The takeover was already underway


When Elizabeth picked a flower from the park, a schoolteacher gave her a menacing stare. Was this an early indication the invasion was already happening?

I'm assuming this scene is a day after the pods arrived, and not the same afternoon of the storm we see in the opening. I just love how this scene with the teacher and strange preist sets the tone for the entire film.

reply

I believe the teacher, the priest and the first running man. Not the later cameo by Kevin McCarthy, this man has a beard and is running at full speed across the street in an early scene. Yea, maybe he's late for an appointment, but the panicked looks he gives to those around him and up at the sky are very telling... and very creepy.






"It takes balls to go out in public dressed the way I do".

reply

this man has a beard and is running at full speed across the street in an early scene. Yea, maybe he's late for an appointment, but the panicked looks he gives to those around him and up at the sky are very telling... and very creepy.


If you watch that scene again you can actually faintly hear a pod person scream. Guess that man saw something he shouldn't have. All these subtle touches make this fantastic film worth revisiting many times over.

reply

That's amazing! I wasn't sure whether to believe you, but it's actually very clear when you're listening for it. Such a great hint for what's to come.

reply

While the movie is largely regarded as a remake, I tend to see it as a quasi-sequel in which the events take place immediately following the events of the original. Kevin McCarthy's character is my main reasoning for this, and although he's not credited as his character from the original (and is obviously older), I believe it was intended to be the same character.

reply

You are wrong, its JUST the same actor. Remakes like to give actors from earlier versions an appearance as a nod to earlier works. The original story takes place more than 2 decades earlier and the pods spread too fast for it to be a sequel PLUS he was SUCCESSFUL in alerting the military and the world of the movie would have been very different with the whole world knowing of the invasion.

He was just some guy who saw a pod developing or something and freaked out. Too bad he got hit by that car since he might have become an ally of the main characters. I wonder if that was an accident or if a pod person driving a car decided he was too much of a liability and decided to kill him? We will never know....

None of the Body Snatcher movies are sequels of each other or take place in the same fictional universe, they are all REMAKES, all four of them (I hope we get a fifth someday, I see this as a series but remakes instead of sequels).

reply

Yeah, well, you know that's just, like, your opinion, man.

reply

Chill out dude.

~ That's much too vulgar a display of power, Karras.

reply

I have always taken the Kevin McCarthy bit as the same character - granted, through some time warp. It's like he kept running from Santa Rosa, screaming the same thing, and wound in San Francisco.

reply

This is one of the dumbest posts ever written. Possible trolling.

reply

Definitely. Not only her glare at Elizabeth, but she's telling the kids to all pick the flowers & take them home to their parents!

Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole

reply

That park scene had a lot of subtle tension in it. I think that the priest on the swing gives the most sense of unease. Good creepy shot.

reply

[deleted]

it was definitely already going-on

first dude running away already knew it, and you can hear the screech

reply

I think the movie would've been even better if the priest played a bigger part in the takeover. Robert Duvall is a great actor u know!

reply

agree it would've been kinda cool

reply

Yes. And I believe the takeover has already started in the original, when the doctor is told about someone who isn't 'being themselves.'

reply