Body Snatchers
Our 12 year old brains are just loving this one!
**SPOILER ALERT** SPOILER ALERT** SPOILER ALERT** SPOILER ALERT**
We recently watched the 1993 Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake called just Body Snatchers (which gives me an excuse to see how many times I can write the word snatch in 1 post) directed by Abel Ferrera (I don't know who he is either). And just to forewarn you, I will be ruining the ending of this movie. The ending is just too bizarre/surprising/awful for me not to discuss. We try really hard to not ruin the end of movies for you (unlike that guy at Blockbuster who ruined Beneath the Planet of the Apes for me. How can you work at a video rental store and tell the customer the ending of the movie they are renting? What was wrong with that guy?) but in this case, it is unavoidable. So, I am officially warning you, this is your "spoiler alert", but I really don't think that I am ruining anything major. This isn't exactly an award winning movie. That being out of the way, on with the show....
This horror masterpiece (yeah right) started out a little strange for me. We were watching the opening credits, and the movie title came onto the screen, in normal beginning of the movie fashion. But this time it was printed a little odd. The movie title Body Snatchers appears, the letters are in all caps and it seems like the "C" in "Snatchers" is snatching the "H". What is that all about?
It it the only letter like that in the entire credits and I really don't get what the point of it is. It made me ask Tom, "What is with the little H?" His thought was that they wanted us to think of Cher's Oscar winning snatch throughout the movie (do you see it?). I think that is a good possibility. I know that is what we were both fixated on during the opening. Tom couldn't get the If I Could Turn Back Time video out of his head, and just in case you have forgotten it (although I don't know how you could) here is a snatchy reminder:
Anyway, enough about H snatching and Cher's scantily clad snatch. (Have I said snatch enough times for you yet? I hope your minds are as juvenile as mine because I am going to beat that joke to death and giggle each time I type it.)
Body Snatchers focuses on a family of 4 that spend their summer vacation near a military base. The Father is some kind of scientist and is doing research there. Oh, and he is played by the poor man's Nicholas Cage, Terry Kenney (although since he has gone bald gracefully, maybe Nicholas Cage really is the poor man's Terry Kenney. Kenney looks so much like Nicholas Cage in Body Snatchers, between the thinning shaggy hair and the skinny metal framed glasses and he is a lot less over the top then Cage.) If Nicholas Cage really was in Snatchers it would have been a very different movie. I wonder if they offered the role to Cage and he turned it down?
The Mom is played by Jennifer Tilly's less annoying sister (she is the mom of the little boy and the step mom of the teenage girl which creates some slightly irritating tension within the family). You may not know this, but Sister Tilly is also the girl from Psycho 2 who tries to trick Norman Bates into thinking that he has lost his mind, again. (Just a little side note, if you haven't seen any of the Psycho sequels you really should. They are actually very entertaining and surprisingly good horror flicks, even considering that the original is such a classic. So snatch yourself a copy and check them out. They really are worth your time.) The 2 kids in the family are, as I briefly mentioned before, a typically angry teenage daughter who tries to shut out the world by putting on her Walkman and a little brother who from here on out will only be known as "the kid who may or may not be Haley Joel Osment" who is put into daycare once they get to their military base vacation (Who goes on a trip with the kids and puts the youngest in day care? Isn't the point of a family vacation to spend quality time together?).
In case you are wondering how much this kid really looks like Haley Joel Osment, here is a comparison:
Don't they look snatchingly similar? (I had to sneak that snatch in, it has been a while, although the juxtaposition of those dirty words and the little boys' faces does kinda creep me out a little. They shouldn't be anywhere near each other. Sorry about that.)
So anyway (jeez, I like to ramble, don't I?), the kid who may or may be Haley Joel Osment is sent to daycare on their family vacation, and while in daycare, the kids enjoy some finger painting. When all the kids are done, they hold up their pictures for the teacher to see. The camera pans around the room showing that all the kids made the same red and black tentacle finger paintings. The kid who may or may not be Haley Joel Osment notices that his is the only painting that's different. (I thought that his was a lot scarier then the others, with its black hole center and radiating red streaks. It was real scary.) This is when the audience, and Haley Joel realize that all of the children have been body snatched! Haley Joel then runs out of the school and into the rescuing arms of our hero who brings him home safely (and oh boy, what a hero he is). This beefy, brave army guy, who I will be referring to as "Joe Handsome" hangs around long enough to become the sister's boyfriend (of course he does). His acting is so bad, it's no wonder why you haven't seen him in anything else (to our surprise, he was also in in The Lost Boys. Who would have thought? He really is terrible though. He even managed to slip in a "how you doin?" I wasn't kidding about his awful acting.). I was made a little uneasy by watching Joe Handsome make out with the much younger 16 year old girl. He's got to be pushing 30. Does anyone else see anything wrong with that? I guess it is only a bad movie, and it was needed to further the plot, so I should just let it go. (But really, I am not opposed to age differences in relationships, just maybe wait until you are out of high school before you start dating someone that is close to 30. It just seems skeevy to me. Can you imagine going to the prom when you are 30? You would be the creepy old guy at the high school dance.)
So anyway (jeez, I like to ramble, don't I?), the kid who may or may be Haley Joel Osment is sent to daycare on their family vacation, and while in daycare, the kids enjoy some finger painting. When all the kids are done, they hold up their pictures for the teacher to see. The camera pans around the room showing that all the kids made the same red and black tentacle finger paintings. The kid who may or may not be Haley Joel Osment notices that his is the only painting that's different. (I thought that his was a lot scarier then the others, with its black hole center and radiating red streaks. It was real scary.) This is when the audience, and Haley Joel realize that all of the children have been body snatched! Haley Joel then runs out of the school and into the rescuing arms of our hero who brings him home safely (and oh boy, what a hero he is). This beefy, brave army guy, who I will be referring to as "Joe Handsome" hangs around long enough to become the sister's boyfriend (of course he does). His acting is so bad, it's no wonder why you haven't seen him in anything else (to our surprise, he was also in in The Lost Boys. Who would have thought? He really is terrible though. He even managed to slip in a "how you doin?" I wasn't kidding about his awful acting.). I was made a little uneasy by watching Joe Handsome make out with the much younger 16 year old girl. He's got to be pushing 30. Does anyone else see anything wrong with that? I guess it is only a bad movie, and it was needed to further the plot, so I should just let it go. (But really, I am not opposed to age differences in relationships, just maybe wait until you are out of high school before you start dating someone that is close to 30. It just seems skeevy to me. Can you imagine going to the prom when you are 30? You would be the creepy old guy at the high school dance.)
When the main characters start to figure out that something strange is going on, you know, with the whole body snatching thing and all, the movie starts to get a little more exciting. Jennifer Tilly's sister gets abducted snatched and emerges nude from the bedroom closet (I am pretty sure it is a body double though, because they never show her face and body in the same shot. Sister Tilly is too good to show her boobs in a movie? Give me a break.). We also get to see bunch of military guys spilling toxic barrels in a warehouse (insert apocalyptic scenario here... I never said the movie was original). So many horror movies start that way. Return of the Living Dead is a great example that proves our theory about snatching toxic chemicals from the government and accidentally spilling them in warehouses. They're on a collision course with wackiness. (MST3K anyone?).
This is an alien movie, and I just realized that I haven't really given you that much info on them yet (except that they are body snatching aliens of course). They start out in a form that looks a lot like rice noodles and while you are sleeping (don't go to sleep is the movie's catch phrase) they wiggle all over your face and try to snatch your body! Once you have been taken over, they hatch a calm emotionless alien from inside of you. This is what happens to Sister Tilly right before her body double's nude scene. The teenage sister knows that there is something strange going on but still manages to fall asleep in a bubble bath. When she dozes off, the rice noodle aliens try to possess her by worming their way up her nose. What I want to know is why the girl in always takes a bubble bath in horror movies? And why do they always fall asleep? It is so uncomfortable to sleep with your head on the side of a bathtub, and how can you possibly relax when there are monsters out to get you?
The scariest scene in Body Snatchers is not during an abduction however; for me it has got to be the scene when Sister Tilly gives Fake Cage a massage. There are all of these extreme close ups of her hands rubbing his back and his skin is all oiled up. It is really disturbing. I also really liked this other scene toward the end of the movie where the aliens decide to have an intervention for Joe Handsome (or maybe they were really trying to snatch his body, but I like the intervention idea better). They surround them in his room to confront him about his New Kids on the Block hair. It really is what any good friend would do if you did you hair like Jordan Knight. Oh oh oh oh oh, the right stuff...
Did I forget to mention that Forest Whitaker is in the movie too? Maybe I should have told you about his cameo earlier, or maybe I was saving the best part of the movie for last. He really is one of the best things about Body Snatchers and the most talented person in the cast. It is really unfortunate that he gets the smallest amount of screen time. He is only in 2 short scenes, where they introduce his character, and when they kill snatch him (I warned you I would be giving things away).
Despite the fact that Forest Whitaker is the best actor in the movie, my favorite part isn't one of his scenes. The best part of this movie is definitely when we get to watch Joe Handsome figure out how to fool the stupid aliens so he can escape. He uses the Shaun of the Dead method and pretends to be one of them. He just walks through the crowd pretending to have no emotions and somehow manages to not get noticed! He really is an awful actor, I don't believe him as a military guy, so I have no idea how he fooled the aliens, they must be pretty dumb to let him sneak through.
Joe Handsome's brilliant escape leads us into the ending of the movie that I just can't ignore. While pretending to be a body snatching alien, he manages to rescue Haley Joel and the teenage sister. He steals a helicopter from the army base and flies the three of them away from danger. While they are in the air above the army base, Haley Joel snaps and tries to strangle his sister. Apparently he was body snatched at some point off camera, i really didn't see that coming. The sister fights back and ends up throwing Haley Joel out of the helicopter. She throws a 5 year old out of a helicopter! How can they do that? After the horrifying scene featuring a small child falling to his death, the camera pans out to a view of the military base with the helicopter hovering over it. The next thing you know, Joe Handsome and Teenage Sister start shooting at the base and end up blowing everything up; buildings, people, everything! Once everything in sight is on fire, they fade back to inside of the helicopter and focus on the girls somber face, as her monologue begins. She reminisces about what she did on her summer vacation while she flies away in her boyfriend's helicopter. What do they think this is, Rambo II? This was not the ending I was expecting.
So to sum up, Body Snatchers is an awful movie that has such bad acting that it is laughable. It isn't unwatchable, it is even a little entertaining, but despite the good parts (Forest Whitaker, Fake Cage, big hair, aliens, explosions) the bad parts take over. It is worth watching if you are looking for a no brainer with goofy acting. We officially give Body Snatchers a 3 out of 10.
Have you watched any movies lately that star any look alikes similar to Fake Cage, Joe Handsome (AKA Jordan Knight) or the kid who may or may not be Haley Joel Osment?
