The Michigan Daily-Wednesday, January 10, 1979-Page 5 Horror becomes art in 'Bodysnatchers' By CHRISTOPHER POTTER I sometimes wonder why Hollywood's powers-that-be so regularly get it into their heads to pour millions into a mod remake of some memorable film of the past. Presumably, the money-in-the- bank lure of lightning striking twice is too much to resist. Yet one would think the unique hazards inherent in such projects would be all too obvious to such a dollar-worshipping industry as American moviedom. Any act of revising an earlier film implies that a general and long- standing veneration of an established cinema icon exists. If the original was so successful, why would anyone want to run the very dubious risk of attem- pting either to duplicate or to improve upon it? How many millions of viewers fond, even sacred memories would one risk offending? Resultantly, most remakes get hung up in a nether-zone between implied reverence for the past and strident grasps to cash in on the present. In recent years we've been subjected to numerous misguided updates of film classics like Goodbye, Mr. Chips and The Informer. Two Christmases ago we were racked with the dual disasters of A Star is Born and King Kong. And the less said about our current nostalgia usurper, The Wiz, the better. IN A STRANGE duality, the remake people exhibit both a grave-robber timidity (regurgitating others' material) and a slightly looney audacity (considering most remakes' frighteningly dismal box office history). The chronic pitfalls in such projects turn especially acute when one tackles an acknowledged specialty product, as with the current Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I Updated from a low-budget but ex- traordinary 1956 film, Body Snathers' heritage rests so firmly in the horror- sci-fi genre that the mainstream moviegoer would likely recoil im- mediately from the movie's grade-B kitsch title, while cultists would con- versely feel mortified at the revisionist tampering with a deity. Faced with this dual hotbed of potential public aver- sion, the new Body Snatchers' sole path to success would seem to lie in the unlikely possibility that it just might turn out to be the best horror film ever made. WELL, AGAINST all stated odds, that seems to be precisely what has been accomplished. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is not only the most fully realized product of the horror genre I have ever seen, it is also quite likely the best American film of 1978 - and I say this as one who dearly loved the original version. Even more than its predecessor, the current film transcen- ds the inherent limitations of the horror movie to present a spellbinding portrait of a society psychically imploding, reducing itself to an emotional common denominator with an inexorable, terrifying efficiency. Body Snatchers remains quite faith- ful in essence to the Don Siegel original of two decades before: Its plot is unner- vingly simple: Mysterious, life-bearing seeds, drifting through space from a dead world, descend unobserved upon San Francisco. Once landed, they take root in the form of sinister red flowers; soon they blossom into large pods hatch into human duplicate bod each ready to physically psychologically pre-empt any nea earthling counterpart. The aliens ci upon their victims while they sly draw the life out of them thre strange, wispy tendrils, then emeri perfect twin from their own pods w the original human body crumble dust. THE NEW humanoids neither I nor hate. Brainy but emotionless, t act with the cold, single-min necessity of infiltrating t. eliminating the human race as swi and efficiently as possible. The pod peoples' trump card is s tness and surprise, their strategy replace as many prominent citizen plications far beyond the limitations of genre. Siegel's original version effec- tively served as a parable for McCar- thyist conformity of the 1950's; Kauf- man and Richter have masterfully adapted and expanded that theme into the look-out-for-number-one 70's, indic- ting an entire sociological structure rather than just a narrow political for- ce. The film took a calculated risk in switching locales from the small rural town of the original to San Francisco, but the natural unwieldiness of the big city turns out to provide Kaufman and company a wellspring for flights of imaginative fancy. The choice of towns is ironically apt: San Francisco, haven to the eccentric, the twisted, the free spirit, falls first victim to the kingdom 11 _Iqqq I r,.., t IVW Brooke Adams and Donald Sutherland ponder one of the innocuous-looking (but deadly) pods that eventually transform everyone in San Francisco into a mindless inhuman, in a scene from "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers." "I1t iY -qqqmftm the city as they can. Thus, if some ear- thling should come to suspect what's afoot, the invaders will already have snared the reigns of power. Against this pitiless, almost invisible enemy is a tiny band of humans headed by a middle-level city health inspector named Matthew (Donald Sutherland). Confronted by his distraught assistant Elizabeth (Brooke Adams), who claims that her live-in boyfriend is literally not the same person, the first incredulous Matthew soon begins to comprehend the inconceivable - that some horror is indeed transforming and erasing all that is familiar and good around him. Matthew thus joins forces with Elizabeth and a young married couple (Jeff Goldblum and Veronica Car- twright), and plunges into a desperate race against time to unmask the aliens before they have subjugated the city, then the entire world. THIS IMPROBABLE plot could have beckoned invitations to innumerable horror flick cliches. Instead, director Phil Kaufman and screenwriter W.D. Richter have concocted an astonishingly coherent, literate and terrifying film complete with im- V{ of the zombies. Body Snatchers is a paranoic's nightmare. Michael Chapman's subtly brilliant photography captures less than human faces looming on the fringes of scenes again and again. Everyone who's ever been beset by the feeling that people were staring at them on the street will find harrowing vin- dication of their worst fears, as Chap- man's camera slowly pans past throngs of urban crowds gazing back with set, staring countenances. Are they human or alien? Who is there left to trust? THE FILM rivets its images in the mind, from an opening shot of a rain- drop on a leaf expanding into a malignant growth, to a scene near the end of a group of bubbling, laughing Canadian school children alighting from their tourist bus while their stolid, alien hosts leer carnivorously down at them. The prevailing menace is heightened throughout by an extraor- dinary musical score by jazz composer Denny Zeitlin, whose throbbing elec- tronic themes pulse like mutations on the inside of one's skull. The film's performances are light years ahead of the minimally developed stick figures of most horror movies. Donald Sutherland makes a marvelously believable protagonist - a decent but fallible everyman who can be duped by those around him and also be scared out of his wits by the prevailing circumstances. Brooke Adams radiates intelligence and resourcefullness as Elizabeth, and combines these with such a hear- tbreaking loveliness that one feels an obsession to shield her from the demons. LEONARD NIMOY is superb in the role of a trendy best-selling psychiatrist of the Wayne Dyer variety, giving a performance so smirkily incisive that one forgets all about Mr. Spock within seconds. But best of all are Veronica Cartwright and Jeff Goldblum as Sutherland's young married friends. Throughout the desperate struggle, both give off such a fierce, almost ballet-like energy that they ultimately become a living symbol of resistance to everything the aliens represent. The film's loving debt to the original Body Snatchers is always apparent, a fact which sets it notably apart from the usual run of crudely mercenary remakes. Original star Kevin McCarthy makes a brief appearance, recapitulating a famous hysterical scene which was meant to be the climax of Don Siegel's picture; Siegel himself shows up later on as a sinister cab driver. As such, this is almost more a sequel than a remake: the body snatchers tried and failed twenty years ago - now they're back again. Do we still possess the drive, the will - the simple humanity to resist them? Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1 ' e e ,e. J Alt 50 < p ' a 1a 8Q 100A ~ON probes the question with a passionate excellence that is matched by few motion pictures genre or otherwise. If your courage allows, don't miss this one. MWOMMOMU 1 a,11 1G Join The , Daily Business Staff ANN ARBOR CIVIC THEATRE presents The Good Person of szec/iwan by Bertholt Brecht Jan. 10--13 Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre $3.00 Special Student Rate. Wed. & Thurs. only CURTAIN 8 PM AUDITONS for The Fantasticks Wednesday, January 10, 1979 and Thursday, January 11, 1979 Come either night at 7:30 P.M. at CANTERBURY LOFT 332 SOUTH STATE STREET, second floor Please come to the auditions prepared with a song. Show runs March 14 through 17 at Canterbury Loft. Join the Arts staff! ANN ARBOR-A horrible epidemic of startling proportions is sweeping the city, brought into Ann Arbor by a shipment of unusual, small red flower pods delivered last week to area florists (see story above). The plants snare sleepers at night, transforming them into another of the countless unthinking, unopinionated "pods" with blank faces one sees on the streets. But one can fight the invasion, by writing for the Michigan Daily arts page. As a member of the Arts staff you will broaden your knowledge of the arts, meet many friendly non-pods, and can receive all sorts of freebies, such as tickets to events and records. We'll be holding a meeting for all who want to be on the staff, this Sunday afternoon at 4:30. Hurry and join the staff, before they get you too. Studying got you down Take a break r'p (IVEJITY CMUSICAL OCIETY presentg OO6 A Guide to the Campus of The University of Michigan The first official guidebook to those unique and historic buildings which mark a campus rich in tradition. Handsomely illustrated with photographs and a new aerial map of the campus, the guide is de- signed to enhance visits to the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan and will prove invaluable to alumni as well as students and their families. paperbound $3.95 THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS P.O. Box 1104 Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 Send me copy(ies) of A Guide to the Campus of The University of Michigan @ $3.95 per copy. 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