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Invasion of the Body Snatchers begins with spores leaving a distant planet and heading for San Francisco, transpiring into raindrops which hit the leaves of plants and spawn weird, but pretty, rose-like flowers.
Public health inspector Elizabeth (Brooke Adams) puts one in a glass by the bed and, suddenly, her boyfriend Geoffrey (Art Hindle) starts behaving very oddly around her. Soon after, her friend and colleague Matthew (Donald Sutherland) is drawn to similar odd behaviour by Mrs Teng who works at the local dry cleaners, after her husband makes mention of it.
Something’s going on which seems to be turning people into emotionless drones, but there’s more to it than that when something bizarre is discovered at the health spa owned by Nancy Bellicec (Veronica Cartwright) and her husband Jack (Jeff Goldblum), who’s also a writer and failed poet. What they discover, I’ll leave you to see for yourself. Amongst all this is Leonard Nimoy as psychologist and hack author Dr. David Kibner, struggling to make sense with what’s going on.
Director Philip Kaufman uses some bizarre camera angles in ‘Invasion’, as well as an awesome moment when Sutherland is having to hide in a closet, but then brings his face to where the door’s ajar and shines a light from underneath, making himself look sinister (see above). There’s also some neat cameos such as Don Siegel as a taxi driver and an uncredited appearance from Robert Duvall as a priest on a swing (don’t worry, it’ll make sense when you see it).
Overall, it drags a bit at times, but leads to a perfect ending which is the one thing you can’t say for the majority of films made. I wish I could go into more detail about the film but it’s definitely one where you need to let the film set out its stall as it progresses without any advance spoilers.
Go to page 2 for the presentation and the extras.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.