31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Directed by Philip Kaufman

Starring Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Leonard Nimoy, Jeff Goldblum, & Veronica Cartwright

In San Francisco, health inspector Matthew Bennell is noticing things that aren’t quite right. People are behaving strangely. They’re distant and emotionless. Matthew begins to see a bigger picture when his friends start finding lifeless bodies that haven’t fully formed yet. These corpses, even in their partial state, share likenesses with Matthew’s friends. Just as the group begins to realize what’s happening, it’s already too late. It’s an invasion from an unsuspecting enemy, leaving behind pods with perfect copies of people Matthew once knew.

There are few remakes that can stand with their original films, and even fewer remakes are better. For me, Carpenter’s The Thing and Philip Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers are movies that surpass the quality of the movies they’re based on.

The movie uses the story we all know from the book and the 1950s version, but makes it slightly darker. The themes of not trusting authority and paranoia are still present, but the consequences feel heavier. It’s not the obvious metaphor for Communism, but a dark reflection of the “Me” generation and its quest for self-fulfillment.

There’s a palpable tension that never lets up, fantastic performances, and great technique in setting up scares. With every successive revelation about the pod people, there’s a building feeling of impending doom. That these invaders try to appeal to the character’s sense of wanting something better adds so much more terror to the concept. They’re not just replacing humanity; they’re doing it a favor.

The special effects are impressive, making space-plants look menacing and evil. The growth and replication process is eerie and makes great use of practical effects of the time. While those scenes are great, nothing quite measures up to seeing the accidental replication of dog and man together. Really, the film is filled with disturbingly wonderful shots.

Donald Sutherland carries this movie well. His Matthew’s concern for his friends is deep and only surpassed by his drive to survive. The rest of the cast does a bang up job, especially Leonard Nimoy as a New Age psychiatrist and Veronica Cartwright as the resourcefully smart Nancy.

Fans of any version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers should watch this movie. It’s a well-made sci-fi thriller that works as a remake and shines slightly brighter than its predecessor. Find this movie, don’t sleep ever again, and start accusing your friends of not being human.

9 out of 10

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: The Faculty

The Faculty (1998)

Directed by Robert Rodriguez

Starring Josh Hartnett, Elijah Wood, Shawn Hatosy, Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Laura Harris, Robert Patrick, Famke Janssen, Bebe Neuwirth, Salma Hayek, & Jon Stewart.

Several teens attending an Ohio high school suspect something is wrong. Their teachers are all behaving out of character and drinking insane amounts of water. Students are starting to exhibit these traits as well. The school nerd Casey thinks it has something to do with the strange creature he found on the football field; an unknown and vicious miniature squid-thing. With some of his fellow students believing something has gone wrong, Casey and company set out to find the cause of this strange behavior before the teachers get to them too.

Robert Rodriguez made a typical Miramax teen horror movie early in his career, working with a screenplay from Weinstein brother’s staple Kevin Williamson. Luckily, Rodriguez’s luck held out and he got himself a real winner. Riffing heavily on the sci-fi tropes of mind controlling aliens and the alienation of high school, The Faculty actually manages to overcome the dullness of 90s horror films by being both smart and funny.

With a script rewrite from Scream franchise writer Kevin Williamson, the movie is filled with great dialogue and interesting characters. There’s plenty of quick wit, pop culture references, and self-aware deconstruction. While the meta-ness of The Faculty never reaches the level of Scream, it still has plenty of teens catching on quick to the body snatcher scenario. It’s that self-awareness that’s part of the reason the youthful protagonists are so much fun to watch. The other is there multidimensional characterizations. They all fit the teen character archetypes we know from movies, but they also have aspirations and aptitudes that screw with audience expectations.

The cast is composed of great genre actors and a few surprises. Robert Patrick, Piper Laurie, and Bebe Neuwirth all make great turns from troubled educators to unsettling alien puppets. The teens themselves have more characterization that’s brought out fairly well with the talented younger cast. Not a bad performance in the bunch.

The surprising cast additions come in the forms of Usher and Jon Stewart. Usher doesn’t get to do much of anything, rendering his inclusion in the movie pretty pointless. Stewart on the other hand gets to have some funny moments in between exposition and he’s in a gnarly fight as well. The odd singer-turned-actor inclusion is far outweighed by seeing the face of The Daily Show attacked with office supplies.

There are some things that haven’t aged well; the soundtrack and the CGI. The music choices are unfortunately products of the time period. Over-produced hard rock-pop becomes to de facto way to set the tone for many scenes and it gets annoying. The special effects have that lack of polish that all late 90s computer graphics suffered, looking unfinished and ancient. However, the few uses of models, puppets, and practical makeup still look pretty good.

The Faculty doesn’t show much of the Rodriguez flair present in his El Mariachi films or his recent work, but it’s still a decent little horror movie that’s worth a watch.

8 out of 10

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Phantoms

Phantoms (1998)

Directed by Joe Chappelle

Starring Peter O'Toole, Rose McGowan, Joanna Going, Liev Schreiber, & Ben Affleck

Two sisters come to a small town when they realize no one is there. There are a few mangled bodies, but nothing else. They meet up with the Sheriff and his deputies, still lost for answers. But strange noises keep happening around town, and the military even shows up to investigate. That’s when all hell predictably breaks loose. With the help of a surly tabloid journalist who may know something about the force devouring the town, the survivors will have to rely on their wits to make it out of town.

Director Joe Chapelle previously helmed the atrocious Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers and the almost acceptable Hellraiser: Bloodlines. The movie stars people who were probably in the Miramax office when the production was green lit. It becomes painfully clear that the film won’t get better until a demonic moth eats a guy’s face, or something to that order. So, Phantoms should be awful. Yet somehow it just barely isn’t terrible. And after you get past the first half hour and into the action, Phantoms is oddly enjoyable.

Phantoms shares more than a few similarities with John Carpenter’s The Thing and the Chuck Russel 1988 remake of The Blob. Both Blob and Phantoms have government troops in white biohazard suits being chased, mauled, and generally consumed by a formless entity. The Thing and Phantoms both involve shape shifting, constantly mutating forms. Also, both have a scene with an attacking, tentacle dog beast.

Ultimately, these connections are pretty cosmetic and the movie is different where it counts. For instance, Phantoms is the only movie I know of where Ben Affleck gets knocked around by a little boy with a 20 foot tentacle coming out of his mouth. In case it wasn’t already clear, there is a pronounced streak of dark comedy running through the movie. Mostly it comes from O’Toole’s dry delivery or Schreiber’s greasy demeanor, but sometimes it also comes from the unintentionally funny moments.

The real method of fright inducing comes from very loud noises until the movie unveils some creature action. Drastically loud noises get tiresome after a while, but it’s mostly effective at keeping you on edge. The volume raising scare factor might work better if you take a shot every time an unseen townsperson screams from far away, only to reveal that nobody’s there and you need more bourbon.  Once the body snatching gooey thing comes on screen, all the tension comes from a Lovecraftian entity violently absorbing people.

Liev Schreiber is clearly having fun being creepy and mildly threatening. Peter O’Toole is snobby, elitist, and having a ball reading some truly cheesy lines. It’s only the three leads that don’t do much with their characters. Rose McGowan looks positively catatonic and Joanna Going is acting with wide eyes alone. Ben Affleck is a fairly generic hero and certainly not “the bomb” as others have stated. Then again, there isn’t much to work with from the sparse script.

Phantoms isn’t that good a movie, but it’s still pretty entertaining. It’s just a movie with everyone Miramax employed in the late 90s, directed by a guy who can handle special FX and tense scenes better than actors. It’s a good rainy day movie or a good one to turn into a drinking game.

6 out of 10

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: The Puppet Masters

The Puppet Masters (1994)

Directed by Stuart Orme

Starring Donald Sutherland, Eric Thal, Julie Warner, & Keith David

An unknown object enters the atmosphere and lands in Iowa. Led by a man named Andrew, the government’s secret science directorate sends their leader’s son Will and a NASA scientist named Mary to investigate the area of impact. What they find is the start of a covert invasion by mind controlling alien parasites. Quarantine quickly proves untenable as the meat puppets of the alien force spread their parasitic control and capture more people for transport. With everything spiraling out of control, Andrew, Will, and Mary become Earth’s best hope against these puppeteers from space.

The Puppet Masters surprised me for a number of reasons. It’s the only movie adaption of Robert Heinlein’s story and not another remake or variant of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The director, Stuart Orme, made his feature debut with this. His experience directing mainly comes from television episodes and various TV movies. It also surprised me because I had never heard of it until I was putting together my movie schedule for the month. Thankfully, the movie is good and effectively frightening.

It’s not entirely faithful to the source novel, but that’s not a detriment. Replacing the futuristic setting with the world of today (circa 1994) doesn’t harm the narrative. Fans of the novel might take issue with the film’s changed ending, which is not as dire. There’s still that tense feeling of an unwinnable situation until the last few minutes, but it is swept away in ridiculous fist fight in a helicopter and a happy ending.

The action is all handled very well; not a misstep in any fight or explosion. Those looking for some good set pieces and satisfying alien blasting will not be disappointed. The alien slugs themselves are creepy and appropriately gross. The practical creature effects look good with only a few exceptions where their age is showing. Even the early CGI isn’t too bothersome, so there’s not a lot that will pull you out of the movie.

Eric Thal and Julie Warner are both equally bland, playing their respective roles with the personalities of vanilla wafers. The only time they show any actual emotion or nuance is when they’re being controlled by back dwelling alien stingrays. In fact, a lot of people go straight to chewing scenery when their character is under an alien control. Sutherland fairs a little better, playing Andrew as tactical and coldly authoritative. The sheer number of seasoned character actors in this movie is staggering. On the supporting side, Keith David and Will Patton both put some effort into their roles and turn in some enjoyable performances.  

The Puppet Masters is a surprisingly fun movie with good direction and plenty of well-staged action. The lead actors are outshined by a supporting cast that appears far happier to be there. Nonetheless, it’s entertaining and charming in a scrappy, mid 90s sci-fi kind of way.

8 out of 10