Geoff’s countdown to Halloween DAY 3: Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Except this movie. Stay as far away from this movie as you can.

DAY 1: The Wolf Man (1941)                               DAY 2: Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn (1987)            

 DAY 3: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

A movie so good, the poster requires not one but two taglines to sell it.

MCMLXXVIII, was always my favorite year.

For those who haven’t seen it: Not content being globs of goo in space, a bunch of aliens come to San Francisco and start snatchin' up bodies while you're asleep. 

Hide your kids, hide your wife and hide your husbands, 'cause they snatchin' errbody out here.

In space, no one can hear you ectoplasm.

The plot: Donald Sutherland is an inspector with the department of health, and he's got a problem. His friend Liz thinks that her boyfriend has been replaced by a man who looks exactly like him, sounds exactly like him, and acts (for the most part) exactly like him. Turns out he's an alien, who replaced her boyfriend while he slept. Needless to say soon more and more people are getting their bodies snatched and turned into aliens. Sutherland (along with resident chaostician Jeff Goldblum) try to stop the invasion and save their planet.

Why I love it: This film has the scariest premise of all sci-fi invasion films, for me. The aliens are secretly taking over the planet by becoming those we love. They BECOME you while you sleep and everything about you eventually just kinda melts away. It's a terrifying thought, the idea that you might be replaced, and you're loved ones would never know it. That's why I fell in love with this film, I think, because it's such a terrifying idea.

The original film tapped into the fears every American had in the 1950s: the Reds invading. But by 1978 most Americans were no longer thinking that their neighbors might, in fact, be communists and ever so slowly our fears began to shift. America was now post-Vietnam and Watergate. We'd beaten the Russians to the moon and were now trying to deal with a whole new set of problems and fears. Those fears are what this new version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers grabs onto.

No, not even his best friend thought $#*!My Dad Says was funny.

Why you should love it too:

First, I've got to say that I love the original 1956 film with all it's Red Scare "monster living among us" allegories. And while the Cold War is still going strong in 1978, it's clearly no longer the frontrunner of American fears. The '70s have a whole new set of problems to deal with, ideas of oppressive government and corruption (this is, after all, post-Nixon), the spread of disease, and the loss of identity are what drives the terror this go-round.

The film builds its terror slowly, adding layer after layer of subtle paranoia, wrapping around you so perfectly that you don't realize it until it's almost too late.

Gesundheit.

Originally the 1956 film presented our main star as a small town family doctor, nowadays he's Donald Sutherland, a buerocratic health inspector. He supplies our first two levels of paranoia. His glee at finding reasons to shut down restaurants, his authoritative tone during a random inspection all help to serve the idea that the government has --- at least --- an ever-present eye on things, and at worst has complete control over everything. That's a fear that comes back again and again in this film, that everyone and everything is out to get you. He also helps to impose on us the idea that disease is everywhere. It's in our food, it's in the rain, and there's no telling where it will come from or what it might do to us.

When protozoa attack.

Add on that a layer of identity loss (the idea that one day you could wake up and not be you anymore) a good helping of psychological torment (you're the only one who sees that people are changing all around you) and a great big scoop futility (How long can you go without sleeping?) and you've got the fear-ball rolling and the makings of an excellent film. Body Snatchers has the workings of multiple nightmares, and we haven't even talked about the scariest part of the whole movie (that damn scream....)

The Beatles were wrong. Doing it in the middle of the road was a BAD idea.

This is a movie I think about often. There are several little gems in it that particularly stick out to me, a whole array of creepy that you don't get on the first viewing. There's a scene where a woman is trying to explain that her husband has been taken over, and she talks about this scar on the back of his neck, how when he changed she knew that the scar would be gone and that's how she'd know he was an alien. But the scar was there. THAT'S how well the impersonation is, it consumed every part of him, and she fears for her own sanity because of it. It's not something you completely "get" the first time you hear it, but after repeated viewings it really sticks out to you.

It's not as overt of a film as the original. The terror in the film isn't in your face at first, it builds inside you. It digs under your skin and latches itself into your mind until it becomes clear that it isn't going anywhere.

What I like most about it, I think, is that the aliens aren't green eyed monsters and they don't have any magical powers. They're your brother, your neighbor, your son. They are everyone, and no one all at once, and there's no way to tell. These aliens don't don't run around with ray guns or fancy technology. They're only weapon is time. Everyone sleeps, eventually, no matter how hard you try.

And all they have to do is wait.

FORNICATORS!

TOMORROW: The Birds (1963). Warning in advance: This film is extremely good.