Critics reviews

In my opinion, the scariest American movie of the 1970s (a decade that offers plenty of competition) and one that inverts the idea of the scream from an involuntary expression of terror to its cold, calculating source.

It wasn't just verbally knowing: Its wit extended into the compositional elements, symmetries of plot and production design, even the delectably macabre sound track. It's a nightmare of hip gnosis bridging the pulp allegory of Don Siegel's 1956 original with the icy domestic touch of Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman (1975)—that's what gives its estrangement such a specific satiric jolt, but also enhances the utterly mundane, methodical, step-by-step terror of the Pod takeover.

Throughout this version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, one of the subtlest and most extraordinarily fluid of American horror films, Kaufman crafts textured scenes, rich in emotional and object-centric tactility, that cause our heads to casually spin with expectation and dread.

More homage than remake, Kaufman's Invasion converts the 1956 original's black-and-white film stock into a foggy, bleak color scheme, where even blood seems a colorful respite. Once a hub for peace and love, this San Fran is abrasive and narcissistic, as evidenced by the "self-help" treatments conducted by Leonard Nimoy's Dr. Kibner.

Philip Kaufman made his own film about social, political, and sexual identity in his brilliant remake of Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Transplanted from the American suburbs to the supposedly liberal mecca of San Francisco, Kaufman's perfectly mounted horror film gets at the existential terror of losing one's self better than any other.