The original Invasion Of The Body Snatchers is not only a favorite with horror and sci-fi film fans, it's also considered a great film by critics. Naturally, it was fair game for a remake--two remakes, in fact. HORROR-WOOD's own Jeff Beres ponders the results of this...
By JEFF BERES
Why did Hollywood remake Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Twice, no less. With all the thousands of scripts the studios receive each year, why would they greenlight a remake?
The original
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers was an
exercise in paranoia filmed in 1956 starring Kevin McCarthy and
Dana Wynter and directed by Don Siegel. Daniel Mainwaring adapted
the script from Jack Finney’s novel The
Body Snatchers. McCarthy plays a doctor who
becomes increasingly aware that the residents of his hometown are
disappearing and being replaced by alien replicas. The aliens
have the physical attributes and memories of the person but they
lack emotions. When McCarthy uncovers the aliens’ plans for
world domination, he escapes to the police station in the next
town. At first, the police don’t believe his story. Then
they find proof and go after the aliens.
The first remake was made
in 1978. It was directed by Phillip Kaufman and starred Donald
Sutherland, Brooke Adams and Jeff Goldblum. W.D. Richter wrote
the script from Jack Finney’s novel. Now why did they bother
to remake the film? It was basically a scene for scene remake of
the first film, except for two things. The first was a scene
towards the end of 
the film when their friend’s
dog, which now has their friend’s head, approaches Donald
Sutherland and Brooke Adams. Brooke Adams screams, naturally, and
this draws attention to her as being human. Nice scene. It did
what the scene in the original film did, which was to expose the
pair as non-aliens. In the original, the woman screams when a car
almost hits a dog. The mutant dog was a result of Sutherland
destroying the pod of their friend and his dog in hopes of
preventing their transformation. But that scene isn’t enough
to get a committee of executives to okay a film. The important
difference was the ending. It was very downbeat and hopeless. The
ending of the original film was upbeat. The good guys won. In
this remake, the good guys lost. They not only lost, all but one
of them turn into bad guys. So the message of the film is
"Yes, they’re out there. Yes, there’s reason to be
paranoid because they’re out there. And yes, you’re
going to become one of them." Maybe the "they" are
"the establishment." And Kaufman was warning the youth,
the hippie generation, that one day they were going to "turn
establishment." If so, he was pretty much on target. There
was a similar theme in Ken Kesey’s novel One
Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, published
in 1962. In fact, the first line of Kesey’s novel is
"They’re out there." The good guy, McMurphy,
technically loses in the end because he’s lobotomized by
Nurse Ratchet, representing the Establishment. But Chief Bromden,
another patient, regains his sanity due to McMurphy’s
influence and escapes the mental institution. So McMurphy’s
spirit won. Apparently Kesey had hope that the spirit of the
sixties would live on. This hope fizzled out by 1978 as hippies
aged, cut their hair and became stockbrokers. (Ironically, Jerry
Garcia, a confirmed, ageless hippie like Kesey, is credited with
playing banjo on the soundtrack.)
The second remake, called Body
Snatchers, was made in 1993, starring
Gabrielle Anwar and 
Billy Wirth. Abel Ferrara directed
a script written by Raymond Cistheri (story) and Stuart Gordon.
This remake was a more pleasurable viewing experience than the
’78 version. It didn’t take itself too seriously, like
the ’78 remake did, yet it manages to maintain a sense of
horror and paranoia. The action was limited to a military base,
which diffused the feeling of world domination a tad. We never
get the sense that the aliens were taking over the world. A few
scenes near the end try to show the spread of the pods, but they
aren’t’ very convincing. This is probably due to the
small budget generally allotted horror films these days. The
acting was excellent, especially Gabrielle Anwar, who created a
subtle, but extremely emotional performance. But again, the big
difference, and probably the reason they remade the film, was the
ending. This time, the ending was ambivalent. Maybe the world
gets taken over; maybe it doesn’t. This pretty much reflects
the blasé ‘90’s "been there; done that"
attitude. Yeah, so we may all become aliens. Next? Actually, in
some ways, this is a healthier attitude. We’ve learned to go
with the flow.
Some have said the aliens represent Communism in the original film. Looking at it from that perspective, the ‘90’s remake makes more sense. World political concerns have changed from philosophical to economical since 1956. Communism isn’t the threat it used to be. The aliens are just somebody else to deal with today. This made the ‘90’s version a more enjoyable film watching experience than the ’78 remake. It was less bleak.
So, why is a film remade? From these examples it seems a film remake gets the greenlight from execs when there’s a strong story involved, like Jack Finney’s novel, and the spine of the story can be maintained with changes that reflect the current political and social views. Execs are businessmen. They know the story worked once, so it has a good chance of working again. So as long as remakes remake money, there will be remakes. Now, let’s see how the upcoming Psycho remake does at the box office.
Thanks for the "triple" play, Jeff! Many of us are awaiting the results of Hollywood's current horror remake...the duplication process in Tinseltown is enough to make us wonder if all the "pods" really were destroyed! Cheers!
Article copyright Jeff Beres
