It looks like her but it’s not her
Main Cast: Erica Kessler, Danar Nason
Director: Justin Jones
One of my favorite horror movies growing up was the 1978 version of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. There have been several remakes in the years since, but none have come close to matching that one—which was, itself, a remake of the 1956 movie.
In 2007, another attempt was made, this time with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig leading the charge. Once again, that one failed to meet the standard set almost 30 years earlier. That same year, The Asylum, those standard bearers of bad filmmaking, released their own mockbuster clone: INVASION OF THE POD PEOPLE.
Written by Leigh Scott from a story by Ron Magid and Jay Marks (SO MANY other Asylum movies in the credits for this group) and directed by Justin Jones (First AD and/or producer on so many Asylum movies, the mind reels looking at his IMDB page), INVASION OF THE POD PEOPLE centers on Melissa (Erica Kessler), an office drone at, I think, a modeling agency.
Her bosses are trying to lure an up-and-coming model away from her current reps and into their fold, but things aren’t looking good until one day the model does a 180 and agrees to join them.
Melissa’s boss is also a super bitch to everyone until one day—after being gifted an ugly looking plant, very similar to one the up-and-coming model had in her apartment—she does a 180 and invites Melissa and her coworker Billie (Danae Nason) out for drinks. One thing leads to more wine back at the house and after watching all the other drunk models and coworkers going at it in the living room, the boss takes Melissa to the bedroom for a new experience. When Melissa wakes up, she finds that same ugly plant in her apartment.
Suspecting foul play, Melissa puts the plant down the garbage disposal after stabbing it and finding it not only bleeds, but it screams as well. All of this comes AFTER a man broke into Melissa’s apartment one night, told her his wife isn’t acting like herself, his phone’s been tapped, and he can’t go to the police, before he shoots himself in the head. So obviously what that calls for is a night of drunken lesbian sex with your boss who, before now, has shown nothing but contempt for you and your coworker.
Melissa asks the cop who investigated the mystery man in her apartment to analyze the bloody knife she bagged up after stabbing the weird plant, and things move pretty quickly from there.
It then becomes a question of who can Melissa trust, and who’s not who they say they are? In a story like this, paranoia is the strongest weapon in their arsenal and, unfortunately, INVASION OF THE POD PEOPLE plays into that pretty well.
I say unfortunately because this is a TERRIBLE movie. The script reads like it was written by a moody 8th grader, I’ve seen better acting in a high school play, and I know the movie was made in 2007, but are they using cameras from 1990? It’s NOT good. But they did get that one most important part of the premise right. Paranoia.
It all leads to a frantic third act, culminating in a climax I hate to admit I didn’t see coming, before credits roll and I’m left no better off than I was before. INVASION OF THE POD PEOPLE, despite a few very minor things it got right, is a bad movie. Even compared to other Asylum movies, this one was garbage. For some reason, this time around, they really played up the sexual aspect and it felt completely out of place. The movie opens with Melissa and her boyfriend up against the glass in Melissa’s apartment, all the while she’s telling him maybe he should go. And the lesbian orgy after the bar crawl, where the hell did THAT come from? I put this on last night while my son and I ate dinner (the wife and other son were at a baseball game), thinking nothing of it, oh it’s a goofy Asylum movie, and the first thing onscreen is VERY heavy breathing and moaning, and while he wasn’t in the room with me, voices carry, and I just kept thinking, I get the point, now GET OFF MY SCREEN.
The IMDb trivia says they originally wanted to go with PG-13, but added more violence and sex later, deciding on an unrated version. THIS was the sex they added? It contributes nothing at all to the movie and felt wedged into a story that didn’t need it. It’s a body snatchers movie, it’s already a strong enough idea on its own.
None of the “actors” here are anyone you’ll recognize, or ever see again (the lead actress, Erica Kessler, retired from acting after this movie), despite several of them having pretty hefty pre- and post-pod people resumes.
If there was an effects budget, it was about $10, and for that you can get a ceramic planter and a piece of ginger root (that was the “ugly” plant they kept passing around to everyone) at Wal-Mart. They didn’t paint it a weird color to make it look exotic or anything, just stuck it in a planter and called it good.
I watched this dung heap on a free horror streamer called Mutant Sorority, which shows a lot of the same movies Filmrise Horror shows, both with commercials. At this point they might as well join forces and call it Asylum Movies and a Bunch of Other Cheap Crap We Licensed. If you’re ever having a really terrible day and you want to cap it off with just some utter garbage—but can’t find the Kidman/Craig version streaming anywhere—give INVASION OF THE POD PEOPLE a shot, I guess. Just be warned, there are a few times when the sounds coming from the TV speakers do NOT say I’m watching a horror movie, but instead are gonna make your kids wonder what the hell you’re watching at 7:00 on a Tuesday.
C. Dennis Moore is the author of over 60 published short stories and novellas in the speculative fiction genre. Most recent appearances are in the Dark Highlands 2, What Fears Become, Dead Bait 3 and Dark Highways anthologies. His novels are Revelations, and the Angel Hill stories, The Man in the Window, The Third Floor, and The Flip.
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