Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Directed by Don Siegel
A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.
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What critics compared Invasion of the Body Snatchers to
Don Siegel directed this, the first of four movie versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
The much underrated 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers is still probably the best movie based on Jack Finney's 1955 science fiction novel, The Body Snatchers — but that doesn't make this 1956 version bad, quite the opposite.
Whatever its unfortunate flaws, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS was always worth seeing, because enough of Siegel’s original survives on the screen to make the film a genuinely creepy experience — a horror film not about death and bloodshed but about the loss of personality — the loss of one’s very self — which may in a sense be the ultimate horror, even worse than death: a sort of emotionless, zombie caricature of one’s former existence, drained of everything that gives life joy and meaning.
When they come as thrilling as Don Siegel's 1956 classic , "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", it seems ludicrous to attempt a remake.
There is something for everyone in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Like Kevin McCarthy in the 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which matched Gojira as a vibrant Cold War parable in sci-fi garb, he is the lone sane man in a world myopic to the truth; his research got him a serious prison term.
Other touchstones include the fiction of John Wyndham (“Village of the Damned,” “The Day of the Triffids”), plus big dollops of “ Invasion of the Body Snatchers ” (both the 1956 and 1978 versions) and a bit of John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” plus many other references, even to chopsocky classics.
Cinephiles will also notice shades of Don Siegel’s “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1956), Michael Bay’s “The Island” (2005) and Charlie McDowell’s “The One I Love” (2014), which fittingly starred Elisabeth Moss (“Mad Men”) in a double role.
There are nods to the 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Thriller , which also reflected the preoccupations of their eras, and, more recently, Sorry To Bother You .
It is part of a rich tradition of doppelgänger horror that encompasses works ranging from Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) to Sisters (1973) to Enemy (2013).
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That’s what Pegg and Frost want the film to do; ironically, Paul is effectively screaming the “Wake up!” message that Kevin McCarthy was driven to bellow in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Where The Day the Earth Stood Still and Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers dealt with the Red Menace and the threat of looming, mutual, nuclear Armageddon, RoboCop deals with Reagan's mad vision of a bellicose, secretive consumer wonderland as the City on the Hill.
Thematically, “Get Out” leans hard on 1956’s “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” offering a modern twist on a parable that warns of smiling friends, whose secret hearts might yearn to do you harm.
Loss of identity has long been a staple of the horror film, especially as it converged in the 1950s with science fiction, giving us one of the true classics of the genre, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), which itself was rife with McCarthy-era political subtext.
Crystalline particles rise from the ground and catch the wind (as in the 1956 sci-fi essential Invasion of the Body Snatchers) to spread the new gospel across the earth.
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In all, director Don Siegel's ("Invasion of the Body Snatchers") "Dirty Harry" comes off as a taut, well-paced cop thriller with two solid adversaries in conflict.
Siegel's ambiguity wins out, as it had done with Invasion of the Body Snatchers (anti-Red?
Don Siegal ("The Lineup"/"Invasion of the Body Snatchers") directs this ambiguous reactionary fantasy crime thriller--that can be viewed in many different ways and not necessarily as a tribute to the fascist police methods attributed to the hero cop.
Don Siegel's superb little effort, with its matter-of-fact isolation of hero Kevin McCarthy (ironic, no?) from the smarmy complacency of a small town gone to hell—and way beyond—points the way to his gripping action films of the 60s and 70s (Madigan, Coogan's Bluff, Dirty Harry).
Don Siegel ("The Lineup"/"Invasion of the Body Snatchers"/"Riot in Cell Block 11") directs one of the better prison break films.