October 19th: BODY SNATCHERS (Abel Ferrara, 1993)

A young girl discovers that the army base her family has just moved to may be infiltrated by aliens taking over human bodies.



Body Snatchers is the third of four adaptations of Jack Finney's novel The Body Snatchers. Filmed first in 1956 by Don Siegel, and again in 1978 by Philip Kaufman in the New Age atmosphere of San Francisco, this version's significant change is to move the action to a military setting, where conformity and uniformity are the norm, thus making the aliens more difficult to detect.



Abel Ferrara is a New York City-born filmmaker, who while specializing mostly in genre films, has become known for a fierce independent spirit (having worked mostly outside the studio system) with a reputation for brutal realism. He has worked on multiple occasions with various talented actors such as Christopher Walken, Harvey Keitel, Willem Dafoe, Dennis Hopper, and Asia Argento.



Body Snatchers stars French actress Gabrielle Anwar, Forest Whitaker, Meg Tilly, and R. Lee Ermey (best known for his iconic role in Full Metal Jacket). It was filmed on location in Alabama.



Dumped with little fanfare by the studio that distributed the film, Body Snatchers failed to find much of an audience or financial return. While critical reception was mixed, Roger Ebert proclaimed it to be better than either previous version of the story in his four-star review.



Running time is approx. 90 minutes.