Way darker than the original film as it is so clearly more noirish than the first one with more iconographies borrowed from the horror genre.

Also, a lot more enjoyable than the original, with the intriguing cinematography and the whole dark lighting thing going on whereas the first almost all consists of standard medium shots with a lot of scenes shot in the morning and in bright light.

The narrative is also very different and the ending here is definitely more terrifying and exciting.

Also, for those who haven't noticed, Kevin McCarthy; star of the original film, has a cameo in this version.

I liked it. The ending scene was unexpected and shocked me.

This thing scared me silly as a young boy and every time I've seen it since, and even looking at it more critically now, it still works. Stylistically, it's meant to unhinge you at every turn with incongruous visuals and photographic "errors". Director Philip Kaufman reveals some of his tricks on the commentary track (though other advertised extras are sadly absent). It's part of the reason why I like it better than the 50s original, the other being that it's more clearly about something that touches our lives today. It's an accepted fact that 50s paranoia movies were really about McCarthyism, but this Body Snatchers is about the urban experience. It's about isolation amid the multitude, something the director shows by simply shooting normal streets and people, which radiate creepiness and paranoia all by themselves.