Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) shows that remakes work best by deviating from the source material. Philip Kaufman respects Don Siegel's original (and Jack Finney's novel) while putting a modern spin on the story. Despite some clunky elements, it's wonderfully effective.Employed by San Francisco's Health Department, Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams) notices her boyfriend Geoffrey (Art Hindle) acting strangely. Her boss Matthew (Donald Sutherland) dismisses her concerns, until friends make similar complaints. Matthew and Elizabeth join their friends the Bellicecs (Jeff Goldbum and Veronica Cartwright), who find a strange body in their house. It's soon evident that an alien race is replacing humans, hoping to export their new race to the world.
Don Siegel's 1956 Body Snatchers is a terse, economical B Movie elevated by crisp storytelling. Kaufman's version is a '70s studio picture, with a bigger budget, bigger stars and more explicit effects. Kaufman shows pods being birthed in loving, grisly detail, along with wicked visual gags like a man-dog hybrid. Unlike the original there's no mystery: the pods appear in a pre-credits scene, so we're never in doubt what the enemy is.
Kaufman's off-kilter direction redeems his literalness. From the opening shots of pods grafting onto rain-swept leaves, Snatchers mixes palpable dread with spellbinding style. Kaufman disorients the audience with jerky tracking shots through corridors, Hammer-like color splashes (the blue in Elizabeth and Geoffrey's bedroom) and frantic editing. Special notice to John Nutt's incredible sound design, mixing incongruous noises (the plops in the Bellicec's bathhouse, fuzzy radios, incessant phone ringing) and voice overlays with protracted silences.
Kaufman and writer W.D. Richter reconfigure Finney's novel into a slam at social complacency. The original's small town setting the aliens' violation of personhood. But in San Francisco it's an impersonal menace: the pods take longer to disseminate, and Matthew's efforts to fight back are stonewalled more by bureaucracy than Pod scheming. Embodied by a psychologist (Leonard Nimoy), indifference and self-delusion downplays a threat until it's too late to act. Kaufman allows Matthew a victory (and audiences a thrilling finale) but by all appearances, it's a temporary setback. Whether humans or pods, life adjusts and moves on.
Donald Sutherland makes an engaging hero, his agreeable sarcasm eventually fading into desperation. Brooke Adams' warm performance is more appealing and (dare I say?) human than Dana Wynter. Leonard Nimoy is brilliant casting, the eminent logician converted to Pod-kind. Jeff Goldblum and Veronica Cartwright do what they do best - snark and scream, respectively. Kevin McCarthy and Don Siegel, star and director of the original, have fun cameos; Robert Duvall plays on a swing set.
Is Kaufman's Body Snatchers better than the original? Siegel's move is more subtle, suspenseful and carefully crafted. For sheer weirdness - the alienating direction, the disgusting transformations, the unearthly Pod-shrieks - Kaufman's film holds its own.
