Abel Ferrara’s Body
Snatchers might prompt the (of course too easy) comment that the main body
to have snatched must be that of Ferrara himself, given the generic nature of
the material and, for the most part, the director’s handling of it. This telling
of the story confines the action almost entirely to a military base where the main
focal point, teenage Marti Malone (Gabrielle Anwar) arrives early on with her
family, relocating for as long as it takes her father (Terry Kinney) to carry
out an environmental assessment. The evocation of a location seemingly dense in
toxic materials suggests the malady might have a more organic origin here than
in previous versions, but this turns out to be a misdirection (unless one
intuits that the high chemical levels contributed to the aliens’ choice of
their ground zero). Likewise, an initial suggestion that the film might focus
on fractured family relationships comes to very little, other than that Marti’s
stepmother, who she apparently tolerates rather than likes, succumbs far more
easily than the rest of them (the potentially wrenching fate of Marti’s younger
brother is significantly undermined by sub-standard special effects).The film
runs under an hour and a half, resulting in storytelling that blurs the line
between efficiently concentrated and merely cursory, the aliens for example
seeming improbably easy to fool at several key points. Among other weaknesses: the use of voice over at
the beginning and end seems oddly displaced, and the insertion of female nudity
largely risible; Forest Whitaker's couple of showy scenes seem barely
integrated with the rest of the movie. It’s always interesting enough though, and its closing moments are effective, the barrage of combat footage against a backdrop
of existential uncertainty now almost seeming to anticipate Ferrara’s recent treatment
of the Ukraine war in Turn in the Wound.
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