Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) on Netflix
Elizabeth Driscoll brings home a flower and her boyfriend Geoffrey turns cold. Her colleague Matthew Bennell hears of others changing the same way, and a mud bath spa yields a duplicate body.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.4/1083,342 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes92%
Trailer
Plot summary
An alien race abandons its dying planet and crosses space to Earth, where its spores take the form of pods bearing fragrant pink flowers. In San Francisco, health department laboratory scientist Elizabeth Driscoll brings one of the flowers home. The next morning her boyfriend, Dr. Geoffrey Howell, is cold and distant, and she tells her colleague Matthew Bennell that he seems like an impostor who meets strangers in secret. Matthew sends her to his friend, the psychiatrist David Kibner, who at a book event insists she is simply avoiding commitment, as does a woman who says her husband has changed. Matthew's friend Jack Bellicec, who runs a mud bath spa with his wife Nancy, calls him after finding a body forming in one of the baths.
Cast
- David Fisheras Mr. Gianni
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
Sound editor Ben Burtt, fresh off creating signature sounds for Star Wars, built the pod people's high-pitched shriek out of several elements, including a pig's squeal, and scored the city's grinding garbage trucks so they gradually sound horrific once it becomes clear they are hauling away the discarded husks of replaced humans.- Every special effect in the film was created live for the camera; for the opening shot of alien spores drifting through space, director Philip Kaufman simply bought about $12 worth of viscous material from an art store, dropped it into solutions, and filmed the result in reverse.
- While filming Kevin McCarthy's cameo in San Francisco's Tenderloin district, a naked man asleep on the street woke up, recognized McCarthy, and, on learning they were remaking the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, told him the first film was better, prompting Kaufman to joke they'd gotten their first review mid-shoot.
SPOILER
Kaufman devised the film's now-famous final scare and kept it secret from almost everyone on the production, telling only the screenwriter and producer; star Donald Sutherland learned of it just the night before shooting, and studio executives only found out when they watched a finished cut at George Lucas's house.
