The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956) movie review

Don Siegel’s film Invasion of the Body Snatcher was released in 1956. However, it was considered to be similar to another common science fiction and horror film thriller that year. However, if you look carefully, the film addresses a number of topics that arose in the United States after World War II. This included the Cold War, McCarthyism, and evolving gender relations structures. This film’s success has risen from cult status to one of the most recognizable icons of American cinema in the half-century since its publication. The movie had an emotionless narrative of alien duplicated replacing average beings. For that matter, it became the first post-war movie to identify daily monstrous and therefore became very important in the history of American horror movies. It has since attracted three remakes.

Invasion of the Body Snatcher was originally based on a story written by Jack Finney. After being expanded into a novel, Don Siegel was able to bring pieces together and in a low budget, he pulled out an eliciting horror movie even if there is neither monsters nor deaths. Again, the real stars in the movies are pods that were simple and relatively cheap to make. These plant-like pods which were indestructible helped in slow tension building which brought about horror in the movie. Special effects are minimal and there is no violence. However, the theme of cautionary and social communism ideology is clearly brought out. When they fall asleep, alien creeps and takes them away.

The Invasion of Body Snatchers cautions the audience on the dangers of living a complacent life. When we fall asleep, we become vulnerable and the danger of losing touch with the world becomes real. That’s why the pods can swiftly take us away. Today, the fear of being taken away is relevant than it was half a century ago. Towards the end of the film, there is a sense of encouragement that all will be well. This seems to be the ending that the director, Don intended.