An attempt at Invasion of the Body Snatchers for the Youtube era, this movie might have benefited committing to the perspective of found footage. Instead we are given a low budgeted teenage clone on the body-snatchers premise that alternates between handheld and traditional filming to mixed effect. Unapologetically derivative, this movie can be entertaining though hamstrung by a low budget and inconsistent delivery. The acting ranges by performer, as the leads are actually pretty good, but members of the supporting cast are pretty wretched. There is no gore and few frights, but interesting aspects to the creature designs, even with poor and distracting CG. This film unfortunately takes the iconic imagery of Donald Sutherland’s alien screaming and reshashes the same image repeatedly with bad CG augmenting the supposed ‘scare’. Despite that, the direction is surprisingly good, whether in the youtube geared segments or overall, and there are only a few instances of first-person perspective where things get shaky. The pacing escalates nicely, but the film suffers a bit in the last act because of a ‘rescue’ plot that comes off more infuriating than noble. A fun, albeit predictable ending delivers nicely and even leaves space for the story to continue. Ultimately a well intended rehash on Body Snatchers intended exclusively for a younger crowd who hopefully haven’t seen the better iterations.
Assimilate