10/25/16 – day twenty-five of thirty-one days of horror!
While the original 1958 INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS still stands as
an effective metaphor for 1950s McCarthyism, the 1978 Philip Kaufman
remake takes the creepy tale of conformity and effortlessly transposes
it to post 60s baby boomer yuppie culture. Set in San Francisco and
starring Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, Leonard Nimoy
and Veronica Cartwright, the story about alien pod people replacing our
loved ones with soulless replicas timelessly resonates in any
culture where the individual struggles against oppressive conformity,
assuring it a place in our shared psyche as long as there’s a human
race. But putting the text aside, this is just a creepy and suspenseful
sci fi chiller that will gross you out and make your skin crawl. Kaufman
masterfully ratchets up the paranoia, (something John Carpenter would
expand on a few years later with his own 50s remake of THE THING)
delivering a terrifying soul-punch of an ending that will give even the
most seasoned horror fan a shiver. The perfect Halloween movie to show a
room full of phonies what you really think of them, or to make you feel
justified in your isolating, hermetic life choices.
