Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (Shout! Factory)

Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: August 2nd, 2016.
Director: Phillip Kaufman
Cast: Donald Sutherland, Leonard Nimoy, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright
Year: 1978
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The Movie:

When film buffs the world over butt heads over horror movie remakes (a far more common occurrence than you'd probably imagine!), the two that are always mentioned as examples of 'good remakes' are Carpenter's The Thing and Cronenberg's The Fly (time may place the Dawn Of The Dead remake and Jackson's King Kong in the upper echelon but it's too soon for that yet...). Why so little love for Philip Kaufman's take on Invasion Of The Body Snatchers? Good question, as it really holds up well even now, almost three decades since it was made and in some ways it's considerably more successful than Don Siegel's 1956 take on Jack Finney's original story.

When the movie begins, bizarre spores leave their home planet and float through the outer reaches of space until they land in California. Once they've touched down on Earth, they begin to grow, fairly quickly, into strange plants. While all of this is going on, a health board field investigator named Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland) receives multiple reports where people are acting rather bizarre. The more attention he pays to these reports, the move he notices that they're not made up - people are definitely starting to act differently, even possibly including a doctor named David Kibner (Leonard Nimoy).

Matthew and his assistant, Elizabeth (Brooke Adams) team up with some friends of their, a married couple named Jack and Nancy Bellicec (Jeff Goldblum and Veronica Cartwright) head out to try and uncover what's really going on and soon they find out that these plants that have sprung up in the area are creating clones of people and using them to create workers in a massive hive bent on taking over the city and then quite possibly the world.

This wonderfully paranoid film starts off with an eerie set piece in which the pods come to Earth and it really doesn't let up from there. It's paced exceptionally well and shot with a careful eye towards creating an aura of tension and dread. The dark color scheme suits the material very well and as Bennell's investigation becomes more in-depth the more the shadows and the darkness seem to creep into the frame. Sutherland excels n the lead role, playing the part with enough initial skepticism that we can accept him as a man of science and in turn making his voyage of discovery all the more frightening as he's ultimately shocked with the reality of the situation. The supporting cast surrounding him also turn in excellent performances, with a young Goldblum standing out a bit from the rest.

For a film with a simple PG rating, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers remains fairly strong stuff. Granted, it isn't gory or bloody as so many horror films tend to be but there is no shortage of eerie and disturbing moments scattered throughout the film. The scene in which Bennell's car is accosted by a deranged man in the street is rather unsettling and when the bodies Bennell finds turn up covered in a plant like fur, it's fairly creepy and certainly plenty weird! Any time the pod people are on screen the movie is chilling. Add to that the skillfully layered atmosphere of impending doom and the ever growing paranoia that those around us are no longer who we thought they were and you can see how this film remains as effective and frightening now as it was in 1978.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Scream Factory brings Invasion Of The Body Snatchers to Blu-ray in an impressive looking transfer framed at 1.85.1 widescreen taken from a 'new 2K scan of the interpositive.' The picture quality here is rock solid. Detail is strong and color reproduction looks spot on. Black levels are nice and deep and there are no issues with crush or compression artifacts. Skin tones look nice and natural and detail is strong throughout. The image is cleaner and more consistent looking than the older MGM Blu-ray release, which looked pretty good but left room for improvement - and that's just what this disc delivers. There's good texture and nice depth here and grain looks nice and natural. Contrast and color saturation look very good here as well. There is no evidence of noise reduction or edge enhancement to complain about - this is very film like and quite pleasing to the eye!

The primary audio mix is an English language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix, though an English language DTS-HD 2.0 Stereo mix is also provided. Subtitles are offered up in English SDH. The 5.1 mix here sounds close, if not exactly the same, as the previous Blu-ray release but the 2.0 mix gets a lossless upgrade from that older release's Dolby Digital track. Both mixes offer an improvement over the standard definition release, even if it isn't a revelation per se. Dialogue is strong and clear, the score sounds good, and there's some decent directional effects here and there. Bass response is good, but it doesn't overpower the dialogue. No problems here, things sound just fine.

Extras on this release are a mix of new and old. The new kicks off with an audio commentary from author/film historian Steve Haberman. This is a well-researched track that talks up the history of the story and offers up plenty of detail as to what makes this particular telling of the tale as remarkable as it is. Lots of trivia and background information on all of the principal players here, not just the cast but those who worked on the film behind the camera too, all delivered at a good pace.

Shout! Factory has also included a few new featurettes, the first of which is Star Crossed In The Invasion which is a nine minute interview with actress Brooke Adams. She's quite charming here, recreating the trick she did with her eyes in the film and talking about how she landed the part. She wasn't familiar with the original film when she took the job, which is interesting given how well known it's been over the years. She shares some interesting stories about the different cast members she worked with and generally just looks back on her work here quite fondly. Actor Art Hindle gets in front of the camera for a twenty-five minute chat session entitled Leading The Invasion. He shares his appreciation of the original movie before talking about landing the part and discussing what he tried to do to make his character interesting in the film. The sixteen minute Re-Creating The Invasion is a discussion with writer W.D. Richter. He speaks about elements from the original movie and from the novel and how some were or were not worked into the version of the story he tells in this take on the story. This is quite interesting and absolutely worth watching. The final new featurette is the fifteen minute long Scoring The Invasion which gets composer Denny Zeitlin to share some stories about his work on the film. He speaks candidly about how he tried to create a completely original score for the film without playing off of what came before, why certain instruments were chosen for the movie and quite a bit more.

Carried over from the previous MGM DVD release is a commentary track from director Philip Kaufman, the first few minutes of which are, well, dull. He doesn't have much to say initially. Thankfully, that changes once the movie starts to pick up a bit and that slow start soon turns into an interesting discussion of the director's intent and motivation and how he really hoped to rely as much on the characters as on the set pieces to carry the film's impact. Along with that he talks about casting and location work, speaks about some of the effects work, tells a few fun stories about some of the stars like Donald Sutherland and Leonard Nimoy, and his thoughts on the film's rather bleak ending.

There are also a few featurettes carried over from that MGM Blu-ray release, staring with a fifteen minute piece entitled Re-Visitors From Outer Space, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Pod. Included here are interviews with Kaufman, screenwriter Richter, and actors Sutherland and Veronica Cartwright (but not Goldblum or Nimoy). A second featurette running just under five minutes takes a look at the special effects used in the movie. Entitled Practical Magic: The Special Effects Pod, it's an interesting examination of how the famous pods from the movie were created and how they were used so effectively in the opening scene. Also lending insight into how the effects were handled and manipulated is thirteen minute long The Man Behind The Scream: The Sound Effects which takes a look at how sound was used for specific effects in the picture by Ben Burtt and the important role those sound effects play in the picture. The last featurette is the five minute The Invasion Will Be Televised: The Cinematography which obviously examines the tension building camerawork that Michael Chapman (yep, the same Michael Chapman who shot Taxi Driver) utilized in the movie.

Rounding out the extra features on the disc is a still gallery, some TV spots, a few radio spots, the original theatrical trailer, an episode of Science Fiction Theater entitled “Time Is Just A Place” (which is based on Jack Finney's short story directed by Jack Arnold) and some animated menus.

The disc itself fits in a standard sized Blu-ray case containing a reversible cover insert with the original one sheet art on one side and some newly created painted art on the opposite side. That same painted art graces the front of the slipcover that houses the Blu-ray case.

The Final Word:

Shout! Factory has given one of the finest remakes ever made a very impressive special edition Blu-ray release. Not only do we get quite a bit of brand new supplemental material, all of which is quite interesting, but we get a much better transfer that we've had in the past. Invasion Of The Body Snatchers holds up remarkably well, and is absolutely deserving of the treatment it has received here.

Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!