CONTAINS SPOILERS
The best reason to see this is an early and characteristic performance by Christopher Walken. The film itself is a sombre, small scale piece, developed from a play. It betrays its origins through plenty of dialogue, some suspense, but little real action. This is one of those early seventies films revealing a fashionable anger against the industro-military complex, but which offers no radical agenda of its own.
Like the director's 'Name for Evil' made around the same time, The Mind Snatchers' is about mental confusion, but here the emphasis is on deliberate manipulation of the brain rather disorientation. There is no inexplicable mental collapse on show here. Instead we are confronted with a state-sponsored trip', a mind control experiment, undertaken in Germany on American soldiers conveniently designated psychotic' by the powers who need subjects to operate on. As the alienated and violent James Reese, Walken breaks his arm in a dispute with the Military Police and instead of the cooler, soon finds himself in an enigmatic hospital, one of only three patients.
Outside of the opening scenes, showing Reese's fraught social interractions then arrest, and the last, showing him on display at a press conference, the film never leaves the institution's grounds. Shot atmospherically on location, the place is a large, empty echoing establishment, whose sanitorium-like atmosphere is at odds with the doom it threatens. It is a cold, efficient clinic, reminiscent of Cronenberg's world of white coated attrocities just starting on film at the same time. As a hospital it is as much understaffed as it is underpatiented (although barbed wire and dogs keep the few people in.) Besides Dr Frederick, the orderly Shannon, a nurse and red cross visitor, no one else is in evidence. For a supposed high priority government project this is disconcerting, to say the least. Like Reese we expect something more than this to rail against. He shares a room briefly with a third patient (whose unpredictable yells are a disturbing touch), then is left to interract with Miles, a sergeant with dangerous mood swings. A bond gradually forms between these two men - but not until Miles' health suddenly deteriorates and he has volunteered for the experiment, which has already killed the last patient.
The cool, dangerous and distanced persona of Reese is perfect for Walken. This was his third film (after The Anderson Tapes') and as the incarcerated Private he inculcates exactly the right degree of repressed rage and wariness the role demands. Although the film is dialogue heavy, the central relationship, that between Reese and Miles works well. Miles' taunting sexuality, nervous anticipation and jittery humour contrasts well with Reese's objective assessment of his exploitation. We sense Reese's reserves of strength, which makes the end of the film all the more shocking. As Miles, Ronnie Cox is also a strong character, but we know that he probably does not have the survival instinct of our hero, and his fate justifies our suspicions. Together the two hold the screen for long minutes, making it a shame that Joss Ackland's stodgy Dr Frederick lowers the suspense and tension on each appearance. In fact, Frederick's ignorance and belated conscience struggle, after `23 year's research on one small part of the human brain', is one of the least convincing aspects of the plot. Bemused and lethargic, he seems to have strolled in from a far more gentele story, and his concerned crackpot character never really catches fire. The same might be said for the oily Major, played by the normally excellent Ralph Meeker who has little to do here save trigger the experimentation on Reese.
First however, it is Miles who is hooked up to the mind-snatching machine, which has an effect (albeit more sinister) similar to the orgasmatron' familiar from Woody Allen's Sleeper'. As a violence-inhibiter and psychosis-reducer, the effects of the self activated machine is certainly effective. It is described by Miles as like being in `a huge woollen glove', before he clutches his crotch in self-absorption. (`Get the bugs out and I'll be the first in line, Doctor' admits the grim Major with unconscious irony.) Reese has a greater sense of himself as an individual however, and initially refuses the treatment, saying `pain defines me it makes me what I am'.
The final press conference is abrupt and chilling. Reese is caught in a freeze frame while the Major proclaims blithely that `The Military is always interested in the betterment of Mankind', and so on. In a way which might have reflected the disbelief on the face of a contemporary audience, Reese's fate has been the loss of individuality, of emotion and power. This is an ultimate fate familiar from many other movie distopias, and is perhaps where the film most clearly reveals its roots. These days we may prefer our messages less hammered home, but for those who enjoy their brain washing movies cold and without the trimmings, this can be recommended.
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