Invasion of the Body Snatchers

The 1956 sci-fi horror film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, is one of the classic staples of Hollywood horror, sitting within the ranks of other timeless stories like Frankenstein, Dracula and the other Universal movie monsters. But while those stories presented a gothic supernatural story in a manner that, while definitely atmospheric and slow-moving, was kept in the realms of the fantastical, this film along with its 1954 original novel, The Body Snatchers written by Jack Finney, presented a world that felt believable, actively making the terror closer-to-home and therefore more intimidating. Although the original source was criticized for being scientifically incoherent, the premise of a small town being taken over by exact duplicates of themselves created from alien seed pods, was sturdy enough to birth several film adaptations, as it has been remade a total of three times throughout the years. Even after so much time and with other stories exploring this concept in larger ways, the original film can still make people uneasy. In the small town of Mill Valley, a doctor named Miles Bennell (played by Kevin McCarthy) returns home after a period of time away to find that a lot of the residents have been urgently asking for him about some undisclosed medical issue. Although it seems to have gone away with those in question no longer needing treatment, Miles starts to notice some strange goings-on in this once quaint little community, with the main issue being that multiple people claim that their loved ones aren’t who they say they are. The truth hits Miles and his girlfriend, Becky (played by Dana Wynter) like a truck when they are shown a corpse with undefinable features which over the course of time starts to some a resemblance to one of their friends, Jack (played by King Donovan). Realizing that the town has been invaded by beings that have the potential to copy a person (which includes discarding said individual after they fall asleep), Miles and Betty become the main target of this new race, who are hoping to spread all throughout the world, and will do anything to prevent these two from letting humanity know ahead of time. While definitely simple by today’s standards and houses some overwritten dialogue and basic characters, the film has a very engrossing atmosphere, solid performances, effective suspense building, and enough of a brain underneath its hypothetical situation to form a believable classic.

If you were to look at how this movie handles some of its horror element, it would seem a little different to how movies would do it nowadays or even usually back then. There is a certain hoe-hum quality about this movie that paints it as a picture made in and featured in the 1950s, which you’d imagine would make it a little hard to get actively scared by. However, what this film does is not rely on dramatic reveals, booming score or loud jump scares, but instead on a subtle unassuming atmosphere that slowly but surely unveils its true horror in a sense that is deathly quiet and extremely foreboding. The premise feels like it could be overplayed very easily, with the replacements acting in a noticeably different way in order to properly convey to the audience when a switch has occurred, but because the film allows the actors and the story to play out in a mostly realistic manner, it makes everything feel all the creepier when something abnormal does present itself. The film is only about 80 mins and while definitely condescend and there are times where you can feel the characters jumping to conclusions in a pretty unrealistic manner, it uses that brief time to get across relevant information, character backstory, and the purpose behind its premise, which certainly houses some political allegories of the time (with the threat of communism and not being able to trust your own next door neighbor surely factoring in somewhat into the creation of the original book), but remains just vague enough that it could be in reference to multiple other things as well (something all great stories with double meanings are able to achieve). The directing by Don Sigel adopts a personality that has a pleasant demeanor about it, yet is still capable of capturing the underlying darker qualities as well, presenting the film in a way that feels almost noir-esque during the later stages, with a narration persisting over the whole film, actors that feel genuine but feature just enough of a theatricality to feel cinematically tooled, visuals that are wonderfully framed in parts and really get across a distinct uncomfortable atmosphere, and even though the most chilling parts of the film are when the music cuts and the visuals speak for themselves, the score that is present has a flair and activeness that makes the suspenseful moments still surprisingly effective. With that said, there are some filmmaking choices that don’t always benefit the tone of the story. The film will sometimes halt its pace to discuss the themes and what the doubles represent and mean, and anytime it is mentioned, the writing and scripting by Daniel Mainwaring never feels organic or natural, always feeling like a page right out of the original book rather than spoken words from terrified townsfolk (he was an author, so that style does track). The film also has a prologue and epilogue that while not bad, doesn’t add anything to the overall movie except to force in a happy ending (which the studios insisted on even though it already had a wonderfully cryptic note to close on).

The characters aren’t extremely complicated people and really only serve to act as survivors once everything gets revealed, but for the brief time that they are given and the little amounts of personality provided, they work okay. You do get a decent feel for this environment and community so that when they are changed into soulless dolls working for a seemingly alien hivemind that prioritized apathetical bliss, it is a little disturbing, and due to the prementioned showy acting, it allows some of these performers to go a little loose without feeling over-the-top. Keven McCarthy as the lead has the right amount of charisma to be likeable, and his descent from stable non-believer with good intentions to frantic staunch believer with a hysterical look in his eye, is very well portrayed and delivered. Dana Wynter is also fairly decent as the character of Becky, only really acting as a generic love interest, but does so in a nice enough way as both her and McCarthy do have decent chemistry so they are nice pairing to see together, even if said romance isn’t that interesting (when they’re running for their lives from sprinting alien doubles, they abruptly kiss for a second and then that’s about it). The rest of the cast portray the remaining townspeople in a way that makes it hard to gage whether or not they’ve been changed or not. Because the replicants contain all the same memories, personality traits and even quirks of the original people, there isn’t an exact one-to-one manner of telling which is which, so creating a scenario where a friendly face is untrustworthy keeps everything on edge. People like King Donovan, Carolyn Jones, Larry Gates, Ralph Dumke, Virginia Christine, and Jean Willes all understand the assignment and do a great job playing regular people in one moment and then these smiling soulless beings the next.

The film feels like it almost acts as an initial presentation of what the late 1950s anthology series, The Twilight Zone would later become, in that it presents a tale that while simple in framework, has a bountiful amount of subtext to explore, features a similar tone of voice that can be strangely calm and comforting one moment and then subtly terrifying the next, acting that shares a similar kind of personality, subjects of horror that are usually more scientific or psychological (even the supernatural ones were played a little more grounded) and visuals, music and atmosphere which help to build up the story in a meaningfully distinct manner. While it doesn’t appear that anyone who worked on this movie was also attached to said show (at least in a big way), this film undoubtedly helped inspire how it would go about telling its stories, and a lot of the strengths of that show, are here as well. The visuals aren’t anything dramatic, and even for a horror film of that era, there isn’t any grotesque monster or special-effects creature that shows up on screen later on. The budget of the film was quite small, and outside of a few giant seed pods, nothing about the film feels like it’d require a lot of money, but the film still uses its small status to its advantage. The community’s normal unassuming look, from how the people walk around town to how they tend to their homes in a very commonplace manner, makes the eventual turnaround all the freakier by comparison (especially when a collective of them walk out into the middle of town square in silence). The cinematography by Ellsworth Fredericks feels pretty straightforward during the first act, but the second things start to ramp up, there are a few fun twisted angles that not only capture the bizarre and surprising feeling of the whole situation, but the multiple above shots that get a good look at the open space around them, really conveys the feeling of being watched and feeling helpless against a larger power. The shadows and lightwork result in a lot of great facial reactions (especially near the end), the musical score by Carmen Dragon has a suaveness to it that adds to the noir-esque feel of the story, yet the rising jolts in the scary scenes are all the more effective because of it, and although minimal in how much it shows on screen in terms of outlandish material, those brief showcases of the pods and the birthed human meat puppets are still jarring enough to show that things aren’t right in this town.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, much like a lot of classics of that era, may not feature as much complexity, depth or nuance as other stories that have taken similar ideas and retooled them in the modern era, but for over half a century ago, this film manages to portray this great idea in a pretty solid manner. The film is really run by the atmosphere, the execution of the idea, and the visuals and audio components that build upon the uncomfortable vibe, as the script is decent but doesn’t always feel the most authentic, the ending should’ve stopped on a more ambiguous note rather than the safe and bland option, and the characters while not unlikeable and are played pretty well, aren’t very memorable. For an old-fashioned creepy time, this throwback movie is one that is worth succumbing to.