Re: The Wing Kong Exchange (feat. Evil Dead)
Thanks Cas, glad you enjoyed it and since you requested this one, here you go....
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Dr Miles Bennell returns to his small town practice to find several of his patients suffering the paranoid delusion that their friends or relatives are impostors. He is initially skeptical, especially when the alleged impostors are able to answer detailed questions about their victim's lives. However, he is eventually persuaded that something odd has happened and determines to find out what is causing this phenomenon.
1956’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers is the product of a bygone era, one full of paranoia, fear and an increasing xenophobia experienced by a large amount of the US population. Wait a minute; that kind of sounds like the US today, so perhaps it was also a portent of the future. Regardless of its clairvoyance in predicting the future, its real story is still rooted in the past. Released at a time of rampant anti-communism, its scary tale of people being replaced by emotionless clones was a very real one, which is why the film made such an immediate impact. Simple, yet chillingly effective and highly intelligent, it stands as one of the true classics of American cinema and an archetype of the horror genre.
"On the road to nowhere...fast."
Directed by Don Siegel and written by Daniel Mainwaring, the film is a methodical piece that takes it’s time to develop. One of the earliest examples of the slow-burn style, it’s also one of the absolute best. Siegel shows why he’s regarded as one of the great filmmakers of all time (having inspired Clint Eastwood) by effortlessly handling the action. He’s completely aware of the way he wants the film to feel and forces that onto the audience time and again. His style can be kindly referred to as subtly deliberate, but it works really well considering the story we’re meant to digest. Mainwaring’s screenplay is a real gem, particularly when you start to pay attention to the social commentary being made. In fact, through his dialogue, it’s hard to determine whether he was strictly speaking about communism or was alluding to McCarthyism in the US as well. Obviously such heavy handed topics shouldn’t be fodder for a simple horror film, but Mainwaring’s brilliance is masking them in one; subliminally affecting the audience on many levels.
"The original extreme close-up."
In many ways, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a one-man piece, and that one man is the star of the film, Kevin McCarthy. Truly one of the more underrated actors of the 1950’s (who’s turn in Death of a Salesman should have won him the Best Supporting Actor Oscar), McCarthy is simply brilliant here. Like the victims in the film, he too undergoes a drastic transformation, though one that’s totally opposite to theirs. Beginning the film as an upstanding and somewhat skeptical doctor, he ends it as a screaming mass of paranoia; completely foreign to the man he used to be. Without McCarthy’s strong performance, I think the film would have fallen pretty flat, since it’s hard to believe any other actor of this time period could have handled the role. He’s joined by Dana Wynter, an attractive and serviceable actress who develops good chemistry with him throughout. She’s not the perfect choice, but anyone stronger would have been overshadowed by McCarthy anyway, so it makes sense to hire someone a little more malleable. More support comes from Larry Gates and King Donovan, two solid, if somewhat unmemorable actors who each sink their teeth into their respective roles.
"Now that's what I call one hell of a paper cut."
To be honest, I don’t think Invasion of the Body Snatchers is really going to scare people living in the year 2013. That’s not to say it isn’t frightening, just that the times have changed and people have become a lot more desensitized to violence, needing buckets of blood and elaborate death traps to satisfy their morbidity. If there’s one thing Invasion of the Body Snatchers is, it’s normal. The pod people takeover is as normal as can be, yet it produces
"an epidemic of mass hysteria" that turns blood relatives against one another. As the director once said, the terror of the movie is in its absolute reality.
"So many people have no feeling about culture; no pain or sorrow." Unfortunately, the film suffered when the studio asked Siegel to add a silly prologue and epilogue. Subtract those tacked-on moments when town doctor Miles (Kevin McCarthy) obtains the help of authorities in a neighboring city, and the movie gets a whole lot darker -- closing with an hysterical Miles staggering through traffic, shrieking "You're next!", and ending that would be expanded on in the 1979 remake. To sum it all up, one can say that the film itself is very much like the evil characters within, constantly trying to catch you off guard so that it can further entrance and, eventually, overtake you completely. You’d be hard pressed to find another from any time period that does this so convincingly.
"I don't know what this is, but I'll bet it smells awful."
Shot on a budget of about $417,000 over less than a month, Invasion of the Body Snatchers has gone one to become an all-time classic and a testament to the power of social commentary in film. While it may seem a little tame by today’s standards, its underlying message still rings with an air of truth and the cautionary tale told within is still valid. Anyone who considers themselves a true fan of cinema should certainly have seen it or have it on their watch list, while fans of horror in general will enjoy a lot of old school tension and drama. Highly recommended.
8/10.
“Tomorrow, a logical and colorful remake.â€