31 Days, 31 Screams: Day 10 (Invasion Of The Body Snatchers 1978)

WHO DAFUQ IS YOU?

Well, it only took ten days but here we are; something I watched this month that I have never seen in its entirety before. I knew about some fucked up shit that happened in it. I even remember vividly seeing one of the more gruesome and visceral parts on TV many years ago. Still, it's a movie I've always wanted to see in full but never have. Until now. We're going wibbly in time a bit from The Ark In Space and The Thing, but we're in that odd remake territory. I'll confess that this is the only version of this story that I've seen in movie form, but I can't see how the others could be better. Maybe the 50's one has a better atmosphere, but I couldn't tell you and I won't shittalk it further just in case. Then there was a 90's one, and one from like ten years ago with Nicole Kidman. Hmm. Yeah, I think this one from 1978 has it all for me personally.

At its core, this is a movie about paranoia. The 50's one was steeped in a Red Scare culture, but this is 1978. Yeah, there's a Cold War on, but it's not like that's going to matter soon anyway. This is The Ark In Space and The Thing taken to its bleakest levels. Those movies had the unstoppable alien menace set to assimiliate us all trapped in some isolated location; a space station, or a base on Antarctica. Here, the alien invaders just drift on down to Earth from space. Not just space, but from some dreary lifeless rock in space. Interesting, considering what they have to say for themselves near the end. This is what happens when the assimilating force makes it to Earth and works in secret; humanity as we know it is fucked. In its place are amoral aliens devoid of emotion who pretty much murder you in your sleep and take your place. The greedy motherfuckers have evolved a step beyond The Thing; The Thing took you over via replication. This just file transfers your thoughts and memories over to its gross grown replica, and then lets the husk that was you collapse. The pod people reassure that all those memories are intact, so you're not really dying... but they're amoral and emotionless! The complete opposite of humans! It's the Star Trek teleporter problem all over again, and doubly so because it's Leonard fucking Nimoy as a pod person who's feeding us this shit! It has the side benefit of ending all this petty hate and conflict that humanity can't help but engage with, but only because it is the literal end of humanity. The pod people aren't doing this because they know better than us or anything, either. They just want to survive and thrive, and this is how they do it; by killing us off and taking our place. It works, too. We don't even get to see quite how society begins to collapse. At first it's just a couple of weirdos acting inconspicuous, then shit starts to unravel more and more until there's mobs of shrieking doubles running through the streets to catch people. There's this entire organized conspiracy to get as many people as possible! Cabbies talking in fucking code on their radio. Two type-H passengers. HEY GUYS THERE'S HUMANS IN MY CAB! COME AND GET THEM AND FUCKING KILL THEM! SKREEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Yeah, that paranoia is spooky enough on its own, but then the movie adds its own viscera. It's used more sparingly than The Thing, but holy shit. The gross pod body in the sauna. The fucking growing scene in the garden that ends with Donald Sutherland caving his double's face in with a shovel. THE GODDAMN HALF-MAN HALF-DOG! HOLY SHIT! And you can never get away, not really. I think once the pods make their psychic link with you while you're asleep, it's permanent. Unless there's a pod in the grass at the end of the movie when Brooke Adams disintegrates. Speaking of, holy fuck what a scene. You watch her face CAVE IN and she fades away... and then a second later here's topless alien duplicate Brooke Adams popping up into frame and telling Donald Sutherland that it's painless and good and he should go to sleep, all in a monotone. Which, he does. Yep, that's the ending, he couldn't fight it and he's dead now and a pod person shuffling around doing pod person shit and SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE. So yes, bad ending achieved. Humanity is dead. Now what? What do the pod people do after they have everyone? Do they just chill? Do they let their little seeds spread? Leonard Nimoy as an alien seems to think that the pods have scattered to all sorts of planets and keep doing this, but then how the hell were they little pods on a lifeless rock at the beginning? There's probably an explanation but I don't know. This here's a good movie, even if the alien thing is weird at times and their motives amoral but also downright evil. At least they didn't do like the Nicole Kidman one and have humanity win. Yikes.