Esther and I went to see The Invasion and while it was a remake of the classic 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, it was in reality one of the best zombie survival movies I have ever seen. I’ll try and minimize the spoilers, but if one or two slip, I’m sorry. Nicole Kidman, while giving a mediocre performance, plays the heroine, a psychiatrist, who’s world is turned upside down. A shuttle crashing, which was oddly familiar to the Columbia disaster, particularly as a shuttle is getting ready to come down again. The shuttle’s break-up spreads a virus, which causes everyone to lose their emotions.

This is where to movie leaves the usual sci-fi thriller and turns into my ideal zombie movie. The people who are infected don’t want to eat brains, nor are they reanimated corpses, with super strength and speed. They are normal people, just with out any emotion. They don’t want to kill you, they just want to assimilate you (a la Borg?) and will do whatever it takes. At a couple of points in the movie, the infected people were acting just like a zombie horde, surrounding Nicole Kidman’s character, swarming her car, or running her down in a pack.

The affect-less demeanor of the infected / zombies was spookier than the gnashing undead. Overall, it was a fascinating remake, a solid movie. I would have enjoyed seeing the original 1957 version, or even the first cut from director Oliver Hirschbiegel (pre rewrite and reshoot), only to better understand what about the movie crawled under my skin.

[rate 4.5]