THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1965 & 1978)
4 min readMay 3, 2023
My first problem to set off this blog was the criteria. I decided to simplify my life by putting my faith in the article, that is, I will dwell only within the realm of this article considering only the movies mentioned in it following the year the movie was released. (https://screenrant.com/body-snatchers-movie-the-thing-ranked-imdb/#the-invasion-2007---5-9)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) IMdB rating 7.7
In 1956, just two years after The Body Snatchers was released in bookstores, the first film adaptation was released. It was the first body snatching film ever and it revolutionized sci-fi. The film also introduced new concepts and themes to the genre like paranoia and distrust of others, helping shift sci-fi from being solely about physical struggles and adding new layers of tension and fear.
More importantly, the first Invasion of the Body Snatchers came out during the time of McCarthyism and an era of mass conformity in post-WWII America, giving the plotline of forced conformity and a fear.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1956 American science fiction horror film directed by Don Siegel. Daniel Mainwaring adapted the screenplay from Jack Finney’s 1954 science fiction novel The Body Snatchers.
The film’s storyline concerns an extraterrestrial invasion that begins in the fictional California town of Santa Mira. Alien plant spores have fallen from space and grown into large seed pods, each one capable of producing a visually identical copy of a human. As each pod reaches full development, it assimilates the physical traits, memories, and personalities of each sleeping person placed near it until only the replacement is left; these duplicates, however, are devoid of all human emotion. Little by little, a local doctor uncovers this “quiet” invasion and attempts to stop it.
The slang expression “pod people” that arose in late 20th-century U.S. culture refers to the emotionless duplicates seen in the film. Invasion of the Body Snatchers was selected in 1994 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
See the film by clicking below: Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1956 (1vid) https://ok.ru/video/5113081301542
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) — 7.4
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1978 American science-fiction horror film directed by Philip Kaufman based on the 1955 novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney.
The plot involves a San Francisco health inspector and his colleague who over the course of a few days discover that humans are being replaced by alien duplicates; each is a perfect copy of the person replaced, but devoid of human emotion.
See the film by clicking below…Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1978 (2vid) https://ok.ru/video/5113105091110
The 1978 incarnation of The Body Snatchers is the book’s most famous film to date. It had an all-star cast including Donald Sutherland, Veronica Cartwright, Leonard Nimoy, and Jeff Goldblum. The movie premiered shortly after the Jonestown Massacre, so the idea of brainwashed “pod people” was very much at the forefront of American thought.
The film became a box office success and has had an enduring legacy as one of the best sci-fi films ever. The now-infamous “scream scene” has also been memed and GIF’d and is now part of the cultural zeitgeist.
The film has been considered as one of the greatest remakes of all times, as well as one of the best science-fiction horror films. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_the_Body_Snatchers_(1978_film)
NOTES
I started to listen, couldn’t pull myself away.
To be continued…
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