Customer Reviews

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a remarkable movie in many ways. With a relatively small budget a very interesting Sci-Fi / horror film is made. No big visual effects, no Big Stars in the cast, black n' white photography and still a griping story. There are two remakes of this story, they can't stand against the original one, even if they were produced with a bigger budget and known actors.

This is the plot: Dr. Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) returns to his small home town ready to attend patients. Different consultants tell him of a paranoid syndrome: their relatives seem somehow changed. A couple of days after that, they return to his office and tell him "Everything is OK".
Dr. Bennell and her old times girl friend Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter) soon realize the town is being subject to an alien invasion plot. Huge seed are "planted" in basements or garages and evolved in a duplicate of a person (a clone will be called today). As soon as the victim fells asleep is "transformed". The tension grows up as time pass and the characters need to sleep.

Some comments issued around the film pointed out that it may be taken as a parable of the Cold War raging at the time it was released (1956). I think that there are more films of that period, alluding the frightful issue of "They are like us but they are NOT us and they are dangerous", as in "The Thing from another World" (1951) or "I Married a Monster from Outer Space" (1958).

The actress Carolyn Jones (later best known by her impersonation of Morticia at the "Addams Family" TV serial) play a short, but very well enacted, role
A very enjoyable film to be seen.
Duration: 80 minutes

This is a GREAT transfer of the original film! The sound is good, the picture is good, it's simply a grand dvd! The film here has good acting and casting. Good story and good ending. What more could a sci fi junkie need? This film was made countless times after but this is the original and the best.Kevin did great as the main character here.

It is really a shame that most audiences today are not patient enough to sit through a black and white movie. If they were, they might be lucky enough to see such greats as The Big Sleep or Double Indemnity. However, in terms of horror movies, there aren't many better than most black and white films from the early days of Hollywood. Being restricted to shooting horror films in black and white was not a detractor but a very positive rule. The director could then make the ominous shadows that are so common in scary movies even more pronounced with the stark contrast between what is light and dark. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a prime example of this. Made in 1956 by Don Siegel, this film stars Kevin McCarthy as a suburbanite convinced that his neighbors are slowly being taken over by some evil force, but of course no one believes him. As the soulless duplicates hatch from their pods and infest the town, Dr. Miles Bennell (McCarthy) is running out of time to do something. The intense storyline makes it obvious that such a movie should be, and was, incredibly lit providing deep meaningful lighting and cinematography.
The cinematographer, Ellsworth Fredericks, did an excellent job at creating an intense mood in this fantasy thriller. The predominant shadows, as in most film noir and other black and white movies of the 40's and 50's, defines the tone in which the viewer should read the characters. But what is most interesting about this film, is that only the main character sees the alien townspeople in this light when he is alone and they are attacking him. For the majority of the time, they are lit with high-key lighting, what is typically used in sitcoms today, to give the viewer a sense of perfection. They mow the lawn and walk around in the town square in an eerie brightness that it is almost uncomfortable at how normal they are trying to look. Of course when the sun sets, the mood of the same characters that were painfully boring suburbanites during the day is skewed to reflect their true purpose in the community. As Dr. Bennell hides in the neighbors bushes peeking into the basement of his "old" neighbors' home, the shadowing of him and the creatures in the house can only be described as creepy. The entire film progresses like this, continuously getting more and more shaded like a plague slowly devouring the neighborhood, until the end when Dr. Bennell is running on foot from the aliens in the street and the only light is from the chasing car's headlights. Unfortunately, for many reasons, this ending was deemed too depressing and disturbing for a audience at that time to handle, and Don Siegel was forced to add another, much brighter, scene to the end to put the audience at ease by reassuring them that everything would work out ok.
To say that modern films of today can even come close to the depth of emotion conveyed in a single shot in a film like Invasion of the Body Snatchers is preposterous. In pop culture today, people do not have the patience to try and infer what the director is saying with a certain type of framing of a shot, so therefore, any crucial plot points are written into the script, allowing the cinematography to take on a fast paced, MTV look with poorly constructed shots that simply funnel the ritalin deprived visuals into our head as quick as possible before we lose our concentration

Best:

1) It's a great example of a B-movie that became a genre classic. That alone makes it worth a look.
2) It shows how black & white filming can add elements of creepiness that's hard to duplicate in color.
3) It still makes you think about the possibility of "pod people" alien takeovers in real life (especially when one of your friends starts acting strangely).

Worst:

1) Although it's great 1950's fare, it's still low-budget and the acting was generally period melodrama. Older folks will appreciate it more than young people.
2) Aside from a short interview with Kevin McCarthy (for a talk show sometime in the 1990's) there are no special features at all. That's a real shame for this one, being that it deserves more discussion.

Recommendation:

Lovers of great oldies rate this one highly for it's nostalgia value. Others, however, may find it a bit corny by today's standards. Regardless, it's a must-have for any serious sci-fi/horror movie collector.

This is no doubt the finest sci-fi film of all-time!! The many remakes really can not compare to the original. The main reason that this stands out is size of the small town. Everyone knows each other and you get the feeling that you are one of the townspeople as the movie builds up the tension! One of the best movies ever made!!

This movie is certainly a must own for those interested in the 50s Sc-Fi genre or just Sci-Fi/Horror buffs of any era.
This movie takes us on an exacting and tension building journey through the perspective of a doctor returning back to his home town and finding that all isn't at all right.It seems a few people,young and old,are reporting that their relatives aren't who they once were.At first he doesn't seem too fazed and fluffs it off as a coincidence and/or some kind of mass hysteria,a theory put forward by a collegue of his.
But from cancelled appointmemnts, a noticable drop off of trade all around the town to some very disturbing incidents he comes to realize that there is something VERY strange afoot.
He soon finds himself caught up in a series of very quick moving events all the while trying to save himself and some friends and at the same time trying to notify authorities about this dangerous menace.It's an uphill struggle all the way and the movie is at its' scary and intense best during this period.
Kevin McCarthy and his co-star Dana Winter pull in boffo performances playing it straight down the line and have us with them the entire time.
On the technical side I had to knock off a star because even though it's fantastic to finally have this movie in widescreen I thought the prints' graininess could have been cleaned up much better for this presentation.It is very noticable in the full screen format which I thought might have been better in widescreen just because of the aspect ratio difference but such is not the case.It's not AS bad just it could have been better.
And finally for all those who have for years thought this entire movie was just a sly metaphor for the Cold War,big government vs the little guy,etc.,etc.,theories which I have never subscribed to in the least,you'll be disappointed to learn from the the star himself(in an included interview) that this was never the case.
This was originally and always has been a movie about what it is....an enjoyable bit of Sci-Fi and nothing more.
In conclusion this must have Sci Fi classic is a wonderful addition to anyones' movie library.It's a movie with a great script and plot,great acting ,one that will have you sitting on the edge of your seats and one that will stay with you LONG after you've seen it.

Based on the 1955 novella by Jack Finney, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS is the definitive filmic allegory of 1950's McCarthyist paranoia and oppression, and it remains one of the most frightening Sci-Fi movies of its era. The tight script by Daniel Mainwaring--with uncredited help from Sam Peckinpah and Richard Collins--is both excitingly fast-paced and thought-provoking, and this is further enhanced through the excellent and innovative directing of Don Siegel and the beautiful black-and-white cinematography of Ellsworth Fredericks. Of course, the acting is pretty darn good, too, most notably Kevin McCarthy's riveting depiction of the mental unhinging of a respectable citizen who uncovers a deadly conspiracy but can't get anybody else to believe him. (Yes, the film's star is, ironically, related to the U.S. senator whom after whom the pernicious political philosophy of McCarthyism is named.)

Most fans of the genre are already familiar with the basic plot. Dr. Miles Bennell, a small-town physician in rural California, returns to his practice after attendance at an out-of-town medical convention only to discover that several of his patients are suffering from the delusion that their loved ones are being replaced by emotionless duplicates. He is at first skeptical, of course, but circumstances eventually lead him to believe that his "paranoid" patients are actually on to something. But has he learned the truth in time to save himself and warn the rest of the world?

Adding to the frightening fun for modern audiences are the appearances of several actors who would later make their own marks in the horror and SF genres. Included in this bunch is Whit Bissell, who went on to co-star in TV's THE TIME TUNNEL and appear in other genre films like 1973's SOYLENT GREEN; Richard Deacon, who would go on to greater fame as Mel Cooley on TV's THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, but who also made appearances in genre films such as Hitchcock's THE BIRDS (1963), the 1967 fantasy THE GNOME-MOBILE, and the 1978 JAWS rip-off PIRANHA; and most notably, actress Carolyn Jones, who became quite well-known to fans of horror as the darkly beautiful Morticia on TV's original THE ADDAMS FAMILY in the 1960s.

The DVD from Republic offers a beautiful digital transfer of this classic black-and-white thriller in its original aspect ratio of 2.00:1. The sound quality is good, and the disc also contains a pretty cool interview with star Kevin McCarthy that was conducted circa the mid-1990s.

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS is a gradually mounting nightmare. A creeping rumor that grows into an alien takeover before your eyes. Kevin Mcarthy is perfect as the town doctor who slowly sees what is happening bit by bit to the citizens. People are just not themselves, in a way it's hard to discribe. They look the same, yet they're different somehow. Mcarthy discovers the reason in the form of gigantic pods that have been deposited in homes all over town. These pods develop into perfect copies of the residents when they fall asleep. Can Mcarthy stop this invasion? Can anyone be trusted to help him? The paranoia builds to a grand finale of dread! IOTBS terrified me as a kid and had me both checking under my bed for pods, and trying to figure out if my parents were REALLY who they seemed to be. Highly recommended...

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??

By any conceivable standard, the original INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS is one of the greatest Sci-fi films ever made. There was also an excellent sequel in 1978 starring Donald Sutherland, but it lacked the wider political situation that gave the original so much power. That the original is such a great film is a bit surprising. It was, on the face of it, merely another fifties Sci-fi film, with a cast of relatively unknown performers (except for Dana Wynter). The plot was excruciatingly simple: the residents of a small California town are being systematically replaced by clones produced by large pods that are being brought there in vast numbers. As various people that the central characters know get replaced by clones, the paranoia builds to a degree unmatched in any other film.

There has been an ongoing debate as to whether the film is best read as an attack on McCarthyism or a commentary on communist infiltration, or perhaps merely as an attack on conformity in general. In the end, I don't think it matters. What is important is the intensity of the paranoia that the situation engenders. Between the suspicion of one's peers and the incredible tension created by the need of the characters to not fall asleep (the pods take over the moment one falls asleep, if only for a brief second), this is one of the most emotionally stressful films ever made. The moment when, near the end of the film, Kevin McCarthy looks into the face of Dana Wynter and realizes that she has drifted off to sleep for a brief second is one of the most horrible moments I know in Sci-fi.

The film is just so incredibly well done that it is hard to find too many things to praise. The threat of alien invasion is greatly intensified by its taking place in a quiet, peaceful small town. The inhabitants all look so remarkably pleasant, and yet their goal is to rob each individual of his or her soul. The cinematography is extraordinary. If one watches the film on DVD and freezes the screen randomly, one thing that becomes obvious is how magnificently nearly every shot is framed. Everything-the acting, the script, the cinematography-blends together to make this not merely what is arguably the finest fifties Sci-fi film, but one of the greatest psychological thrillers ever made.