INVADERS FROM MARS (1953)

A little boy wakes up in the middle of the night and sees a spaceship landing on the other side of a hill in his backyard.  He frantically tells his dad who goes to investigate.  When his dad comes back he calmly says there wasn't any spaceship and then starts acting like an asshole.  The boy freaks out and runs all around the joint yelling and hollering until he finally gets the attention of a doctor and a scientist who help him investigate what's really going on behind his house.

I'd heard my great things about INVADERS FROM MARS over they years, but watching it now I can only assume that all of those people who said great things about this film actually saw it as a child when it first came out and it traumatized the shit out of them, cause this sucker bored the hell out of me.  I was shocked at how cheap it looked.  If this was the kind of film that was making money back in 1953 then I can see why Ed Wood, Jr. thought he could make movies!  I'd watched PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE a dozen times before I watched this clunker again.

Crap looking sets, stiff acting, boring pace, mountains upon mountains of stock footage of tanks driving around, silly looking aliens.  I would imagine kids today would claw their eyes out if they had to watch this.  Good as a historical curiosity only.

Remake 1 - Invaders from Mars (1986)

THE INVASION (2007)

Yet another reboot of the body snatcher story.  This time around the alien life form is a fungus that's brought to Earth on the space shuttle.  Nicole Kidman is a psychiatrist who keeps hearing people talk about relatives/friends who are acting strange and not being themselves.  At first Nicole dismisses it, but then when her ex-husband (Jeremy Northam) starts acting weird and barfing up nasty alien yack all over her face, she starts to see there's definitely something going on.  Turns out that once you're infected (like she is now) the spore can only take over once you fall asleep...kinda like Freddy Krueger.  So, this means that she has to stay awake long enough to save her son who has been kidnapped by the aliens because he is immune to the alien spore due to a childhood illness.  Whatever.

I liked THE INVASION alright.  The story veered away further from the original than the other two remakes, so that was interesting, and the acting was good.  Still though I can't ever see myself wanting to watch it again.  It took too long to get to the action and once it did, it was just your standard fare of cars crashing and people running around.  Also, the ending was weak as hell.  Worth a watch if it comes on TV, but I wouldn't go out of my way for it.  Although, Daniel Craig's Goo Goo Dolls haircut was pretty dope.

Honestly, after watching all four of the body snatchers films I don't think any of them did the idea justice.

Original - Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Remake 1 - Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
Reboot 1 - Body Snatchers (1993)

BODY SNATCHERS (1993)

Lifeless retelling of the body snatchers story.  This time around a young woman living with her family on a military base notices that the people around her are acting like lifeless drones.  Then one evening while taking a bath she discovers that aliens are trying to take over by replacing people with clones.  After that, she and her boyfriend run around all over the joint hiding and fighting aliens.  It's pretty boring and lightweight with a lame ending.

Very little action, two quick nude scenes, boring story, very little blood, zero gore, Dwayne from THE LOST BOYS.  According to Box Office Mojo this film made only $400 grand at the theater and I can see why.  Skip it.  Then again Roger Ebert seemed to love this movie and gave it four stars out of four!  So what the fuck do I know?

Original - Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Remake 1 - Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
Reboot 2 - The Invasion (2007)