Thursday 5 December 2019

Review: Assimilate (2019)

Stars: Joel Courtney, Andi Matichak
Image result for assimilate

Budget: Unknown

Directed By: John Murlowski

Well this is the most recent entry into the bodysnatchers saga. It's full of relatively unknowns actor wise. I was unable to find a budget for this movie but I don't expect it would be massive. The film isn't massively effects heavy and I give it kudos for that, even relying on practical effects a lot.

So this version is our most recent as i said and it shows it's about as modern as you can get. brought right up inline with the youth of today and cataloging every on the internet and trying to be the next viral star.
This is another version like the 1993 one to stray far away from the source material. It does however have the pod person scream back in it, except greatly over acted (and CGI'd).
Also again, as from The Invasion, I wouldn't exactly call these pod people as they don't really grow from plant like pods. There is once again no Bennells, Bellicecs or Kaufmans in this version either. There is however a small town setting like the 1956 version. I'll tell you more details on the film as i review it.

So lets get on with the review, like the earlier films we see this organism make it's way through space to our planet. It's like tiny black spores to begin with, these cover quite a few thing around the village like apples etc and people dismiss it as green/black fly.
It's later when they seem to join together and create larger organisms that the real game changer begins. Once bitten by one of these tiny creatures the creature will then 'pod up' and grow a blank new you. The then newly birthed you will be a blank that ruthlessly hunts down the original you, once caught they just some physical contact for a small amount of time.
Once you have been touched for the allotted amount of time your brain is then downloaded into the new you, sans emotions.

Randy and Zach are two teenage boys who have a 'YouTube' channel, they stumble upon a great idea to attach small cameras to themselves and film their time around town. They initially want to show how boring it is in the quiet place but things seem to slowly ramp up for them.
One by one the towns people are slowly turned into these clone copies like most of the other films. The two lads try too persuade people before it's to late, due to this day and age of pranks and photo shopping people don't believe them. This is strengthened due to the fact they have a YouTube channel too, though throughout the movie they do garner help from a few people.
Unfortunately by near the end most of them are either dead or assimilated, the fact with this film is you don't even need to be asleep. Once the monster, creature or amalgamation thing has taken your DNA it WILL make a copy of you. All it takes is a simple prolonged touch to drain your memories then the original you drops dead. These clones do the screech/scream like the 78 and 93 versions and where I did give this film points for low CGI usage, this part uses unneeded CGI elongating their jaw and mouth so they can do this screech.

It does end rather bleakly but with a small message of hope that does seem a little redundant by the end of the movie as what do 3 people here or 4 people somewhere else hope to do vs millions?
It's not a brilliant film but does things better than The Invasion, but then also a few things worse too. The one thing I do take from all of these films is that they certainly show and use tropes and story ideas directly from their time, thus are a great watch if you want insight into that era's hopes and fears. So THN awards Assimilate with a standard 2 out of 5 stars.


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