Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. Release Date: 08/16/2005 Run time: 80 minutes Director: Don SiegelSomething’s wrong in the town of Santa Mira, California. At first, Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) is unconcerned when the townsfolk accuse their loved ones of acting like emotionless imposters. But soon the evidence is overwhelming–Santa Mira has been invaded by alien “pods” that are capable of replicating humans and taking possession of their identities. It’s up to McCarthy to spread the word of warning, battling the alien invasion at the risk of his own life. Considered one of the best science fiction films of the 1950s and ’60s, this classic paranoid thriller was widely interpreted as a criticism of the McCarthy era (that’s Senator Joseph, not actor Kevin), which was characterized by anticommunist witch-hunts and fear of the dreaded blacklist. Some hailed it as an attack on the oppressive power of government as Big Brother. However viewers interpret it, this original 1956 version of Invaders of the Body Snatchers (based on Jack Finney’s serialized novel The Body Snatchers) remains a milestone movie in its genre, directed by Don Siegel with an inventive intensity that continues to pack an entertaining wallop. Look closely and you’ll find future director Sam Peckinpah (an uncredited cowriter of this film) making a cameo appearance as a meter reader! –Jeff Shannon
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March 5, 2010
#1
Everybody in my class hated it.I watched it.Not scary.Not scary at all.The remake wasn’t scary either.But it was better.
March 5, 2010
#2
I love horror movies, and can remember late nights of watching all the classics on my family’s old 15″ color TV with the broken knob: Dracula, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Unbound, Son of Frankenstein, Frankenstein and Me, Oasis of the Zombies, and Legend of Boggy Creek. So, it’s pretty obvious that I’m something of a horror authority.
So it boggles my mind that this movie is considered something of a horror masterpiece. How? It’s just a movie where people get replaced by giant green beans! Does that seem scary to you? Maybe the sequel will have a Cauliflower serial killer. We can only hope.
Again, you don’t have to take my word for it. But unless you’ve ever worried about produce taking over our world, watch something else.
March 5, 2010
#3
The main character is the only guy in town who seems to know what’s going on here. Did nobody else in the town realize what was going on and report it to the authorities??
March 5, 2010
#4
It’s severely spoiled by the imposed framing story – where the authorities defeat the Pod People after all – and (for me) by the obvious right-wing bias of the filmmakers. Let’s be honest, this movie is all about the creeping Soviet menace and how Communists are slowly taking over the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. Check out director Don Siegel’s Dirty Harry if you don’t believe me.
March 5, 2010
#5
You can only really enjoy this film once, before you know the ending. As you see it the first time, you are swept along with it and you are surprised at some of the turns it takes. Just as important, when you see it the first time you overlook the many flaws in the script and acting.
I just saw it for the third time, and there were a number of times when I found myself thinking oh no, they didn’t just do that.
I’ll give you an example from the very end of the film. Policemen are told to get on the phone and call several different towns. The two police who hear the order immediately leave to make the calls. But ….. they weren’t told what to say! Can you imagine those calls?
“Hello? Sacramento? Hi, how are you? We were ordered to call you, but we weren’t told what to say to you. How’s the weather there?”
Those two cops weren’t in on the earlier discussions, and they are bland as white toast, so they obviously aren’t aware of what is going on. If the director was a bear for detail, he would have had those actors show a bit more life and make it clear that they knew what to say on the phone, rather than just hire extras and put them in cop suits.
And if the director was not a bear for detail, perhaps he should have found another way to make a living.
Here’s another bit of silliness. Our hero discovers some humanlike pods in a basement. Does he call the cops? Does he take action of any kind? Nah.
If you watch the film and demand realistic reactions from real human beings, you will realize that the writing of this film wasn’t particularly demanding. They just told a story without worrying if all the pieces were sensible. This isn’t exactly Dostoyevsky here. It is imaginative but lazy writing.
As I watched it, I wondered if it was an allegory for the idiotic commie scare of the Joe McCarthy era, but if it was, it was too “between the lines”. Anyone could have added details that would have made it clear that it was political, and this movie failed to do so. Therefore I believe it when I read that it was not meant as an allegory for that idiot Joe McCarthy and all the damn fools who were impressed by him.
By the way, it is easy to separate ourselves from the morons who followed McCarthy, but the majority of people in any country you name, including ours, are morons no brighter than the McCarthyites.
This film is best seen late at night, on a weekend, by a teenager. That’s the way I saw it my first time, and I really enjoyed it. In time you outgrow it and demand more realism in your fiction.
If you haven’t outgrown it by now and you still gape at it wide-eyed without noticing the dozen or so really silly and unrealistic bits of script writing and acting, that doesn’t mean I’m wrong in this review. It means you aren’t very demanding in your viewing habits, or it means that you like to idolize the old without taking a fresh and fair look at it. Well, enjoy.