A doctor returns to town to find something strange is going on. Relations look, sound and act just like always but there is something different, no feelings.

"Oh I don't know, you think I'm crazy don't you? Well I'm not I tell you, oh no."

"You see, I've seen these things growing in the cellar, or on the pool table. They grow from pods, they have no identity until the person they change into falls to sleep and then they take over their minds."

"Oh, why won't you believe me? I'm not crazy it's everyone else."

"Anyone got a comb? My hair's all over the place."

"A veritable horticultural green fingered bubbly monster from pods of a movie. I will never look at a growbag in the same way again!"

"That orchestra is going to injure someone if it goes on like that."

"I just cannot get the tomatoey taste of this movie out of my mouth."

"I just don't get it. They make a replica and then take over your body when you sleep? What do they do with the old body? It just makes no sense at all. But I did like the bubbles."

"I have always wanted to smack a tranquilizer syringe in someone's back, it looks fun. I am convinced it is the next paint-balling."

"Podtastic!"

"Bubbletricious!

A smorgasbord of sinister, emotionless, people who walk slowly, like old people but without the cane. A brooding, claustrophobic melee of 'trust nobody or you will be pulped sonny Jim!' And 'Don't go into the cellar! Your father is preparing an identical replica of you to replace you into 'one of them'.

The nightmares will come back to you like a fast moving train and you are powerless to move as you have been tied to the tracks.

Whilst some of the bits are a little dated, the whole effect of the movie is consummate, if the ending a little tortuous.

"There's no need for love."

On the whole the journey is very fine. It remains gripping throughout and, whilst the ending is pretty standard, it is worth the effort.

August 3 , 2002