The creepy, spellbinding 1956 science fiction classic INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS is this week’s newest RRH review!
Really strange things are happening in a small California town. Seemingly-ordinary folks are acting weird. Rather than being their usual selves, they’ve become sullen, withdrawn, and emotionless, almost like living zombies. Dr. Miles Bennell (star Kevin McCarthy) and his girlfriend Becky (Dana Wynter) discover to their horror that their friends and neighbors are slowly assimilating to a bizarre conspiracy from outer space to replace human beings with clones, stemming from giant pods!
Joining us as Special Guest Lecturer is filmmaker and cinephile Katie Kametz as she joins host Professor Cesare Augusto. Together, they analyze just what makes INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS so unique and different compared to other, more conventional 1950s sci-fi pictures. They explore filmmaker Don Siegel’s moody directional approach that adds to the film’s gripping tone (years before he took the reins as director of DIRTY HARRY), as well as the film’s supposed allegory to the alleged growing Communist presence of its era, and the film’s incredibly graphic special effects that were ahead of their time.
Aspiring science fiction directors looking to engross their pictures with more profound storytelling and deep characters should absorb INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS to make their projects more significantly out of this world!
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