The Invasion

Julia Burchfield

EN 101

Adam Weinstein

October 8, 2007

The Invasion

The movie The Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a controversial one. One can view the movie in many different ways: A horror/Sci-Fi, a political allegory, or “a mirror of a particular moment in history”. The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in my opinion, is nothing more than a horror/ sci-fi movie. Although there are clear examples of McCarthyism and “The Red Scare” throughout the movie, I do not think that was what the movie was made to portray. Audiences today can relate to this movie because they can apply recent historical events to the movie. The reason McCarthyism and Communism seem so apparent in the movie is because they were occurring around the same time the movie was released, so it was natural for people and critics, like Tom Dirks and John Whitehead, to apply that to the movie.

John Whitehead stated that The Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a “Tale for our Times”, which is a statement that I agree with. The reason the movie was so popular then, and the reason why it is still being remade now, is because we can somehow relate the movie to an event in our decade. As shown in Tim Dirks’ review of the movie, the movie was first produced in 1956, and remade in: 1978, 1993, and 2007. This shows that The Invasion of the Body Snatchers is one of the best horror films ever made. The fact that directors can continue to produce this movie and that people to still watch it shows that the movie relates to the audience, no matter what decade it is shown in.

These thoughts lead me to realize that the movie is not based on “The Red Scare” of the 1950s. “The Red Scare”, lead by McCarthy, involved prosecuting people suspected of being members of the Communist party, especially government officials. If the movie was about “The Red Scare” audiences today would not watch it; it would not interest them because we are no longer dealing with that conflict. However, in Tim Dirks review, he points out certain scenes that can lead one to believe that the movie is based on “The Red Scare”. He points out that the “indifferent doctor, Dr. Dan Kaufman, who also has had a number of troubling referrals in the past few weeks, dismisses the cases of delusional paranoia as an ‘epidemic mass hysteria’". Although this can be connected to Communism, it can also be connected to threats of more recent decades, like AIDS, terrorism, “psychological revolution” (Dirks), and many others. Dr. Kaufman also states that the cause of this “epidemic mass hysteria” could be “worry about what is going on in the world”. Although I can see why this could be connected to Communism as well, I can also see how this could be related to the terrorism of 911. In the 1950s, the worry going on in the world was “will Communism take over the United States?” In 2007, which was the year of one of the remakes, people were worrying if “terrorist were going to take over the United States?” Again, this shows why the movie is still popular today; people relate to the movie because they can either view it as a classic horror/sci-fi, or they can apply current events to the movie.
Despite the fact that the movie relates to a lot of events in history, I do not think that was what the original director, Don Siegel, intended for the movie. In my opinion, I think that Don Siegel was trying to produce a horror film that could relate to all audiences. Humans losing their bodies to alien forms where they have no emotion is frightening to every human being; which is why America was so frightened of Communism in the 1950s. They wanted to be able to think for themselves, and to be individuals instead of a community as a whole. America today is afraid of terrorist taking control of our country and telling us how to live our lives. In the 1970s, Americans were afraid of contracting AIDS and not being able to live their lives the way they planned. This is why the movie is such a good horror film, it relates to each viewer because no one wants to lose their identity, freedom, or emotions.

In conclusion, I think that John Whitehead and Tim Dirks’ criticism of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers is overblown. I think that if they were to review the movie today they might think that it applied to something other than McCarthyism or Communism. Although it can relate to those two things, I think that the movie was made to be a good horror movie, and should be watched as a good horror movie, not judged as a political allegory. If the movie was truly based on those two events in history, the movie would be relevant to audiences today, which it is. A director today would not remake The Blob or The Thing (both movies from the 1950s) because they no longer related to our sophisticated audience. However, audiences today relate to The Invasion of the Body Snatchers because it is a “grade A” horror film that can be watched by people of every decade and century.

WORKS CITED

Dirks, Tim. “Invasion of The Body Snatchers (1956).” 1996. 9 Oct. 2007. http://www.filmsite.org/inva.html.
Whitehead, John. “Invasion of the Body Snatchers: A Tale for our Times”. Gadfly Online. 1998. 9 Oct. 2007. http://www.gadflyonline.com/11-26-01/film-snatchers.html.