Invasion of the Body Snatchers Blu-ray Review
Does Round-Up work on Pod People?
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, June 19, 2012
There are some films that make such a strong first impression they virtually imprint themselves into the subconscious at
an
almost unfathomable level. I can't say for sure when I first saw the Don Siegel version of
Invasion of the Body
Snatchers, only that I was very young—probably only six or seven—and had stayed up
way past my
bedtime
to see it on some late show airing that my eldest sister repeatedly warned me not to. (Any child psychologist will tell
you
not to argue so vociferously unless you actually
want your child—or pesky little brother—to do what you're
arguing
against.) At any rate, I remember to this day watching transfixed with horror as poor Kevin McCarthy recounted the
nefarious happenings of his bucolic and seemingly perfect little American town, where all the inhabitants were slowly
but
surely being replaced by pod people. The one salient piece of information I took away from that first, primal viewing is
that I must never,
ever fall asleep under any circumstances, and so I lay in bed that night trying with all my six
or
seven year old might not to drift off to slumberland. Of course I failed, and I awoke the next morning with a violent
start,
wondering if I were still the same kid or had been replaced by a slimy pod version of myself which no doubt had been
growing in the dank climes of my bedroom closet.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is one of those films whose
cachet grew considerably in the years after its initial release, a release which in fact received almost no significant
notice at the time. But slowly over the course of several years, and aided by those very late night broadcasts that first
ensnared me in the fear of sleeping, the film has emerged as one of the most iconic horror – science fiction offerings of
the mid-fifties.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers has been endlessly debated in terms of supposed subtextual
elements, including its supposed allegorical treatments of Communism and McCarthyism, but the bottom line is, every
possible subtext and/or allegory can be stripped away from this film and there's still one of the most disturbing
depictions of incipient paranoia ever caught on celluloid.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is just downright
scary in a way few if any modern day, "show it all and then some" horror flicks ever are.
Along with the ubiquitous critical analyses peering into the supposed hidden layers of
Invasion of the Body
Snatchers (layers the filmmakers as well as original novelist Jack Finney deny), an almost equal amount of trees
have
bit the paper mill dust in articles decrying the fact that director Don Siegel and producer Walter Wanger were forced to
tack on a framing device to
Invasion of the Body Snatchers, bookends which if not exactly providing a happy
ending at least don't send the audience out into that good night wondering if creepy crawly pod people are about to
replace
them. One thing that is uniformly overlooked in this probably rightful disparagement is the fact that our
first glimpse of hero Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) is one of an apparent pop eyed, crazy haired madman. Miles is
ranting
and raving about his town having been taken over by duplicates and a consulting psychiatrist has been brought in to
examine the harried and apparently insane man. What's so striking here is that we're introduced to this man in the
throes
of an apparent psychotic episode, one which contrasts brilliantly with the buttoned down, ultra professional doctor we
ultimately meet in the flashback which makes up the bulk of the film.
Miles has been called back from an out of town convention to his sylvan little California burg because a rash of people
have shown up at his waiting room unwilling to discuss their ailments with anyone but him. That's his first clue that
something is amiss, a clue that is magnified by a young boy almost getting hit by Miles and his nurse on the drive home
from the train station as he runs panicked from his mother. Once he returns to his office, Miles has the chance to catch
up with a former love interest of his, Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter), a beautiful young woman who has just returned to
Santa Mira after having spent the last few years abroad. But Miles and Becky are products of recent divorces, and
there's little doubt there's a romantic spark being rekindled between the two old paramours. Becky confides in Miles
that her cousin Wilma (Virginia Lentz) is suffering from a delusion that her Uncle Ira isn't
really her Uncle Ira, and
Miles agrees to look in on her. At almost the same time, the little boy who was running in the street shows up with his
Grandmother, hysterically insisting that his Mother is
not his Mother. Obviously something is not quite right in
the State of California.
Miles shrugs off the weirdness but finally is awakened (no pun intended) to the reality of what's going on at the home
of his good friends Jack (King Donovan) and Teddy (Carolyn Jones). The two have discovered something rather
disturbing which they share with Miles and Becky—it's a weird, plantlike "version" of Jack that is growing but hasn't yet
reached maturity. Miles tries to take fingerprints and heads off to do further investigation, while Teddy suddenly sees
the doppelganger open its eyes, at which point she insists that she and Jack get the hell out of Dodge. In the
meantime, Miles discovers what looks like a plantlike version of Becky growing in her cellar. He begins to put two and
two together with regard to all the paranoid fear by townspeople that their loved ones are being replaced by doubles,
and the central part of the film is underway.
Subtext or allegory aside, what's so fascinating about
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is how fiendishly, almost
black humorously, it deconstructs the conformity of the fifties by positing two scared people who don't want to give in to
the "peer pressure" of toeing the pod person line. What's incredibly interesting here is how it's downright
difficult to
tell who is a pod person and who isn't, something resulting from the very repressed atmosphere of mid-fifties America,
and something that plays into the terror that Miles and Becky feel as they slowly become the only non-pod people in
Santa Mira. This is a film that plays elegantly on the inherent paranoia of the nuclear age and, yes, even the incipient
fear of Communists and other ghoulies who would deprive Americans of their right to—well, conform. And
that's
one of the central ironies of
Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It's as if the pod people were actually taking the
American Dream to its next level and Miles and Becky are simply being churlish not to comply.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers was filmed on a relatively measly budget, but it rarely shows. Siegel frames
everything brilliantly, and the lo-fi
ethos of the piece actually blends in perfectly with the unassuming charms of
small town Americana in the mid-fifties. There are some standout sequences in the film, including some really goofily
scary moments with the pods coming alive in an overly oozing fashion, and, later, at the climax when Miles realizes that
he may be all alone in the world, there are two fantastic close-ups that are simply riveting and which convey an
incredible amount of terror with absolutely no violence or gruesomeness whatsoever. In fact, a lot of
Invasion of
the Body Snatchers is positively quaint, working up its patent paranoia from suggestion and implication rather than
outright denotation.
Daniel Mainwaring's adaptation of Jack Finney's original novel is virtually flawless, even with the studio imposed
bookending segments. Rarely has a growing sense of paranoia been so brilliantly portrayed on screen, and the fact
that it all takes place in a seemingly calm and structured society makes it all the more terrifying. Performances are spot
on throughout, with McCarthy and Wynter both extremely appealing as the leads. Trivia buffs should keep an eye out
for a certain townsman, Charlie, the meter reader. That's none other than future directing legend Sam Peckinpah in
one of his few acting roles. Despite the fact that
Invasion of the Body Snatchers has been
such an
influential film through the years (even sparking two inferior remakes), it is still an incredibly bracing and fresh
experience, a truly one of a kind thriller that does in fact work on several levels, but which admirably doesn't need any
other than its fundamental elements to create its sense of encroaching foreboding terror.
