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bloodyrosemccoyThey weren’t kidding: the 2006 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is the worst yet. Its messages seem to be that we need war, rape, murder, etc. in order to enjoy the full breadth of creativity, love, and colorful clothing, and also that delicious Pepsi products will keep us human. But more to the point, it was not creepy enough. The wonderfully creepy part of the other movies is that body snatching meant a soulless alien version of you was dumping your dead and disintegrated remains into a trash compactor. No wonder this movie sucked. It had nothing to do with pods, although it did have something to do with people, unlike Experiment 303.*
Also, did anyone notice that the actual hero of the story was Steve the Doctor, who was barely in it? It was the weirdest bit of tokenism ever—movie focuses on a bunch of panicky white people running around having Family Issues and bemoaning violence, and meanwhile in the background Black Doctor #2 sneaks off to his Secret Fortress Of Science, figures out how to CURE pod people—something no other version has done**—then, because the idiot protagonists won’t shut up, jumps in his helicopter to rescue their flailing asses. I wanted the movie to be about him.***
After seeing all four movies, I am surprised that not one of them took advantage of the Capgras delusion. You’d think a movie that starts out with people stubbornly insisting that their world is suddenly populated with evil impostors would totally jump at the chance to toss in a red herring about an actual neurological condition that causes people to stubbornly insist that their world is suddenly populated by evil impostors. Perhaps I will just have to make my own Body Snatchers movie, since I’ve run out of these. So a shout-out to my movie-making buddy Josh: If you’re reading this, I have a pitch for you!
FAVORITE PART: When the CDC villain guy in the beginning returns from examining the contaminated shuttle debris, walks back through the quarantine tent, strips off his HAZMAT suit, and then immediately bare-hands a piece of fungus-encrusted debris handed to him by a little girl. I half-expected him to start chewing on it, like Wilford Brimley chewing on the pencil eraser he has JUST POKED INTO A GELATINOUS DEAD MASS OF MUTATED NORWEGIANS in John Carpenter's The Thing.
*It still had everything to do with hurting, however.
**Sorry, teen slasher 90s remake, the 30,000 missiles mounted on that one helicopter do not count as a cure. And yes, the aforementioned lack of actual body-snatching makes the possibility of a cure lame, but BY GOD don’t knock the guy who found it.
***It also didn’t hurt that I thought the actor, Jeffrey Wright, was so darn cute I looked him up on Wikipedia, where his bio has the awesome line “Wright was born in Washington, D.C. to a mother who worked as a customs lawyer and a father who died when he was a child.” That right there is linguistic ambiguity at its very best.
Also, did anyone notice that the actual hero of the story was Steve the Doctor, who was barely in it? It was the weirdest bit of tokenism ever—movie focuses on a bunch of panicky white people running around having Family Issues and bemoaning violence, and meanwhile in the background Black Doctor #2 sneaks off to his Secret Fortress Of Science, figures out how to CURE pod people—something no other version has done**—then, because the idiot protagonists won’t shut up, jumps in his helicopter to rescue their flailing asses. I wanted the movie to be about him.***
After seeing all four movies, I am surprised that not one of them took advantage of the Capgras delusion. You’d think a movie that starts out with people stubbornly insisting that their world is suddenly populated with evil impostors would totally jump at the chance to toss in a red herring about an actual neurological condition that causes people to stubbornly insist that their world is suddenly populated by evil impostors. Perhaps I will just have to make my own Body Snatchers movie, since I’ve run out of these. So a shout-out to my movie-making buddy Josh: If you’re reading this, I have a pitch for you!
FAVORITE PART: When the CDC villain guy in the beginning returns from examining the contaminated shuttle debris, walks back through the quarantine tent, strips off his HAZMAT suit, and then immediately bare-hands a piece of fungus-encrusted debris handed to him by a little girl. I half-expected him to start chewing on it, like Wilford Brimley chewing on the pencil eraser he has JUST POKED INTO A GELATINOUS DEAD MASS OF MUTATED NORWEGIANS in John Carpenter's The Thing.
*It still had everything to do with hurting, however.
**Sorry, teen slasher 90s remake, the 30,000 missiles mounted on that one helicopter do not count as a cure. And yes, the aforementioned lack of actual body-snatching makes the possibility of a cure lame, but BY GOD don’t knock the guy who found it.
***It also didn’t hurt that I thought the actor, Jeffrey Wright, was so darn cute I looked him up on Wikipedia, where his bio has the awesome line “Wright was born in Washington, D.C. to a mother who worked as a customs lawyer and a father who died when he was a child.” That right there is linguistic ambiguity at its very best.
