Popular reviews

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  Review by josh lewis ★★★★ 4

  "an epidemic of mass hysteria" that would later become the ferocious playground of romero here is drawn by siegel in ruthless b-noir economy. such a straight shot of pure thriller narrative movement and paranoid mood first and foremost that it makes a lot of sense that it was malleable to whatever political read anybody wanted and still wants of it: anti-mccarthy, anti-communist, anti-suburban conformity, etc. nice LA location work, solid fx for the goopy pods, and an appropriately anguished ending if you ignore the obviously studio-mandated epilogue where the FBI gets called in to save the day.

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  Review by Todd Gaines ★★★★ 22

  Something is a little bit odd about the residents of Small Town USA in Don Siegel's tale of paranoia at its most paranoid. The Good Doctor. Forrest Gump-esque run. X-ray. Insurance salesmen are shady, if you don't believe me watch the Fargo TV series. Pretend Uncle? Ultra sexy Becky Driscoll. Pretend Mommy? The Lawnmower Man. Danny the Shrink. Jukebox dancing. Jack doesn't look like Jeff Goldblum. Cuckoo clock. The ultimate John Doe. Morticia Addams? It's alive? I've heard that line before. Badass doctors smoke cigarettes. I'm sacred of creepy basements. Body double? Nick the Cop. If you don't want fingerprints, find some acid. The way Becky Driscoll looks in her jeans. Cellar dweller. Speedy recovery. Bootleg photosynthesis. I wish my…

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  Review by Geoff T ★★★★ 10

  Geoff T's Hoop-Tober 6.0 Challenge
  Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

  The 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a personal favourite of mine, but it’s earlier version had curiously evaded me for years, until now. While I can't deny my love for its remake, this 1956 original surprisingly (for me, at least) manages to be just as brilliant on its own merits, if not better in some ways. A widely intense sci-fi shocker that holds up better than most.

  Santa Mira, California is an ordinary American town undergoing a very unordinary phenomenon, in which people are convinced that their friends and family aren't who they appear to be (or the 'Capgras delusion'). Dr. Miles Bennell is one of the…

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  Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★★ 3

  Adapted by Daniel Mainwaring from Jack Finney's 1954 sci-fi novel The Body Snatchers, this film ingeniously positions sleep as a liability and an adversary. Falling asleep is natural relaxation and a prerequisite, but here it's the mechanism of termination, with arguably it’s sweeping themes simultaneously incorporating commentary on McCarthyism and of the threats of social consonance. It's director Don Siegel, one of the outstanding Hollywood genre directors, took merely nineteen days to shoot the movie and it involved no second-unit work. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a harrowing cinematic nightmare which possesses one of the most extraordinary conclusions ever filmed.

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  Review by CJ Probst ★★★ 9

  You will be assimilated

  This 1956 science fiction thriller has a cool concept and is even more interesting taking into account all of the societal pressures responsible for its conception. It is also one of the somewhat rare examples of a film that has a remake that was far superior to the original, typical of sci-fi as seen with The Fly and The Thing. Its analogies to the Cold War paranoia of Communism are easy to see. It is about creatures from outer space that can assume exact likenesses to those around you, making it very difficult to distinguish your friends from your enemies. Just like that Red Commie Menace. Old Mrs. Everett next door could very easily just be…

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  Review by Justin Peterson ★★★★

  🎃(Halloween Movie Fest 2021)🎃

  (Criterion Laser Disc Collection)

  Something strange is brewing in the town of Santa Mira, as more and more people suddenly become shells of their former selves.

  "Only when we have to fight to stay human do we realize how precious it is to us."

  With the 70s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers being so good, I was not anticipating that the original classic would hold up so well. This is the story of how an outbreak of alien pods has begun to duplicate the population, and eliminate their remains. I enjoyed the noir style of this film with the main character being a doctor with doubts about these outlandish claims at first. Until he…

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  Review by Travis Lytle ★★★★½ 13

  Don Siegel's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is a horror film with very little onscreen horror. Instead, the horror is that of idea and of suggestion. It is the creeping horror of paranoia, of the fear that you or your loves ones are not what they seem. This horrific idea flows through Siegel's film, effortlessly gripping any audience susceptible to these fears.

  "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" follows Kevin McCarthy's Santa Mira, California doctor as he is faced with patients complaining of loved ones acting differently or not being themselves at all. When the doctor pokes around the phenomenon, he finds that his town is under siege by forces turning the townsfolk into emotionless, soulless shells of their former selves.…

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  Review by jaywill ★★★★

  The best horror movies are the ones set in broad daylight, with a legitimately terrifying concept that that doesn’t overstretch the reality of your imagination. Not a single jump scare, not a single loud noise. Just pure dread.

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  Review by Wade ★★★★½

  Such a classic

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  Review by dmartsfilm ★★★★ 4

  You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, the Twilight Zone!
  
  I absolutely love when I watch films that remind me of episodes of The Twilight Zone! To be able to stretch a premise that would fit perfectly into a 25 minute segment into a feature film length experience is a lot of fun to see. For this one to have a low budget and be an unapologetic B movie and still be an absolute classic science fiction film is an achievement worthy of praise. 

  Director Don Siegel was one of…

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  Review by 20oldboy03 ★★★ 7

  „Invasion der Körperfresser“ nahm seine Prämisse kollidierend mit meinen Aversionen zu den 50ern wortwörtlich auf und fertigte den anderen Werken in nichts nahestehend ein Duplikat, eine Kopie, eine Reproduktion etlicher Konsorten selbiger Dekade.

  Don Siegels 1956 in die Kino erschienenes Werk besitzt nämlich selbige mir immer wieder aufstoßenden Punkte eines einfach dem Jahrzehnt „geschuldeten“ Machart wie dem, in heutiger Sicht, durchaus befremdlichen Schauspiel (hier jedoch mehr als anschaulich weil nie zu sehr aus der heutigen Norm), der in den Mund gelegten Dialoge die ein Abziehbild der damaligen Zeit wiederspiegeln was durchaus seine Reize als Zeitdokument bergen kann, doch durchzogen von sehr festgelegten Hierarchien ist, einer Inszenierung die Plot-Points einfach ankündigt diverser Kameraeinstellungen, dem Spiel und dem Einsatz der Schauspieler wie…

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  Review by Erin 🍺 ★★★★ 2

  The pod people of today are just anti vaxxers change my mind