Phillip Kaufman‘s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (’78), a new Bluray of which came out yesterday, didn’t work at all as a metaphor for what was happening in the culture 32 years ago, and therefore didn’t seem like quite the right thing. Creeping conformity wasn’t an issue for anyone I knew in the late ’70s, or at least not on the level that applied when Don Siegel‘s original came out in 1956.
Which is why, for me, the Siegel still resonates. The Kaufman version is an eerie, well made, grippingly acted thriller — it’s a higher-grade thing than the Siegel — but if Martian invaders were to take over the world and issue an edict stating that no one will ever be permitted to watch it ever again, I wouldn’t be happy — but I wouldn’t be devastated either.
