Invasion of the Body Snatchers
HORROR-THON 2020 • POD PEOPLE
8/10
DIRECTOR: Don Siegel
STARRING: Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates
RELEASED: 1956
RUNTIME: 1 hour, 20 minutes
WATCH ON: Paramount+
SCARE LEVEL: More of a “stare at the ceiling at 2 am” scare than a jump scare
REWATCHABILITY: High, and a little too relatable
The monsters in this movie don’t growl or bite. They just stop having opinions. As someone whose living in the current state of the world, I found this deeply upsetting.
Dr. Miles Bennell comes home to the sleepy California town of Santa Mira, and something’s off. Patients keep showing up to tell him the same thing: their uncle, their mom, their husband isn’t really them. The person looks the same and says the right things, but something is missing.
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Then a friend finds a blank, unfinished body lying on his pool table. Giant seed pods start turning up in greenhouses and basements. Each pod grows an exact copy of someone nearby and replaces them while they sleep.
Miles and his old flame, Becky, try to get out of town while the whole place turns into calm, emotionless replicas. They hide in the hills and fight to stay awake. They almost make it.
The last stretch finds Miles on a highway, weaving through traffic and screaming at drivers who think he’s crazy.
MY HUMBLE OPINION
People have argued for 70 years whether this is an anti-communist movie or an anti-McCarthy movie. Choose which side you want or neither because ultimately it’s about conformity. Conformity is scary in any decade, but especially right now. The pods don’t want to kill you. They want you to calm down and fit in. That’s so much worse.
The sleep angle is sadistic. Everyone has fought to stay awake at some point, but this movie turns that into life or death, which is particularly scary. Also: the kiss. Miles kisses Becky after she’s dozed off in the cave, and he realizes from the kiss alone that she’s gone. It’s one of the coldest moments in any horror movie. No makeup, no effects. Just a flat face that used to be a person. Kevin McCarthy yelling “You’re Next!” straight into the camera is a scene everyone knows, and it still lands today. The studio tacked on a hopeful framing story so audiences wouldn’t leave too depressed, and they are notes you can definitely feel.
Fun Fact for Your Next Dinner Party
During test screenings, much of the film’s original humor and humanity were cut when the audiences found it difficult to follow and laughed at all the wrong moments.