1978
Who’s in this?
Donald Sutherland as Matthew Bennell, health inspector and cynic. Sutherland has been acting for over fifty years and been in tons of things from the MASH movie to Klute to Animal House to the Hunger Games.
Brooke Adams as Elizabeth Driscoll friend of Matthew. She begins to suspect that her boyfriend has been taken over by something. Brooke has been in acting since a young age. Perhaps most known for this films and Days of heaven. She is also married to Tony Shalhoub.
Leonard Nimoy as arrogant psychotrist and author Dr. David Kibner. Nimoy hoset In search of, was briefly in Mission: Impossible and wore pointy ears playing and alien or something in that space show in the late 60’s.
Jeff Goldblum as Jack Bellicec an aspiring writer, doubting Thomas and quirky wise cracker (yes way different than his other roles). Goldblum has been in tons of stuff includign the Big Chill, the Fly remake, Independence Day and two of those Dinosaur films.
Veronica Cartwright as Nancy wife of Jack and she works at a spa/mud bath place where some alien bodies are later spotted. Veronica was a child actress who was in The Birds, several episodes of Leave it to Beaver and lots of other things. She continued acting as an adult and has been in L.A. Law, Alien and a bunch of other stuff. Older sister of Angela Cartwright (Penny from Lost in space).
Art Hindle as Dr. Geoffrey Howell boyfreind of Elizabeth and one of the first people we see taken over. An actor with over 100 credits who has worked more in tv in recent years.
Kevin McCarthy in a cameo as Dr. Miles J. Bennell warns of being beware of something before getting whacked. McCarthy had a long acting career but is likely most known for his role in the original Invasion of the body snatchers.
Relax, I don’t give neck pinches in this film.
What’s this about? So these spores are blowing around on another planet, oh so they may have allergies on other planets too. Anyways these spores travel so easy across the galaxy making our space program look clunky and slow (as if it wasn’t able to look that way by itself). Eventually the spores come down in San Francisco and start growing these pretty little flowers. Wait a minute these are flowers from space spores so they must invaders from a civilization that couldn’t afford a big old metal flying suacer with which to carry out their invasion. We meet Matthew a health inspector who likes his job a bit too much and can’t tell the difference between a caper and a rat turd. Then we meet his friend Elizabeth whose boyfriend Geoffrey is a big basketball fan. Then the next day Geoffrey gets all serious and loses insterest in basketball plus he takes to not talking much and wearing his tie real tight. This leads Elizabeth to thinking he must not be the real Geoffrey. She tells her co-worker Matthew who at first thinks she loopy but then they meet other people saying people they know are not who they claim and an old dude claims something is up and he dies seconds after that although later it seems to be covered up. They go to see Matthew’s friend Kibner the head doctor who is also a fan of turtlenecks and a half glove that seems to have been distracting viewers of this film for years. Kibner listens to them and shakes up Jack to prove a loony point to Elizabeth that her mind is okay and that nothing is wrong. He tells them to get some sleep and to live long and prosper or something like that. At Jack and Nancy’s mud bath a rama joint they find a blank body and call Matthew in for a look see. They all realize that the body is about Jack’s size and think it’s a growing double ready to take his place! Oh jeepers creepers it’s just like one of them 1950’s science fiction film oh, wait. Matthew races to Elizabeth’s place and sees a double of her growing with the plants. Ah I’ll buy some daisies, lillies and those pods that take over people while they sleep. There is a rush after this as the police are called and the creepy bodies vanish making Matthew and the others look silly. Eventually Matthew finds out that Kibner is one of them, no not a Vulcan but a pod person-ewwww. Our humans go to Matthew’s place for a while but the pod posse are after them and chase them out to the streets. Jack and Nancy lead the pod crowd after them to give Matthew and Elizabeth a chance to flee which they do. Jack gets taken oh dear now his pod double will rant on about chaos theories, but Nancy manages to pretend to be one of them and runs into Matthew and Elizabeth. Not long after this Elizabeth goes beddie bye and is taken over and her nude double rises up. Matthew runs again, there’s lots of running in the second half of this film. Matthew gets a destructive streak and destroys a pod making center in explosive fashion as Elizabeth/pod version comes after him still in her nudie pants screaming her alien sounds and ratting him out. He gets away, time elapses he runs into a still human and hiding Nancy but Matthew turns and lets out an old alien squawk oh, holy hell he’s been taken. Roll the credits.
The negatives- There are lot of odd angles, squeezed in cameos, not so subtle hints and a lot busy stuff that will bog this film down some for a few folks.
The positives- It’s a remake that tries hard to be it’s own film and mostly succeeds in fact it’s very good and just a hair shy of the original for me although lot sof people prefer it. The cast is solid, but Nimoy and Goldblum have alwyas been the standouts for me. Some of the effects are slightly dated, but overall decent. The settings are great in both day and night. The ending is quite good too.
Lasers, monsters and barbarians oh, my! 