33 Years Ago, the Third Adaptation of a Sci-fi Classic Was Released (And It Included Major Changes to the Story)

John W. Campbell Jr.’s novella “Who Goes There?” has been adapted twice. The first time was a pretty straightforward monster movie called The Thing from Another World all the way back in 1951. The second time was John Carpenter’s genuinely perfect masterpiece, The Thing, in 1982. But even though it came out nearly 20 years after “Who Goes There?” Jack Finney’s “The Body Snatchers” has been adapted twice as many times. Both stories essentially cover the same topic, which is distrust in one’s own peers. They craft worlds where people can look like, well, people, but just beneath the fleshy surface there is something far different, and far more sinister. The first of these adaptations, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, came out one year after the novel, and it’s widely regarded as a classic. The second one shares its predecessor’s title, both in the literal sense and in terms of it being revered as a classic.

But Abel Ferrara’s (Bad Lieutenant) Body Snatchers, released in 1993, isn’t seen in nearly as glowing a light. And that’s odd because, unlike the later 2007 version, it’s quite excellent. Not to mention, it altered a significant factor that allowed it to feel almost entirely different from both the source material and the two earlier adaptations.

How Does Ferrara’s Body Snatchers Stand Apart From the Previous Two Films?

Even the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers is somewhat different from Finney’s novel. It retains the small-town vibe, the characters are pretty similar on the screen to their incarnations on the page, but the ending is less dour. Authorities end up believing Dr. Miles Bennell’s (Kevin McCarthy) frantic screams of an ongoing invasion. We get the gist that the onslaught of pod people will be relegated to Santa Mira, whereas the book ends with the invasion being successful.

The 1978 version then took the plot from a small town to a big city. It toyed with the concept of soullessness in a different way. In the first one, it would be obvious if you were a pod person because everyone in the small town is usually so chipper. And, while one might think it wouldn’t be so obvious in a big city, that’s not one hundred percent the case. In the city people are reserved, sure, but they’re also often angry. If you’re a pod person, you’re as likely to get angry as you are to wave at your small-town neighbor with a smile.

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Really, the one place where it’s normal to show zero emotion is a military base. There, if you’re showing too much emotion, you’re not really doing your job as well as you should be. There’s a code, and a somewhat unspoken part of that code is when you’re awake, be serious. Full stop.

This is something Ferrara saw and brilliantly exploits in Body Snatchers. We never are fully sure who is a pod person when. There are only two exceptions, a father character and a friend character, and by the time they’ve been taken over they’re both in a place where they’re aware something is amiss. They could very well be faking a blank stern disposition. It just so happens they aren’t.

But outside the perfect shift in locale (which makes the film feel the most claustrophobic of the four adaptations thus far), Body Snatchers shakes one more aspect up: the protagonist. In the 1956 movie it was a doctor and in the 1979 version it was a health inspector, but they had one thing in common, and that’s the fact that they were adults. In Ferrara’s movie we’re seeing the invasion through the eyes of a teenager, played by Scent of a Woman‘s Gabrielle Anwar. We feel she’s more at risk because she has yet to fully grow up. She’s not a seasoned doctor or health inspector; she’s really just a kid developing her personality. That, too, helps the film feel as though it’s higher stakes.

In the end, Body Snatchers isn’t quite as solid as the phenomenal 1978 remake, but it does a wonderful job of standing on its own. There’s an argument to be made that this is the creepiest of the four movies, even if its characters aren’t as well drawn as those in the two movies that preceded it.

You can stream both Body Snatchers and the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers for free with ads on Tubi.