Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

I am a true blue fan of pod people. I wouldn't want to become one of them, but I love watching their cinematic exploits! From the terrific Jack Finney novel through the next run of remakes and rip-offs, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers has been ripe material to revisit (except The Invasion, I hated that one). Whether it's Philip Kaufman’s 1978 version, Abel Ferrara’s 1993 Body Snatchers, or Robert Heinline’s cousin novel and film, The Puppet Masters, each cinematic version offers a uniquely interesting and thematically appropriate offering of this tale of paranoia. But if I’m going to pin one as best of the best, I do have to tip my hat to Don Siegel’s 1956 original. As my feelings haven’t changed in the 35+ years since I saw it as a kid, let alone the six years since Olive film’s 2018 Blu-ray, I’ll let my previous review stand.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Olive Signature 2018 Blu-ray 

"Love, desire, ambition, faith - without them life is so simple, believe me."
"I don't want any part of it."
"You're forgetting something, Miles."
"What's that?"
"You have no choice."

In the sleepy town of Santa Mira, everything seemed normal. And then it didn't. Doctor Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) is urgently called home from an important medical conference expecting an office full of patients. Only no one is there waiting for him - everyone is better. Much better now. Things are fine for Miles as well when his old sweetheart Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter) moves back to town and the two rekindle an old flame. Everything changes when local pulp writer Jack Belicec (King Donovan) and his wife Teddy (Carolyn Jones) discover a body. A body without form, fingerprints, or features but is curiously the same size and shape of Jack. Together they learn a silent invasion has already begun and it may be too late to stop. 

Unlike most kids of my generation, I actually saw this original 1956 adaptation of Jack Finney's novel long before I saw the 1978 remake, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I remember sitting in the living room in front of our old big-for-its-time tube T.V. kinda-sorta paying attention to this movie and being bored out of my little brain. And then I wasn't bored. Pacing and timing have long been the strengths of Don Siegel's films, the man instinctively knew when and where to go from 0 to 60. When I was a kid it was right about the time that body appears on Jack Belicec's table. Over the next few minutes, I gradually moved from the floor up onto the couch wide-eyed as the suspense and terror built and this seemingly innocuous black-and-white movie became anything but boring. 

Invasion of the Body Snatchers has been a personal favorite of mine for going on thirty years. Ever since that first viewing when I was a little kid that idea of someone you thought you knew and loved could one day become the monster is a terrifying idea. As I grew up I devoured the various remakes and hunted down an old collected copy of Jack Finney's source material and it struck me how timeless this story can be. Every generation can enjoy their own version of Body Snatchers with the film adaptations being loosely adjusted to fit the societal fears of the time. 

The brilliant part of Siegel's original is that its politics are vague. Depending on your own personal leanings it can be argued as being anti-communist or anti-conformity. It can be both depending on who's watching. By keeping the story focused on the creepy events of the plot and letting some terrific performances from Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter percolate, the film is allowed to be suspenseful as all get out without getting bogged down in politics. You get to add that yourself to enrich the experience for your own sake rather than have it force-fed. 

This is one of the few movies out there that I haven't minded the remakes. In fact, I love them in their own unique ways. Well, save for the awful soulless 2007 film I struggle to forget. As much as I love each of them, I always return to the 1956 original. Don Siegel was a master craftsman of suspense and knew how to slowly ratchet up the terror. Invasion of the Body Snatchers takes its time. It knows when to give it a little gas, but it also smartly knows when to tap the breaks and let the deep and creepy ideas worm into your brain. Like the best horror/sci-fi hybrids, it makes you afraid to go to sleep lest you wake up one of them! 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 
Bursting out their pods, Kino Lorber Studio Classics delivers Invasion of the Body Snatchers to 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray in a two-disc 4K UHD + Blu-ray set. Both discs offer the film in 2.00:1 or 1.85:1. The 4K UHD is a BD-100 with a Region A BD-50 standing in for bonus features and the 1080p versions. The discs are housed in a standard black two-disc case with identical slipcover art. The insert art is reversible revealing alternate poster art. Each disc loads to a static image main menu with standard navigation options. 

Note: All screenshots are sourced from the new 1080p 2.00:1 transfer. We haven't been able to rip the 4K disc for images or a video sample. As soon as possible we'll circle back and try to update accordingly and give some more aspect ratio comparisons. 

Here we are, Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1956 on 4K at long last. This film has always had a troubled history on disc and that’s largely because (as I understand it) the negative no longer exists. What we’ve got are the best available 35mm elements and overall this is a welcome improvement. Perhaps not night and day, not pristine, but incrementally this film looks better and better with each disc release. It’s still very rough around the edges. There are a lot of optical transitions and those long talky takes last a while before that fade kicks in. As such, detail and clarity can come and go one shot to the next. One moment it can look terrific, the next it can slip back to a soft, sometimes crunchy look with very thick noisy grain. My understanding is this is because the film’s release 2.00:1 “Superscope” aspect ratio was an afterthought and the film was originally shot and intended for 1.33:1. 

In the plus column, I would say the most immediate improvement from Olive’s 2018 Signature Collection disc to this KLSC 4K is tighter cleaner lines nd film grain. Those opening credits look much shaper and film grain has a more natural texture. A little gauzy in places, but healthier and more cinematic than previous discs. That carries into the opening scenes of the film too. Previous discs could see a weird “halo” of frozen grain around the bald doctor played by Richard Deacon and Kevin McCarthy when they first meet. That no longer appears on either this 4K disc or the new 1080p Blu-ray. As such clarity does see some welcome improvements. Dolby Vision HDR is nicely applied giving an even better balance to the bright whites, the overall contrast, and aids those encroaching deep dark shadows in the latter half of the film. The grayscale is much better managed this round allowing for nice whites, deep blacks, and appreciable shades between.

This release also offers up both the 2.00:1 and 1.85:1 aspect ratios (it was originally screened both ways apparently) on each disc. My call is that 2.00:1 is the better presentation. The 1.85:1 is nicely framed but the extra zooming and cropping felt like it only highlighted some of the baked-in defects resulting in a slightly softer appearance. It’s still good, and I’d argue still better than the older Blu-ray discs, but my feel is the 2160p HDR 2.00:1 is the best we’re going to get. Bitrates are overall healthy, but I’d be curious to have seen what this looked like with just the 2.00:1 aspect ratio over including both on the same disc. I’d call this transfer around a 77/100 since our 5-star system doesn't allow for quarter stars (hell we have trouble with half-stars as is!).

On the audio front, we have what sounds to me as the same DTS-HD MA 2.0 track from Olive’s disc. Playing back-to-back between the new KLSC discs and the 2018 one, I didn’t pick up on any differences in pitch or audio placement. Still a great mix that keeps dialog in the right spot letting key sound effects and that creepy score ratchet up the tension. Here's what I said back in 2018:

Invasion of the Body Snatchers also enjoys a small tweak in the audio department moving up from an English DTS-HD MA 1.0 track to a DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono mix. The original 1.0 mono was pretty great, this new 2.0 track uses the extra channel to give the mix just a little extra oomph and texture. Clarity is terrific without any age-related hiss or hum. The dialog is clean and crisp without any distortion. The creepy score from Carmon Dragon adds that extra chill down the spine. For a narrowly focused audio experience, there is a nice sense of atmosphere and spacing. Levels are spot on without any call for adjustment. This mix may not offer up a huge improvement over the previous release, but then that was already a pretty high bar. 

Where this disc excels is the bonus features department. We get a nice mix of archival extras with two brand-new audio commentaries. Now we don’t get everything from the Olive disc, a couple of old cast interviews, featurettes, and a multi-part segment about the shooting locations didn’t make the cut. That may be a bummer for some out there, so don’t go trading in your old Olive Signature disc just yet. However, I will say the two new audio commentaries we picked up are well worth the time. We still get the old Kevin McCarthy Dany Wynter, Joe Dante track, and the great Richard Harland Smith solo commentary as well. On the new commentaries, we hear Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson partner up for a lively discussion with film scholar Jason A. Ney flying solo comparing the film to the literary source. Mitchell and Thompson are a hoot together, obvious fans of the film while detailing trivia and interpretations of themes and so forth. Jason Ney may sound like he’s reading off prepared talking points, but it’s a very cool, and very informative track on its own as he highlights the interesting differences between this film and the novel.

4K Disc

• Audio Commentary featuring Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wunter, moderated by Joe Dante
• Audio Commentary featuring Richard Harland Smith
• NEW Audio Commentary featuring Steve Mitchell and Nthaniel 
• NEW Audio Commentary featuring Thompson

Blu-ray Disc 

• Audio Commentary featuring Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wunter, moderated by Joe Dante
• Audio Commentary featuring Richard Harland Smith
• NEW Audio Commentary featuring Steve Mitchell and Nthaniel 
• NEW Audio Commentary featuring Thompson
• The Fear is Real - Featurette (HD 12:27)
• The Stranger in Your Lover’s Eyes - Featurette (HD 11:55)
• I No LOnger Belong: The Rise and Fall of Walter Wanger - Featurette (HD 21:09)
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) Trailer
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) Trailer

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is one of the finest Science Fiction/Horror features ever made. That’s largely in part because Jack Finney’s source novel is so well done. While released after Heinlein’s similar The Puppet Masters, it takes this seemingly outlandish sci-fi story and grounds it in contemporary every-day America. At the height of conservative conformity, censorship, and the red scare, the story was ripe for a film adaptation and Don Siegel delivered. The cast was in peak form for this otherwise B-level feature never treating it beneath them. Siegel’s effortless direction gradually ramps up the tension to full-blown edge-of-your-seat-terror. That’s largely why this film wasn’t forgotten when it was originally dished out as the bottom half of a double bill. There have been great remakes since, but I stand by this original as the best of the bunch.

Now on 4K UHD from KLSC, 1956's Invasion of the Body Snatchers sees some welcome benefits thanks to the new scan/restoration effort and Dolby Vision HDR grade that makes the best of the available 35mm elements. It’s not the sparkling crisp “new” look some may have hoped for or expect from the format, but it’s certainly better than the past discs and likely the best we can ever hope for. Add in excellent audio and a very good bonus features package, we’re given a good reason to consider another purchase of this iconic film. Recommended.