What if...?
I just got done watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1987) again and among the many humorous and logical thoughts floating through my spooky skull, I came up with a theory. What if this film was the first in a trio of a horror movie franchise? Let's just pretend that the studio system does not exist for a moment and hear me out.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1976)
An outer space plant viral life form comes down and takes over unsuspecting victim's bodies on Earth and replicates itself into clones of the original hosts Only those who are aware of the phenomenon can see what is happening and try to prevent themselves from succumbing to this new virus/threat. One of the people who knew something was fishy pretty early on was Jack Bellicec played by Jeff Goldblum. In an early scene at a bath house, he notices a comatose man that has been taken over by the virus. The man is covered in material akin to webbing or fascia that moves, this material grazes Jack's hand but he is quick to shake it off. At the end of the film, we see that Jack has been replicated and is part of the zombie army, blindly following instructions from those aliens around him. Let's say that this Jack we see in the end is the replicated alien version and the real Jack got saved or was smart enough to avoid being captured. He hides out for five years until the plague is over and them his story continues in...
Jack Bellicec cannot get the traumatic incidents out of his mind and decides to pursue a science career. His work is focused on teleportation devices and hopes to use these devices to escape the city if and when the virus comes back. Not only that, but in an effort to not get caught by the corrupt authorities, he changes his name to Seth Brundle. As fate would have it, he is eventually in a situation where a different kind of host is inhabiting his body. He tries to unite the host and invader and thinks he has uncovered a new scientific wonder. Unfortunately, with the events of 1976 in the back of his mind, he slowly loses his mind, the experiment backfires and he eventually dies. While all this is happening, the original plant virus has had time to evolve into a more efficient virus and two years after Seth's experiment we get...
The virus has now spread to Los Angeles and has evolved to the point where instead of plants replicating and taking over bodies, it is advanced alien life forms themselves taking over host bodies while keeping the exterior of a person in tact. As in the original outbreak in 1976, only a select few can identify infected hosts. These aliens also developed an additional way to control the population, subconscious advertising. Only two people are able to differentiate the infected hosts using a pair of sunglasses they found. Just as in the original film, the people have been hijacked by a virus or program that makes its victims blindly follow orders. The infected somehow recognize each other and work together, also like in the original. In the end, George and Frank manage to do what Matthew Bennet could not in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. They managed to find a way to expose the aliens to the people in the city, but at the cost of their lives. What happens next is up to them.
If I ever take my annual Images of Fright film festival public, I could screen these films and do a talk about this theory. However, until that day, college kids needing an essay topic for a film or communications class, have at it.
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