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A doctor returns to his small Californian hometown to find that there's something not quite right going on with the other citizens.
As far as horror sub-genres go, I'm rather fond of the body-snatcher sub-genre mainly because it's so readily primed to deliver both immediate scares and simmering paranoia. The best films in this sub-genre are more than capable of delivering both and as an added bonus they get to play around with potentially rich themes and metaphorical concepts, though of course it's definitely up to the individual films and the people who make them to flesh them out properly. In that regard, I always wonder what to actually make of the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers if only because it's potentially the most iconic horror movie of the 1950s as it evokes many of the internal and external concerns that plagued a decade largely characterised in pop culture as a combination of both optimism and paranoia. The film (as ultimately released, anyway) begins with such a juxtaposition as a raving madman (Kevin McCarthy) relates his unbelievable story to a psychiatrist. It turns out that he is a doctor who had recently returned to his small Californian hometown, only to start hearing reports from some of the citizens that their loved ones are somehow...different. They're behaving the same and remembering all the same things, but things aren't quite right, and McCarthy eventually starts to notice as well...
Though you can definitely point and laugh at some of the exceptionally hokey moments on display here (I know I did when I first watched it many years ago), there's no denying the sheer effectiveness of the premise that more than carries the moments where the film's age catches up to it. The practical effects used to render the body-snatchers' plant-based life cycle are certainly solid and at least a little creepy-looking, but so much of what makes Invasion of the Body Snatchers a good horror is everything else about it. We're obviously on the lookout for anything remotely suspicious from the jump as children run away from parents and people go through their daily routines perhaps a little too routinely (or not, as in the case of a bustling restaurant suddenly becoming empty), and that's before things crank up a notch with the discovery of the pods that grow the replicas and how they work (and really, something about the idea of something killing and replacing you in your sleep is particularly unsettling, especially here where it's never shown on-screen and thus adds to the nightmarish quality of the scenario). Given the period and setting in which it takes place, one also sees a thinly-veiled metaphor for how America saw the encroaching threat of communist insurgency, though it is vague enough that the coldly unemotional antagonists could be interpreted as either representing said insurgents converting citizens to their ideology or (more incisively) rampant anti-communist hysteria going overboard in trying to eradicate any sense of individuality that contrasted with their extremely narrow idea of what America (and, by extension, the world) should be. I'd say the latter interpretation certainly goes a long way towards helping Invasion of the Body Snatchers hold up as well as it does, and while it's still got its flaws, it might well be the definitive 1950s horror movie regardless.
#12 - Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Don Siegel, 1956
Don Siegel, 1956
A doctor returns to his small Californian hometown to find that there's something not quite right going on with the other citizens.
As far as horror sub-genres go, I'm rather fond of the body-snatcher sub-genre mainly because it's so readily primed to deliver both immediate scares and simmering paranoia. The best films in this sub-genre are more than capable of delivering both and as an added bonus they get to play around with potentially rich themes and metaphorical concepts, though of course it's definitely up to the individual films and the people who make them to flesh them out properly. In that regard, I always wonder what to actually make of the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers if only because it's potentially the most iconic horror movie of the 1950s as it evokes many of the internal and external concerns that plagued a decade largely characterised in pop culture as a combination of both optimism and paranoia. The film (as ultimately released, anyway) begins with such a juxtaposition as a raving madman (Kevin McCarthy) relates his unbelievable story to a psychiatrist. It turns out that he is a doctor who had recently returned to his small Californian hometown, only to start hearing reports from some of the citizens that their loved ones are somehow...different. They're behaving the same and remembering all the same things, but things aren't quite right, and McCarthy eventually starts to notice as well...
Though you can definitely point and laugh at some of the exceptionally hokey moments on display here (I know I did when I first watched it many years ago), there's no denying the sheer effectiveness of the premise that more than carries the moments where the film's age catches up to it. The practical effects used to render the body-snatchers' plant-based life cycle are certainly solid and at least a little creepy-looking, but so much of what makes Invasion of the Body Snatchers a good horror is everything else about it. We're obviously on the lookout for anything remotely suspicious from the jump as children run away from parents and people go through their daily routines perhaps a little too routinely (or not, as in the case of a bustling restaurant suddenly becoming empty), and that's before things crank up a notch with the discovery of the pods that grow the replicas and how they work (and really, something about the idea of something killing and replacing you in your sleep is particularly unsettling, especially here where it's never shown on-screen and thus adds to the nightmarish quality of the scenario). Given the period and setting in which it takes place, one also sees a thinly-veiled metaphor for how America saw the encroaching threat of communist insurgency, though it is vague enough that the coldly unemotional antagonists could be interpreted as either representing said insurgents converting citizens to their ideology or (more incisively) rampant anti-communist hysteria going overboard in trying to eradicate any sense of individuality that contrasted with their extremely narrow idea of what America (and, by extension, the world) should be. I'd say the latter interpretation certainly goes a long way towards helping Invasion of the Body Snatchers hold up as well as it does, and while it's still got its flaws, it might well be the definitive 1950s horror movie regardless.