One of the best science fiction films of the 50s is about to make its way back onto the Silver Screen. The 1956 original of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In a way, the film is hard to define as it’s a science fiction story but mixed with psychological horror. Who do you trust? Is your best friend one of them? You can never tell.
It does have the underlying theme of the era. The one that permeates all science fiction of the era. Invasion and subjugation. Spawning from the idea of Commies under the bed mentality of the McCarthy era. It can be seen in, in a part, most of the science fiction films of the 50s.
We have seen multiple remakes over the decades including the 2007 film, The Invasion. I still think the best remake is the Donald Sutherland 1978 version.
This version, the original, is the most famous and best regarded – the problem with making remakes as the are always compared to the original. A film that was thought to be needed to be preserved. As such, it was selected for historical preservation by the Library of Congress in 1994.
Just remember the advice of Dr Miles Bennell’s cries of “You’re next!“.
In the sleepy Californian town of Santa Mira, strange happenings are afoot. Dr. Miles Bennell finds residents experiencing an epidemic of mass hysteria, imagining their relatives replaced by detached, emotionless copies. As Bennell gets closer to the horrifying truth – that the substitutions are part of an extraterrestrial invasion scheme and the copies are emerging from giant seed pods – the ‘pod people’ begin to close in.
Taking over UK cinemas from October 31, 2014
If you like watching classic films in the surroundings of where they should be watched then you are in for a treat in the next couple of months. Park Circus are releasing some great old, and not so old, classic films.
- Sin City – 24 August
- Ghostbusters – 30th Anniversary Reissue – 28 October
- Playtime – 7 November
- Guys and Dolls – 19 December
- Polar Express – 22 December
