by Julian Spivey

The 1950s were known for low budget science fiction/horror B-pictures. Most of these ‘50s B-pictures were considered movie trash like the famed Ed Wood film Plan 9 from Outer Space. However, one of these films did strike a chord with audiences and film critics alike. Don Siegel’s 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers went from $420,000 B-picture to finding itself on the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is basically a story about how it’s hard to tell your friends from your enemies. It’s also the story of a normal, small Californian town with one paranormal secret. Kevin McCarthy plays Miles Bennett, a doctor who is returning to his hometown after sometime away. Almost immediately suspicious events start to take place when an old friend mentions that her uncle seems normal in every way, but that there is something different about him. She claims that he is void of emotions. Bennett, being the man of medicine he is, assures her that nothing is wrong with her uncle. Multiple citizens confront the doctor about similar family members and he starts to think more of it. When the doctor is called to another friend’s house to investigate a faceless corpse he begins to realize something is amiss as the corpse’s face transforms overnight into that of his friends. It is discovered that there are plant-like pods in the town that have found there way into everyone’s homes and transform people as they sleep. Soon the entire town has been transformed except for Bennett and his old high school sweetheart, Becky, played by Dana Wynter. The thrill of the movie comes when the townspeople attempt to transform Miles and Becky. Becky is frightened about the possibility of a world where everyone is the same, a world without love and faith. The two escape to the near mountains being chased by the townsfolk and Miles leaves Becky safely in an abandoned cave so he can search for help. Upon his return is the most horrific and unique scene of the movie. Bennett then finds himself running along a crowded highway screaming one of the most famed lines in cinema history, “They’re here already. You’re next… you’re next…you’re next.”

The film was originally supposed to end upon Bennett’s exclamation of “you’re next.” However, the movie studio thought that it would have been too dark of a scene for audiences to take. The studio enforced that a prologue and an epilogue be added to the final production.

Over the years since the film’s initial release viewers have suggested that the film could possibly be an allegory with the pods representing Communism, an issue that was big at the time. Siegel however always dismissed those claims saying that it was nothing more than an alien invasion story.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers has since been remade two times: in 1978 starring Donald Sutherland and again this year as The Invasion with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.