TheRetroCritic

It seems like every couple of decades, we get an Invasion Of The Body Snatchers movie. The brilliant original, of course, was pure Communist paranoia, the 1978 Donald Sutherland-starring remake was a gloomier and scarier take on the whole thing and Abel Ferrara's 1993 attempt, Body Snatchers , was... not quite as good but still surprisingly worthy. Set on an army base this time, we follow a doctor and his family as they move in next to the base for the Summer while the father checks out a supposed toxic spill in the water nearby. Very quickly, it's quite clear that something dodgy's going on with the people living around the base and the army guys themselves. You've got Forest Whitaker's Major, who doesn't seem to buy that this is just a toxic spill and certain people walking around like zombies acting completely out of character. The film starts off slow with Gabrielle Anwar's character meeting new people and the family adjusting to this change of

Film premises don't get much simpler than that. A dude answers the phone in a phone booth and ends up being kept there by a maniacal sniper-wielding stranger who makes him do whatever he wants and sounds exactly like Jack Bauer. The entire film takes place, you've guessed it, in and around a single phone booth and attempts a Hitchcockian thriller within that limited setting. Colin Farrell plays the put-upon Stu, a douchy New York publicist "romantically" interested in one of his clients, played by the reliably squeaky-voiced Katie Holmes, despite being married. The voice on the phone, Kiefer Sutherland's voice that is, forces Stu into making awkward, morally grey decisions and the suspense rests on both whether Stu is smart enough to pull through and whether Sutherland's creep is as truly insane as he seems. It's unclear what the mysterious caller wants so, as the viewer, you're left to slowly make your mind up about that, which really helps bui