Futurism logo

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

A Review

By Tom BakerPublished about a year ago 3 min read
Like

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a Cold War-era Red Scare parable about giant seed pods" from outer space. They suck the mental and physical attributes of sleeping humans and disgorge identical replicas of them. We know this because of the smooth, featureless body that is laid out later on a pool table, just waiting to assimilate the features of the bartender. This happens in Santa Mira, California. Where else?

Kevin McCarthy plays Dr. Miles Bennell, who returns to his hometown and former love, Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter), and is surprised to learn that several of his patients believe that their close relatives and friends are, well, imposters. (Wikipedia has this listed as "Capgras Delusion," and apparently it is a real illness.) This includes a small boy, and Becky's cousin Wilma, who is certain her Uncle Ira is NOT, in point of fact, her Uncle Ira.

When bodies begin to be discovered, Dr. Miles realizes something is wrong. Very wrong. The corpse on the pool table bears "a faint resemblance" to the bartender, but seems to be waiting to assimilate more of his features. Waiting, that is, for him to go to sleep, which is when it can "feed" on his features and personality, becoming an automaton version of the man he was.

Corpses come back to life and disappear. The entire town, like the town in Salem's Lot, seems to be infected. Finally, the close comrades of Hill and Driscoll, the local police captain, and everyone else now seem to be a "Pod Person." "We've been waiting for you to join us!" says the Pod Person police captain to Miles. Miles later says, "It's like a poison, spreading through the entire country." (More on this particular line later.)

There is a twist ending, a final layer of icy icing added on top of an already paranoid cake. Dr. Bennell ends up, filthy, panting, racing down a highway, screaming at angry motorists, warning "They're after you, they're after all of us! You could be next!"

He ends up in a mental hospital, warning the incredulous psychiatrists about massive shipments of the seed pods going out all over the country. To duplicate the citizens of the United States, but render them virtual robots, with no feeling, no emotion, and no sense of self.

But what is the film trying to say? People on both sides of the political spectrum have claimed the subtext of the film for their own. The dialog itself, "It's a disease, spreading across the entire country!", and the fact that the citizens become "cold, unthinking robots; devoid of emotion"; i.e. cogs or cells in the body of the State, have led many on the Right to claim the film as an allegory for the spread of communist subversion. Indeed, when I think of "Reds Under the Beds" films, this is one of the first ones that come to mind.

On the other hand, Kevin McCarthy (how do you like that for irony?), or rather his character, can be seen as representative of the entire paranoid era, the McCarthy Era in which everyone could be fingered as a potential subversive or communist. his line about a "disease spreading across the entire country," seems the sort of paranoid rant that a truly obsessive anti-communist fearmonger of the era would mouth. Just plain folks turned into unthinking, unfeeling, Soviet SLAVES. (Or, so many of the people building backyard bomb shelters at the time thought.)

Whatever the case, the "birthing" from the seed pods scenes are actually rather slimy and bubbly and repellent special effects for the era, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a quick, fun, and thorough entertainment, with a hidden message open for interpretation. But, as Nancy told Glen in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984): "Just don't. Fall. Asleep."

extraterrestrialmovie reviewscience fictionvintagescifi movie
Like

About the Creator

Tom Baker

Author of Haunted Indianapolis, Indiana Ghost Folklore, Midwest Maniacs, Midwest UFOs and Beyond, Scary Urban Legends, 50 Famous Fables and Folk Tales, and Notorious Crimes of the Upper Midwest.: http://tombakerbooks.weebly.com

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.