Movies I Stayed Up Late For: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Long before Spectrum, the Saturday Night Movie, (or Friday, or Monday, depending on which one of the 3 networks were rolling a flick) was pretty much the sole source of movie consumption for me as a young budding cinephile. I can remember a specific Friday Night, at about the age of 9, when being babysat by my sister Laurie, (who spent most of the shift on the wall phone) watching the 1978 Philip Kaufman version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I curled up in a giant multi-shade green afghan my Mom had constructed for protection.  

Fam?  You all know the one.

I watched the whole thing mesmerized.  Once again, the concept of being "taken over" by "the other" was one that really had me creeped out as a kid.  I stayed up pretty late for this one, as with commercial interruption, it was pretty lengthy.

Hoping Donald Sutherland (and his afro), Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, and Veronica Cartwright would have an answer for the "pod people's" replication and replacement of the human race was all I had on my mind that evening.  I knew it was fiction, trust me, but the way my mind worked I still required the positive resolution.  Even in the cinematic arena.

    

To this day when discussing truly upsetting or disturbing faire cinematically, my wife likes to remind me:

"It's not real, Rob."  And I do know this.

But I still can fall prey to the darkest of content, and that's why I research the depths of modern horror films and avoid what I believe will stain my heart and soul to the best of my ability.  I just can't go to some corners of others' imaginations.

Anyway, that happy ending in Invasion? It wasn't there for me.  As evidenced by one of the most shocking and derailing moments of 70's cinema, and cinema in general that I had been subjected to at that point.  

And still have been really.

Donald Sutherland's point and screech, and Ms. Cartwrights defeated and agonized wailing. 

To soften that blow, I used the comedy I've written about in Looking For Laughs.  And the magic of Mad Magazine. 

Thanks, usual gang of idiots!