Body Snatchers Movie Review

“They're out there. They're everywhere. They get you when you sleep, you hear?” The pod people are at it again and who better than Bad Lieutenant director Abel Ferrara, who one critic has described as “the poet of the soulless,” to bring them to the screen for the third time? This version is set on an army base, a brilliant maneuver as the military's strict code of conduct provides perfect cover for the emotionless pods. Gabrielle Anwar (Al Pacino's tango partner in Scent of a Woman) stars as Marti, a teenager whose stepmother, father, and younger brother become victims. The special effects, light years ahead of the 1956 and 1978 versions, literally get under your skin. But after all these years, the paranoia of Jack Finney's original story is still palpable: “Where you gonna go?” asks pod-wife Meg Tilly. “Where you gonna run? Where you gonna hide? Nowhere. Because there is no one…like you…left.”

1993 (R) 87m/C Gabrielle Anwar, Meg Tilly, Terry Kinney, Forest Whitaker, Billy Wirth, R. Lee Ermey; D: Abel Ferrara; W: Stuart Gordon, Dennis Paoli, Nicholas St. John; C: Bojan Bazelli; M: Joe Delia. VHS, LV WAR