Good and innovating story lines, visually impressive effects, suspense and atmosphere and a whole lot of genuine weirdness. "Body Snatcher from Hell" has it all and yet it remains somewhat obscure and unloved. Admittedly I just fell in love with the two-line summary I read somewhere ("The survivors of a plane crash in a remote area are attacked by blob-like alien creatures that turn their victims into blood-thirsty vampires") but the film is much more than that.
A Japanese airplane with a versatile selection of passengers on board (a sniper murderer, a businessman with his butt-licking assistant and his wife, a youthful prankster, an American tourist ) crashes during a sinister night when the skies are blood red and birds spontaneously commit suicide by flying into the plane's engine. The survivors are taken over, one by one, by an alien substance that turns them into emotionless monsters. The alien is a little piece of blue blob and it possesses people by entering the brain through a cut in the forehead. There's also loads of intrigue and tension going on inside the remnants of the airplane, like the businessman having an affair with his assistant's wife, and he also responds to the stereotype of pure cowardliness when he locks his fellow survivors out of the plane during a vampire attack. Considering the era of release – the late 1960's – there's a lot of moralizing messages about how mankind destroys itself and its beautiful planet through greed, warfare and jealousy. The film even features two entire speeches from an alien spokesperson who literally claims that we only brought it onto ourselves that an alien race is now coming to exterminate us. Furthermore, "Body Snatcher from Hell" benefices from neat settings and amazing special effects (for its time at least). Especially the heading splitting open and the "vaporizing" of the host's dead body is a true delight for horror fanatics to behold. Last but not least, you have to respect the downbeat and depressing ending revealing that we're already doomed anyway. Great film in urgent need of wider distribution.
A Japanese airplane with a versatile selection of passengers on board (a sniper murderer, a businessman with his butt-licking assistant and his wife, a youthful prankster, an American tourist ) crashes during a sinister night when the skies are blood red and birds spontaneously commit suicide by flying into the plane's engine. The survivors are taken over, one by one, by an alien substance that turns them into emotionless monsters. The alien is a little piece of blue blob and it possesses people by entering the brain through a cut in the forehead. There's also loads of intrigue and tension going on inside the remnants of the airplane, like the businessman having an affair with his assistant's wife, and he also responds to the stereotype of pure cowardliness when he locks his fellow survivors out of the plane during a vampire attack. Considering the era of release – the late 1960's – there's a lot of moralizing messages about how mankind destroys itself and its beautiful planet through greed, warfare and jealousy. The film even features two entire speeches from an alien spokesperson who literally claims that we only brought it onto ourselves that an alien race is now coming to exterminate us. Furthermore, "Body Snatcher from Hell" benefices from neat settings and amazing special effects (for its time at least). Especially the heading splitting open and the "vaporizing" of the host's dead body is a true delight for horror fanatics to behold. Last but not least, you have to respect the downbeat and depressing ending revealing that we're already doomed anyway. Great film in urgent need of wider distribution.