Essay 6

Ashley Darnell 3

Essay three- Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Invasion of the Body Snatchers has been deemed worldwide as a hysteria movie revolving around the Communist Movement, but other evidence has led me to believe otherwise. Worldwide hysteria has always been present no matter what era. Most of the notorious mass hysteria events have been over science, terrorism, or politics. The fact that this film has been remade numerous times helps to prove that it is not just about one specific movement. This furthermore makes one think that it was not a film only about Communism, but more of a sci-fi horror film about worldwide mass hysteria meant to fright the viewers.
Many critics have numerous different reactions to this film. Some believe the movie is showing the mass hysteria of Communism or McCarthyism, while others simply believe it is showing the struggle with worldwide conformity as a whole. In a review by Tim Dirks, Dirks makes several good points proving that the accusations about this movie being filmed around the ideas of Communist hysteria are too vague and was open to many different interpretations. For example, Dirks says that, “the theme of the cautionary, politicize film was open to varying interpretations, including paranoia toward spread of harmful ideology such as socialistic Communism, or the sweeping mass hysteria of McCarthyism and the blacklisting of Hollywood, the spread of a unknown malignancy or virulent germ, or the numbing of our individuality and emotional psyches through conformity and group-think.” Also, this gives further reasoning to why the film has been remade four different times, each movie estimated to be made about 20 years apart. The first Invasion of the Body Snatchers in 1956 was “an allegory for Communism and McCarthyism.” The second, also called Invasion of the Body Snatchers, created in 1978 was “an allegory for the psychological revolution of the 1970’s and self-help books.” A few years later in 1993 Body Snatchers was created which “resembles a foreign, terrorist siege.” Finally, the most recent one created this year called, The Invasion in which “a flu-like virus brought to Earth by a crashed space shuttle, turning victims into cold, emotionless, people after they sleep.” All of these remakes are prime examples that Invasion of the Body Snatchers are sci-fi films about the world around them. Of course the generation of 1956 are going to relate it to Communism or McCarthyism due to the fact that was the hysteria they were experiencing. If that movie had been made in 2001 when the horrific event of 9/11 happened in America then the people in the USA would possibly have a different interpretation of the movie. It would be the worldwide hysteria of terrorism the people went through. Some do not believe that Don Siegel directed that film intending for it to be specifically about Communism. He made a great sci-fi horror film and left it open for his audience to interpret the way they wanted. Telling someone who firmly believes it was not made specifically about Communism is not going to change their mind. That is what makes it such a great sci-fi. A sci-fi is intended to make someone’s imagination propel into a different time and place that one can relate to. For instance, being born in the present day causes this generation to react dramatically different to a movie from the fifties than someone who lived during that time period.
I would describe this film as a good horror film because not many like it can keep me on the edge of my seat, but Invasion of the Body Snatchers had me hanging on the edge of mine. Although it is very different from most horrors I was wont to, I would recommend it because it is a captivating, enthralling horror.