL
Posts: 6,141
Quote:
Originally Posted by Giganticface View Post
My first experience was the '78 version -- I was maybe 8 years old. It scared me more than any movie ever has in my life. My dad still pokes fun at me a bit since I didn't sleep a wink that night, and kept asking if I could sleep in his & my mom's bed.



That scene, more than any other, is burned into my brain, and was both heartbreaking and utterly horrifying.


I've never seen Ferrara's version, but realize that I absolutely must.
I haven't seen the 1993 version either. And most certainly will see it soon. Maybe this weekend. A buddy I'm visiting is a big Gabrielle Anwar fan.

I agree with you, the ending scene of the 1978 film is burned in my memory as well. I saw it when it made it's big primetime TV movie-of-the-week debut, and I was about the same age you were when I saw it.

I thought the ending scene was extremely effective as a devastating horror slap. Neverending mentions it removes the ambiguity of the fate of the characters and/or the world. It does. I think the ending suggests the aliens won. But I think the impact of that ending is to shock and wake people up -- in the sense, 'don't think totalitarianism can't succeed'. Whether as a horror devise, or a social statement, it packs a different sort of punch than saying, 'we've beaten the invaders' or 'have hope and keep fighting the good fight', as the later two can leave the impression 'phew, relax, we've got it covered'.

It's to say it's more than a spectre. Totalitarianism succeeded in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and North Korea, to name a few. Nobody on the inside of Nazi Germany succeeded in defeating it. It was only defeated from the outside. The Soviet system was ended from the inside... after 74 years. Not exactly sure what we'd call what they have now. NK is still firmly totalitarian.
__________________
.
.
.
.


Last edited by Sculpt; 10-31-2014 at 02:09 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 11-01-2014, 12:31 AM
tfantasy's Avatar
tfantasy tfantasy is offline
Evil Dead
 
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Michigan
Posts: 1,454
Quote:
Originally Posted by Giganticface View Post
My first experience was the '78 version -- I was maybe 8 years old. It scared me more than any movie ever has in my life. My dad still pokes fun at me a bit since I didn't sleep a wink that night, and kept asking if I could sleep in his & my mom's bed.


That scene, more than any other, is burned into my brain, and was both heartbreaking and utterly horrifying.


I've never seen Ferrara's version, but realize that I absolutely must.
I also was around 8 when I watched it. I found it creepy but it didn't scare me much. I also want to see the original. I watched the 1993 version and wasn't very impressed. I thought Invasion was a complete waste of time.:shocked:
__________________
Let's just say that if all the corpses were to stand up at once, we'd have one hell of a population problem

Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old 11-05-2014, 08:40 PM
Sculpt's Avatar
Sculpt Sculpt is offline
ventricle


 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: USA, IL
Posts: 6,141
Body Snatchers (1993)

I saw Body Snatchers last weekend with a buddy of mine. I thought it was fairly well made, mildly entertaining, but not all that interesting. Of the three Snatchers I've seen, this had the least to say, and the most formulaic. Most unfortunately, on top of being seemingly devoid of penetrating social commentary, I didn't find it scary or exciting; certainly not more so than the 56 & 78 versions.


I don't know... I don't generally go for the dumbing down of films into a sterilized, vitaminless, fiberless, high fructose entertainment soda snack. I think art most serves a higher purpose. It also seems the ultimate of ironic insults to turn the "Body Snatchers" into pacifying ride.

Should I take it, from the total lack of response to any of the social, political and philosophical concepts of these films, that I'm the only one interested in the intellectual aspects of these films?
__________________
.
.
.
.


Last edited by Sculpt; 11-05-2014 at 08:41 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old 11-08-2014, 11:00 AM
NightOfTheLiving_Sam's Avatar
NightOfTheLiving_Sam NightOfTheLiving_Sam is offline
Evil Dead
 
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Florida USA
Posts: 330
The only version I saw was the 78 version, I still need to see the original version. Loved the 78 version and I thought it was the first installment until I found out from my father that there was a movie before it. I plan on ordering it off of amazon cause I need to add it to my collection of Horror films.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 06:31 AM.