The original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, released in 1956, is widely considered to be a metaphor for the anti-communist crusade by Senator Joseph McCarthy. The notion that people were all becoming unfeeling conformists was certainly a reality during that decade.

By setting the remake in a contemporary major American city, director Philip Kaufman, producer Robert H. Sole, and writer W. D. Richter, felt their version would take on an even more terrifying angle. It is in an urban setting, after all, that virtually everyone can seem a stranger and no one person would be able to recognize the subtle changes in people as they pass on the street. It was a brilliant move.

The 1978 remake is in some ways an improvement on the first film (no easy feat) while also managing to take some not so subtle potshots at the then popular new age philosophies so common in the "ME" decade.

Deep in the outer reaches of space, an organic alien life form prepares for departure from a dying planet. The matter drifts into our solar system and heads for Earth, where it settles upon the vegetation in the great metropolis of San Francisco. Soon a strange new plant life springs up all around the city.

While walking home, biologist Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams) notices what she believes may be a new life form. She picks up the interesting flower and takes it home where she attempts to show it to her boyfriend.

Geoffrey (Art Hindle) is too busy watching television to be bothered. Later on, Elizabeth reads a passage from a textbook which she thinks pertains to the flower. It talks about what happens when two different species cross pollinate and produce a third dangerous weed. Again, Geoffrey is disinterested in the subject.

That night, Mathew Bennell (Donald Sutherland), a public health inspector, shows up in the kitchen of a local French restaurant. He finds a rat turd in the stew, among other things. The inspector vows to bring up the establishment for permit revocation and when he leaves, he finds that the windshield of his car has been smashed. Nearby, some of the workers look on menacingly.

When he arrives home, he calls Elizabeth, his co-worker at the Department of Health, and tells her what happened. He also requests that she come in early to work the next morning.

Elizabeth settles into bed for the evening with Geoffrey, with the flower resting in a glass of water on a night table next to them. When she awakes the next morning, she sees her boyfriend cleaning up broken glass off the floor. He doesn't respond to her. Puzzled, she watches out a window as Geoffrey dumps the contents of a waste basket into a waiting garbage truck.

The episode so unnerves Elizabeth that she arrives to work late. When she explains to Mathew what happened, he kids around by telling her there's nothing unusual about Geoffrey's behavior. Elizabeth walks down the corrider and bumps into a man who has a cold, expressionless face which unsettles her.

Back home, she tries to find out what's wrong with Geoffrey. The couple was supposed to go to a basketball game, but Geoffrey has cancelled their plans, telling her he has to go out that evening to a "meeting." Elizabeth is left hurt and confused.

She goes to Mathew's apartment and tells him that Geoffrey is not himself. She says he is devoid of all emotion and feelings. While sympathetic to his friend, Mathew still recommends his psychiatrist, who he says might be able put things into perspective.

The next day, Mathew has a strange occurance when he drops off his laundry. The proprieter, Mr. Tong (Wood Moy) tells Mathew that his wife is "sick" and that there is something wrong with her. The Asian woman hides behind a curtain gazing suspiciously. On his way to the office, Mathew walks through the park and says hello to Harry (Joe Bellan), a musician who sits with his dog all day and plays the banjo.

At the office, he tries to call Elizabeth but can't reach her. Suddenly she appears and startles him. She is terrified and in tears. Matthew comforts her and takes her for a drive in his car. She tells him there is a conspiracy going on and that she keeps seeing people recognizing each other...something is passing between them.

That morning, she showed up at Geoffrey's office but he wasn't there. She spied him out the window talking to a nurse. Then she saw two businessmen appear and pass some sort of bundle between them. She followed Geoffrey all day, and everywhere he went, there were strange meetings with people she didn't know.

What scares Elizabeth the most is that it's not just Geoffrey, but people all over the city she's lived in her entire life...there's something different about them. Mathew again tells her to see Doctor Kibner and invites her to a book party for him.

Suddenly, while at a red light, a man (Kevin McCarthy from the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers) approaches Mathew's car. He's screams "they're coming" and tells Mathew and Elizabeth that they're in danger. He runs off and is chased by a large crowd, but ends up getting hit by a car.

When they arrive at the party, it's already night. They see Mathew's friend Jack (Jeff Goldblum) who goes on about what a horrible book Kibner has written. Finding a phone, Mathew and Elizabeth quickly place a call to the police about the car accident. To their surprise, there is no report of it. Elizabeth's attention is suddenly diverted as she hears a woman crying.

She watches as a woman named Katherine (Lelia Goldoni) tells Dr. Kibner (Leonard Nimoy) that her husband is an imposter. Dr. Kibner tries to console the woman by joining her hand with that of her husband Ted (Tom Luddy). As the couple leaves, Elizabeth grabs hold of Katherine and tells the woman to give her a call at the Health Department. The husband, Elizabeth explains later to Mathew, is someone she saw Geoffrey with earlier in the day.

Mathew then introduces her to Dr. Kibner. Elizabeth explains her experience to the doctor, but he dismisses her with some new age psychobabble and tells Mathew to take her home. There, Elizabeth finds a note from Geoffrey which says "for you" along with a plant which has the same exact flower on it that she recently found.

Jack arrives at his mud bath business, where his wife Nancy (Veronica Cartwright) is busy with a client. He heads for the steamroom to relax. Later, while closing up for the evening, Nancy approaches a body covered with a sheet. Believing it to be Jack, she pulls the sheet off but finds a hideous humanlike form instead. She screams and Jack runs in and sees the odd discovery.

They call Mathew and ask him to come over immediately. Mathew thinks it must be some kind of joke. The body doesn't have any distinguishing features or fingerprints, but the group senses the eerie similarities to Jack's characteristics.

Mathew phones Elizabeth, but she is in a drugged-like stupor and cannot respond. Sensing trouble, he heads over to her place, while Nancy calls for Dr. Kibner. At Elizabeth's house, Mathew finds a life-like replica of his friend in the greenhouse. He sees the real Elizabeth asleep and sneaks her out.

Meanwhile, as Nancy waits for Kibner, she is shocked to see the eyes of the alien form suddenly open. Jack has fallen asleep in the next room and Nancy rushes in to wake him up. The couple flee and run right into Dr. Kibner. Of course the good doctor doesn't find any trace of the Jack lookalike.

Mathew arrives with Elizabeth and calls the police, telling them to meet he and Kibner at Geoffrey's house. Once again, the form has been disposed of.

The next morning at Mathew's house, the group tries to make sense of the situation. Dr. Kibner is not buying it, as Elizabeth tries to explain that people are being duplicated. In a quiet moment on the roof deck, he promises Mathew he will call the mayor, who's a patient of his. When he leaves, Kibner climbs into a black Mercedes. Sitting in the same car are Geoffrey and Ted, the guy from the party the night before.

Back at the apartment, Jack picks a blossom from a vase. Nancy says its the same kind of flower a customer brought to the baths. Elizabeth tells the couple she couldn't find it in any of her books and says she'll take it to work for testing. At the lab, her boss pretends to study the flower; in reality, he pays no attention to it.

Mathew meets with the mayor's special assistant but is not satisfied with their talk. He places a series of calls to no avail. At the chinese laundry, he finds it odd that Mr. Tong is no longer suspicious of his wife. Elizabeth has a similar encounter with Katherine, who tells her that everything is fine with her husband.

Nightfall brings Nancy, Jack, and Elizabeth together at Mathew's place again. Dr. Kibner is also there but is of little help to their growing uneasiness. He does however give Elizabeth a pill to help her get some sleep, before leaving. The four friends soon doze off, creating an opportunity for new life forms to be born. Pods in the garden begin giving birth to these new lives, each an exact replica of the four. Sensing danger, Nancy awakes and begins screaming at Mathew to do the same.

Dazed, Mathew looks around in disbelief and tells her to wake the other two. He tries to call the police but hangs up when the operator calls him by his name, which he hadn't given her.

When he tries to call a friend in the Justice Department directly, an operator intervenes. Everyone, it seems, is part of the conspiracy. Suddenly, the power is cut and they notice the house is being barricaded. Mathew sends the others into hiding under the stairs, and then smashes the face of his duplicate with a hoe.

A group of pod people appear and let out a hideous shriek, as though to signal to others that there are humans among them. The four friends begin a run for their lives, as a helicopter hovers above them. Jack goes off by himself, in order to distract attention away from the group. Nancy runs after him. With the group now separated, Mathew and Elizabeth make it into a cab.

Soon they discover that the cab driver (Don Siegel, the director of the original film) is only intent on turning them in. The two dash out just in time. Walking past Harry the banjo player and his dog sleeping, they see a pod next to them. Mathew steps on it, sending a stream of fluid out from the flower.

They make it to the Health Department building, where from a window they are able to see an eerie scene unfold. Dozens of people are lined up and ready to receive the alien pods. Suddenly a group descends on them, lead by Dr. Kibner and Jack. To their horror, Jack tells them it "would have been easier" if they had gone to sleep the night before.

The doctor forcibly injects both Mathew and Elizabeth with a sedative in order to make them sleep. Somehow, they manage to escape. Mathew manages a choke hold on Jack, before jabbing a dart into the base of his skull. Elizabeth smashes a bottle on the doctor's head and they place him in the freezer. Kibner is locked in as he howls and bangs on the window.

In the stairwell, they bump into Nancy, who tells them that the pod people can be fooled. They just need to hide their emotions and feelings. She is also unaware that Jack is now one of them. Outside, the three try and blend in with the crowds. They continue along undected until Elizabeth looks down and lets out a scream...as she sees the horrific by-product of an injured pod: a mutation of both the banjo player and his dog.

Mathew and Elizabeth jump onto the back of a truck, which takes them to a warehouse where the pods are grown. They are near a dock and hear a ship being loaded. Mathew temporarily leaves Elizabeth to get a closer look. When he returns, he sees that Elizabeth has fallen asleep. While he cradles her in his arms, her skins begins to flake off and her body decomposes. Just then the replica of Elizabeth rises from the bushes.

Mathew sneaks into the warehouse and manages to cut the ropes that hold the greenhouse lights. The lights short circuit on the ground and burst into flames. Soon the entire warehouse is on fire. From out of the wreckage, Elizabeth appears and points Mathew out to his pursuers. Mathew manages to make it to the dock and hide. He can hear a voice say "he can't stay awake forever!"

The next morning, on a dreary San Francisco day, Mathew is wandering the city. He stops by the Health Department where he sees Elizabeth and her co-workers appear motionless as they listen to instructions being broadcast outside. People everywhere are being told what to do and where to go.

Mathew then walks through the park, where he sees Nancy, who tentatively approaches him. Finally, she seems to have found one of her friends again. As she gets closer, Mathew raises his finger and lets out a piercing shriek. Nancy, now alone and helpless, can only cover her ears and scream.

When Invasion of the Body Snatchers appeared at the end of 1978, it was well received by critics and audiences alike. In fact Pauline Kael, the renowned critic for the New Yorker called it "the best movie of its kind ever made."

Special mention should be made of the special effects. By the late '70s, filmmakers were able to show what was only hinted at in the original version. To create the terrifying spectacle of the pods actually snatching human bodies and creating duplicates, the producer brought in Tom Burman and Edouard Henriques, two of the most respected make-up artists around. They did a superb job.

We highly recommend the DVD release by MGM, which includes both the pan and scan and widescreen versions. The sound is terrific, the picture is crisp, and there's even an extra feature running commentary by director Philip Kaufman. It's unusually intelligent, and his meticulous filmmaking techniques reminded us of Hitchcock's work.

Jason: An excellent movie on all levels. The acting is perfect, being at times subtle, at times incredibly scary, and always believable. The special effects are first rate. Both Sutherland and Adams are pros and together they carry the film throughout terrain that today's performers would undoubtedly find ways to bungle. This sci-fi horror blend is truly on top in all departments! The subtexts, meanings and symbols of the film, which the viewer can choose to extrapolate and interpret himself, are merely icings on the cake.

Hunter: A really well done chiller. One wonders what Roman Polanski might have done with this story, since he was so fond of the dual themes of paranoia and isolation. Still, I can't imagine that there could have been a better version of the story.

Philip Kaufman's direction is flawless, and the actors are all excellent, Brooke Adams in particular. I like the fact that the ending gives the impression that the situation is hopeless, unlike the original version in which the National Guard is called in at the last minute.