听 When they come as thrilling as Don Siegel's 1956 classic, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", it seems ludicrous to attempt a remake. Yet director Philip Kaufman did just that in 1978, and produced a film every bit as chilling.
WD Richter updates and relocates Jack Finney's original story to San Fransisco, where health inspector Donald Sutherland is the shoulder that colleague Brooke Adams cries on. Her boyfriend Art Hindle has suddenly become very emotionally detached from both her and the world around him. Sutherland enlists the help of his psychiatric buddy Leonard Nimoy, who is only too happy to try and explain the problem.
What he is less able to resolve is the bizarre spidery webs and pink flowers that have descended over the city, and people claiming that their partners and family have been have been replaced with soulless look-a-likes. He puts it down to a "hallucinatory flu going round", but Sutherland begins to suspect otherwise.
The signs are all there, courtesy of Kaufman, who weaves an increasingly sinister cityscape through prowling camerawork and a highly effective stereo score. Sutherland delivers a performance that conveys beautifully the terrifying realisation that he is one of a diminishing group yet to be overwhelmed by an alien force that bears the faces of the loved and trusted.
Remade again as "Body Snatchers" in 1993.
