Distributed by
Terror Vision/Warner Home Video

Cert: 15

Running time: 111 minutes

Year: 1978

Cat.no: S055134

Sound: Dolby Surround

Widescreen : 1.85:1

Price: £12.99

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Director:

Philip Kaufman (The Right Stuff, Henry and June, Rising Sun)

Producer:

Robert H. Solo

Screenplay:

W.D. Richter (based on Jack Finney's "The Body Snatchers")

Music

Danny Zeitlin

Cast:

Matthew Bennell: Donald Sutherland (Don't Look Now, Klute, Backdraft)
Elizabeth Driscoll: Brooke Adams (Lace, Gas Food Lodging)
Dr. David Kibner: Leonard Nimoy (Star Trek, The Simpsons)
Jack Bellicec: Jeff Goldblum (The Fly, Jurassic Park)
Nancy Bellicec: Veronica Cartright (Alien, The Right Stuff)

For those not in the know, this film is the remake of the 1956 Don Siegel classic and breaks the convention of most remakes, managing to be just as good as the original.

The story has been updated and is now set in San Francisco, with Donald Sutherland as a public health inspector, assisted by Brooke Adams. When the city becomes covered in spider's webs, Adams begins to notice changes in the behaviour of her boyfriend as he becomes seemingly distant.

This is happening all over the city, and while Sutherland doesn't want to believe what Adams is telling him, he soon comes round to her way of thinking.

Jeff Goldblum and Veronica Cartright play a couple of come across one of the blank pod bodies before Goldblum is affected.

Kevin McCarthy, who starred in the original version, makes a cameo role picking up exactly where he left off at the end of the original.

Picture quality is very good, and the surround sound adds to the ambience of the film in just the right moments.

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1996.