Body Snatchers (1993)

Body Snatchers (1993) is a horror thriller and science fiction movie directed by Abel Ferrara, starring Gabrille Anwar as the protagonist and teenage girl Marti Malone, Terry Kinney as the family father Steve Malone and Billy Wirth as the helicopter pilot Tim Young. This movie can be seen as a remake of former The Body Snatchers adaptations and remakes, such ones as Invasion of the Body Snatchers from 1956 and 1978, even though there is a high degree of deviation concerning story and discourse for instance.

Narrative

Story: - setting: an isolated military base - main chracters: teenage girl Marti, her father Steve (a chemist), her stepmother Carol, little stepbrother Andy, helicopter pilot Tim (---> love interest Marti), daughter of General Jenn (---> friend of Marti) - events: see theme - conflicts: great variety of conflicts due to bigger number of characters and different character constellations: Marti <--> father, mother; Marti <--> Jenn (Tim); father <--> Tim - expert in the first movies was a psychiatrist --> now emphasis on Chemistry

focus:


 * intitutionalized uniformity, growing up, identity, coming of age

Discourse: - voice-over narration at the beginning and towards the end by main character --> implied narrative frame -`demon´ voice-over at the end --> subverts implied narrative frame - no actual frame, just implied narrative frame (see above) - no clear ending, we can not be sure whether they will survive or not (acoustic ending adds ambivalence) - Marti and Tim survive (at least until they land for we do not know what happens afterwards)

Medium

- colour film - a lot of night- time shots towards the end

Genre

- horror thriller - science- fiction - coming of age- film

Theme

-´plant- ceature- feaure´ alien invasion, replacement of humans by aliens without emotions - ´coming of age´ growing up of a teenage- girl, dealing with teenage related problems (see conflicts above)

Source 

-based on the novel The Bodysnatchers (1955) by Jack Finney - the previous films even though here is no very close resemblance

Cultural Context

- War in the Middle East - end of the Cold War - USA is the last ´super power´ left --> ´world police´ - military- industrial complex already an issue

Film Technology

- improved film formats - special effects

Possible Interpretations

- the issues of growng up are put into focus --> military reassembles the restrictive, uninformative institution (school); the isolated position of the military base emphasises the teenag feeling of being out of place ( --> where do I belong? rbellion, insecurity) - movie could be read as apolitical and ahistorical because the film is set in a very isolated setting (--> no contact to the ´real´ outer world) and the military setting suggests that there is no resemblance to every day live

BUT:

- it could also be interpreted the other way around --> the military could be seen as a symbol for institutionalized uniformity, as a stand- in for a suppressing institution. Therfore the film could be seen as a critique on the increasing power of the military and the whole military- inustrial complex and its influence on people´s lives.. The military should be there to protect people but in the movie it does the complete opposite.