Body Snatchers Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.0

Body Snatchers Blu-ray Movie Review

"They Get You When You Sleep"

Reviewed by Michael Reuben October 18, 2016

Jack Finney's 1955 novel The Body Snatchers has been adapted for the screen four times, and each version is recognizably a product of its era. Don Siegel's classic 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers depicted an American small town being transformed by an alien invasion that, depending on one's predilection, could be interpreted as either a Communist takeover or an epidemic of middle class conformity. Philip Kaufman's 1978 remake shifted the story to the urban center of San Francisco, the ideal locale for Kaufman's satire of new age pop psychology, which promised the same freedom from negative emotion as the alien invaders seizing control. Oliver Hirschbiegel's pallid 2007 adaptation, The Invasion, attempted to update the tale for an era concerned about biological warfare and global pandemics.

And then there's Abel Ferrara's 1993 Body Snatchers, which is the version closest to a pure horror film. Warner Brothers didn't have any confidence in the film's appeal at the time, releasing it in just a handful of theaters, where it grossed less than $500,000. But most who saw Body Snatchers were impressed with Ferrara's taut thriller, a rare mainstream departure for the fringe provocateur who made Bad Lieutenant, Ms. 45 and Dangerous Game. Body Snatchers has since gained a devoted following that is driving sales of the Warner Archive Collection's new Blu-ray to unexpected heights. Even before street date, WAC has had to order two additional pressings to keep pace with demand. Some of the interest is no doubt due to the fact that Ferrara's film has not been presented in its original aspect ratio since its 1994 laserdisc—and Body Snatchers is a film that suffers more than most when Ferrara's insinuating compositions are cropped for video.

Body Snatchers' story and screenplay are attributed to five writers, including Larry Cohen, the prolific scribe and occasional director whose credits include It's Alive and its sequels, and Stuart Gordon, the writer/director of Re-Animator and From Beyond. Where every other adaptation of Finney's novel uses some sort of doctor or scientist as its protagonist, Body Snatchers plants itself in classic horror territory by telling the story from the perspective of an average teenage girl. Marti Malone (Gabrielle Anwar) is the elder of two children of an EPA inspector, Steve Malone (Terry Kinney). As the film opens, Marti and her half-brother, Andy (Reilly Murphy), are being dragged by their father to an Army base where Steve has been assigned to inspect the chemical weapons storage facility. Accompanying them is Steve's second wife, Carol (Meg Tilly), whom he married after Marti's mother died. In addition to the usual pangs of teenage alienation, Marti already feels like an outsider in her own family.

Even before the Malones reach the base, a frightening encounter at a gas station signals that something is terribly wrong there. After the family settles in, the chief medical officer, Major Collins (Forest Whitaker), approaches Steve to ask whether any of the hazardous chemicals he's evaluating could be responsible for an epidemic of paranoid delusions in which people fear to sleep and claim that friends and family aren't who they say they are. The local night spot, where Marti is taken by her new friend, Jenn (Christine Elise), the rebellious daughter of the base commander (R. Lee Ermey), has gone suspiciously quiet. At Jenn's home, her alcoholic mother (Kathleen Doyle) has been suddenly transformed into an upright citizen who joins other military wives for "bridge". At the house where the Malones have been billeted, strange deliveries are made by soldiers who stealthily invade the family's private quarters.

Body Snatchers retains the device of having the alien replacements hatched from sinister pods as generic humanoids who gradually take on the appearance of their "hosts". It adds a new wrinkle by endowing the pods with probing tentacles that wrap themselves carnivorously around their victim. Though the practical effects may be low-rent, they are also remarkably effective. (A scene in the base's infirmary presents a creepy tableau of victims in various stages of transformation.) The film also retains a scary device from Philip Kaufman's 1978 version (with which Body Snatchers shares a producer) by having the alien replacements single out those who remain human with an accusatory stance and a piercing scream. But here, too, Ferrara's film adds a twist, as the aliens use knowledge they have inherited from their hosts to provoke emotional responses from anyone trying to blend in with the affectless horde. As Marti navigates a hazardous landscape, maintaining the illusion of indifference becomes increasingly difficult.

Body Snatchers strips the familiar story down to its bare essentials, dispensing with extended debate about the value of a unitary species vs. humans' messy disharmony. The invaders' history and purpose are neatly summarized in a single speech by one of their transformed victims, while Ferrara conveys their purposeful organization in mostly visual terms, repeatedly cutting to scenes of crews methodically harvesting alien seed pods from the local swamp, loading them into trucks and deploying the vehicles to far-flung destinations so that the invasion can spread. The director inventively exploits the military setting by constructing frames in which the disciplined presence of soldiers appears menacing rather than reassuring. When Body Snatchers was first released, some reviewers complained that it cheated by using military training as an expression of the mindless conformity explored in the previous two versions. But Ferrara doesn't aspire to such social commentary (at least, not in this film). He just wants to create shivers of paranoia by gradually transforming our greatest protectors into our deadliest enemies. It's a game of altered perspective that the director maintains right up through the film's final shot.

Body Snatchers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Body Snatchers was shot in anamorphic widescreen by Bojan Bozelli, who began his career as a cinematographer with Ferrara's China Girl and has since graduated to mainstream work like the recent Pete's Dragon. The Warner Archive Collection's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is the film's first presentation in its original aspect ratio since laserdisc. The Blu-ray is the result of a new scan at 2K of a recent-vintage interpositive, which was performed by WAC's preferred post house, MPI, followed by the usual color-correction and cleanup. The result is a wonderfully detailed and film-like representation of Ferrara's artfully arranged frames, with deep blacks in the many night scenes and a rich, saturated palette that begins with warmth and gradually cools as the alien invasion extends its reach. Intense pinks and reds appear frequently in the first half (a scene involving kids' finger-painting uses them effectively), but they are gradually supplanted by cool blues and grays, with a slight desaturation as the human presence is replaced by aliens. Some scenes featuring practical effects look a little rougher than the rest, but this falloff in quality appears to be inherent in the original (probably a result of varying frame rates). A few opticals are of notably poorer quality than the rest—especially a critical shot near the film's end—but here again the issue is a result of the source and not a fault in the transfer or mastering. The film's grain pattern is finely resolved, and WAC has mastered the disc at its usual high average bitrate of 34.99 Mbps.

Body Snatchers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Body Snatchers was released to theaters in Dolby Surround, which has been remixed for 5.1 and encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA. To my ear, the rear channel retains the mono format of Dolby Surround, but that doesn't detract from the sense of immersion in a soundfield that is filled with disturbing rumbles, much of it courtesy of the ominous score by Joe Delia, a regular collaborator with Ferrara. Helicopter flybys and flyovers are a frequent occurrence, especially in the film's latter half, when the base goes on high alert. The sound effects accompanying the pods' takeover of their victims are appropriately organic and squirmy, and the screams of protesting victims, both onscreen and off, are appropriately unsettling. The dialogue is clearly rendered, including the increasingly unhinged rambling of Forest Whitaker's desperate Army doctor.

Body Snatchers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The only extra is the film's ominous trailer, which has been remastered in 1080p (1.78:1; 1:56). Warner's 1999 DVD was similarly bare.

Body Snatchers Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Among its other virtues, Body Snatchers is noteworthy for suggesting the career Ferrara might have had as a mainstream genre craftsman, if his interests and famously anti-establishment temperament hadn't sent him consistently to the fringe. The film's economical storytelling and creepy atmosphere hold up beautifully and are a model to which contemporary filmmakers should aspire. WAC's presentation is exemplary and highly recommended.