Film: Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956, Don Siegel

On Monday, we watched the 1st film set to our new unit, Environment, it was a classic Sci-fi film, where our planet is being invaded by aliens.



Synopsis:

"Held by the police as a raving lunatic, Dr. Miles Bennell recounts to a psychiatrist the events that have turned his life upside down. He returned to his small town the previous Thursday, having been called back from a medical conference by his nurse, who was being flooded with patients. He arrives to find that most have canceled their appointments, but the few cases he does have all have the same story: someone close to them is acting strangely as if they had been replaced. Consulting some of his colleagues, he finds that these types of reports have been coming in all week and they conclude it must be some type of mass hysteria. However, when his friends Jack and Teddy Belicec show him a partly formed body they have uncovered in their home, he begins to realize that there may be some truth to the wild stories he has been hearing".

Source: IMDb



At first, I was a bit, ' oh no a Sci-Fi film, with huge bug's eye aliens', but instead in this film takes all the 50's sci-fi films to a different way, where the invasion by aliens is so subtle that they take the shape of normal people of our planet.

Despite not having big, terrifying aliens it wasn't actually really easy to watch, the feeling of fear wasnt there as it wasnt scary, but the 'uncanny' feeling was well presented as the uneasiness on which the spectator as well as the main actor were driven throughout the film to know that once was familiar completely changed.
I really like the acting especially when the actor found that his loved one was transformed into an emotionless alien, the fear in his eyes, followed by the state of craziness in his actions was just interesting.

Also I took Phil's advice and researched how suburban America in the 50's was so obsessed by the fact that every neighbour could be a Communist, and how they feared the place they lived in.

So I found a really interesting comparison between the original 50's original version of the film and the 70's remake of the same to find the differences, where they highlight the communism.

Video Here

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