Pod People Return, Re-Energized

“They’re out there, they’re everywhere. They get you while you sleep.” And now they’re back. Again.

For “Body Snatchers” is at least the third version of Jack Finney’s classic pulp science-fiction tale of sinister pods from outer space who take over unsuspecting humans and turn them into unfeeling automatons. Director Don Siegel did the original “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” in 1956, and given that Phil Kaufman didn’t even come close to improving on it in 1978, Abel Ferrara may seem foolhardy to try it again today.

But Ferrara hasn’t merely remade “Body Snatchers”; he has reimagined and reinvigorated it, using the best of special-effects talent and cool directorial skill to turn out a splendidly creepy and unsettling piece of genre filmmaking that knows how to scare you and isn’t afraid to try.

The people “Body Snatchers” have scared the most, apparently, are the executives at Warner Bros., who have been sitting on this disturbing chiller for at least a year, and are only now giving it the kind of limited release (one puny theater, the Festival in Westwood) usually associated with delicate tea-bag dramas, not brazen epics of paranoia.

For one of the things that Ferrara and his five credited screenwriters (screenplay by Stuart Gordon & Dennis Paoli and Nicholas St. John, story by Raymond Cistheri and Larry Cohen) have done is change the emphasis from the protest against conformity that characterized the Siegel version to a look at the more modern terror of paranoia, of not knowing who is going to turn on you or when the betrayal will take place.

To restrict himself within the limits of the remake of a classic may seem like an odd choice for as visceral director as Ferrara, a man with a reputation for doing out-there outlaw cinema ranging from his early “Ms. 45” to the more recent “Bad Lieutenant.”

But these restrictions don’t negate Ferrara’s abilities, they merely focus them. And because “Body Snatchers’ ” story is so familiar to so many filmgoers, the film benefits considerably from his ability to energize a situation, to keep audiences fixed on the screen though they know what’s going to happen.

Clocking in at a lean 90 minutes, “Body Snatchers” also has the advantage of wasting no time getting into the story, shrewdly set this time at an Army base in the South where people are so habitually obedient it is doubly difficult to determine who is a soulless pod and who is just following orders.

New at the base are the Malone family, father Steve (Terry Kinney) being a visiting scientist from the Environmental Protection Agency assigned to investigate hazardous waste. With him are his second wife, Carol (Meg Tilly), their 5-year-old son Andy (Reilly Murphy) and heroine Marti (Gabrielle Anwar), Steve’s rebellious daughter from his first marriage.

While Steve pokes around the base and commiserates with Maj. Collins (an edgy Forest Whitaker), the head of medical care who has a slew of patients “exhibiting paranoia about other people’s identities,” Marti is hanging out with Jenn (Christine Elise), the commander’s wayward daughter, and a handsome helicopter pilot named Tim (Billy Wirth). But these young people barely have time to get acquainted before the pods take over with a vengeance and pandemonium breaks out all over.

Taking advantage of the latest in movie magic technology, special makeup artists Tom Burman and Bari Dreiband-Burman have endowed this version of “Body Snatchers” with the most graphic version yet of how the pods go about their nefarious business. Definitely not for the squeamish, the film’s ghoulish transformation scenes are both beautiful and repellent, filmed with awe and a touch of mystery.

Horrific as all this is, “Body Snatchers” has more than technology going for it. Both composer Joe Delia, who wrote a classically disturbing score, and cinematographer Bojan Bazelli, whose searchlight-lit scene of the pods being harvested is completely chilling, are major forces in helping Ferrara create the film’s palpable sense of unease and uncertainty.

From these big concerns to small but unforgettable moments like the pods’ hair-raising warning signal, director Ferrara has envisioned this movie whole from beginning to end. The world does not quite look the same when “Body Snatchers” is over, and there is little more you can ask of a science-fiction/horror film than that.

‘Body Snatchers’

Gabrielle Anwar: Marti Malone Meg Tilly: Carol Malone Terry Kinney: Steve Malone Forest Whitaker: Major Collins Billy Wirth: Tim Young Christine Elise: Jenn Platt

A Robert H. Solo production, released by Warner Bros. Director Abel Ferrara. Producer Robert H. Solo. Screenplay by Stuart Gordon & Dennis Paoli and Nicholas St. John. Screen Story by Raymond Cistheri and Larry Cohen. Cinematographer Bojan Bazelli. Editor Anthony Redman. Costumes Margaret Mohr. Music Joe Delia. Production design Peter Jamison. Art director John Huke. Set decorator Linda Spheeris. Running time: 1 hour, 90 minutes.

MPAA rating: R, for violence, nudity and language. Times guidelines: female nudity and graphic and disturbing scenes of aliens taking over helpless humans.