The Thing & Every Body Snatchers Movie Ranked (According to IMDb)

The Thing & Every Body Snatchers Movie, Ranked (According to IMDb)

The body snatcher movie has seen a lot of changes over the years, but the fear of the other is a constant. Here’s how body snatching fares on IMDb.

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Body snatching is a subgenre in sci-fi and centers around aliens being able to somehow manipulate humans, whether it’s through controlling their brains, mimicking their appearance to others, or even replicating them with alien avatars. Arguably exploding in popularity thanks to Cold War-era paranoia before evolving to reflect social anxieties of their respective decade, the body snatcher film has always changed but the fears remain the same.

The genre has its origins from three main books. The first was the 1938 novella, Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell, Jr. A few decades later came Robert Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters in 1951, and Jack Finney’s The Body Snatchers in 1954. Here are all the film adaptations of these books, ranked.

9 Invasion of the Pod People (2007) – 2.7

In the book The Body Snatchers, a strange plant species from outer space makes its way to Earth and begins replacing humans with emotionless replicas called “pod people.”

The low-budget mockbuster company The Asylum (the people who brought you Sharknado, among many other Z-grade hits) decided to add their signature low budget touch to this classic tale to coincide with a bigger budgeted adaptation (more on that in a bit). Invasion of the Pod People caused critics everywhere to promptly call it the worst adaption the series has had to date.

8 The Invasion (2007) – 5.9

2007 saw another adaption of The Body Snatchers with the film The Invasion, which is what Invasion of the Pod People was ripping off. This time, the plot took place in Washington DC, which added a unique and modern twist to the story. Much more was at stake in this film, seeing as politicians and diplomats were the ones being targeted by the alien threat.

Despite this admittedly interesting take and the fact that the movie had big names like Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, The Invasion failed to recapture the spirit of the original and ultimately failed at the box office.

7 The Puppet Masters (1994) – 5.9

To date, The Puppet Masters is the only direct adaption of Heinlein’s book of the same name. In his version of the body snatchers nightmare, the aliens are large slug-like creatures that attach themselves to the backs of humans in order to control their every move. Critics and audiences were disappointed with the film, declaring it to be largely uneventful, boring, and stale. Variety even stated, “Only the most undiscriminating monster-pic buff will come away satisfied.”

The movie was a box-office bomb, earning only $8.6 million in ticket sales. For the curious, the same basic idea was better realized in James Gunn’s schlocky Slither.

6 Body Snatchers (1993) – 6.0

The ’90s was filled to the brim with body-snatching films. 1993 saw the third direct adaptation of The Body Snatchers book, this time taking place in the ’90s on an army base. What makes Body Snatchers unique is that the protagonist, a teenage girl who already feels alienated in her hometown, is a major change for the story it’s based on.

Body Snatchers had quite a strange ride through Hollywood. The movie premiered at Cannes to rave reviews, with Roger Ebert even giving the movie a solid 4/4 stars. However, mainstream American audiences weren’t so thrilled. Body Snatchers ended up receiving a very limited theatrical release and only grossed $429,000 at the box office. Afterwards, it went on to perform quite well at video rental stores and has since become a cult hit.

5 The Thing (2011) – 6.2

In 2011, a remake/prequel of the 80s classic The Thing was released, which itself was based on the novella, Who Goes There? Here, a deadly alien is able to impersonate people by absorbing them. As a prequel, The Thing focuses on the Norwegian Artic research station that McCready and company find devastated and in ashes in the original movie.

While the remake was praised for its body horror, it was also panned for its terribly obvious digital effects and its focus on excessively graphic and disturbing visuals over the cast’s paranoia. This ruined the film’s credibility to stand as a prequel.

4 The Faculty (1998) – 6.5

The Faculty was Robert Rodriguez’s ode to body-snatching films and mixed the storylines from all three books together. It focuses on parasitic aliens who burrow into the brain’s of humans to control them (i.e. from Puppet Masters) but also features the mass frenzy and changed zombie-like personalities from Body Snatchers. The film even uses many ideas from The Thing, such as the giant alien and recreating the scene of “testing” who is infected.

Throughout the movie, many mentions to the original books are made as a nod to their lasting impact on the world of sci-fi and horror. The Faculty has since gone down as a fan-favorite and is a pinnacle example of the ’90s-era rebirth of horror.

3 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) – 7.4

The 1978 incarnation of The Body Snatchers is the book’s most famous film to date. It had an all-star cast including Donald Sutherland, Veronica Cartwright, Leonard Nimoy, and Jeff Goldblum. The movie premiered shortly after the Jonestown Massacre, so the idea of brainwashed “pod people” was very much at the forefront of American thought.

The film became a box office success and has had an enduring legacy as one of the best sci-fi films ever. The now-infamous “scream scene” has also been memed and GIF’d and is now part of the cultural zeitgeist.

2 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) – 7.7

In 1956, just two years after The Body Snatchers was released in bookstores, the first film adaptation was released. It was the first body snatching film ever and it revolutionized sci-fi. The film also introduced new concepts and themes to the genre like paranoia and distrust of others, helping shift sci-fi from being solely about physical struggles and adding new layers of tension and fear.

More importantly, the first Invasion of the Body Snatchers came out during the time of McCarthyism and an era of mass conformity in post-WWII America, giving the plotline of forced conformity and a fear of both the other and neighbor an extra sense of realism and urgency.

1 The Thing (1982) – 8.1

Most people remember John Carpenter for two main films. The first is the original Halloween, the second was his 1982 classic, The Thing, the first true adaption of Who Goes There? While there was The Thing From Another World from 1951, which was loosely based on the story, the lack of special effects at the time hindered that film’s ability to portray an alien shapeshifting and taking over bodies. Instead, the original movie feature a humanlike alien killing people one by one, similar to a modern-day slasher film.

In Carpenter’s version, all the horror and macabre of an alien species desperate to stay alive comes to fruition. The movies used excellent practical effects, lots of ooze and guts, and an overbearing sense of paranoia, as the crew of the Antarctic base scrambles to uncover who is, and who isn’t, infected by the alien.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/body-snatchers-movie-the-thing-ranked-imdb/

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