Body Snatchers (1993)

Plot Outline: Alien pods are gradually duplicating and then replacing humans inside a military base. When a family moves to the base, they notice the weird goings on but assume it's some chemical contamination. How wrong they could be!

The Review: The second remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, is more or less the same as the others and doesn't do anything new at all. The first remake was an immense barrage of eeriness and genuine terror and paranoia. But once you've seen that or the original, then this third attempt doesn't really hold the same punch as it should. There are only a handful of eerie or scary moments in this one, such as when the little boy is in the nursery class and all of the other children draw exactly the same picture. But unlike the other two, this runs out of fresh ideas quickly and we are bombarded with some terrible dialogue, some boring scenes and a load of clichéd characters such as the rebellious teenager, the anxious dad eager to keep the family together and the new love of his life whom the teenager refuses to accept as her new mom. The main problem lies in the fact that most of the people who are duplicated are total strangers so you don't care about them, unlike the characters who get assimilated in the other two films. We got to know the characters and then when they were replaced, we were shocked and a bit excited. Who cares if the guard who stands patrol at the main gate gets duplicated when he is only on screen for about 3 minutes at most? That's the problem here. Cutie Gabrielle Anwar makes for an appealing lead as the rebellious teenager and there's also good support from Meg Tilly, who adds quite a sinister twist to the new mum. And the final voiceover of "they'll get you when you sleep, and you can only stay awake so long" is a chillingly effective send-off which leaves the viewer pondering their own safety at night.

Final Verdict: If I were you, I'd skip this remake and go and watch The Faculty, which is a more modern version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It may have more annoying teenagers but at least it's got twists and turns in it that you don't expect.

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