Revision

Kylie Dekin 3

Adam Weinstein
English 101-099
15 November 2007

Simply Horror

Invasion of the Body Snatchers was not just a corny old black and white movie; it was a classic horror movie about fear and paranoia always sweeping through the country. People had fear in the 1950’s when the idea of communism, Nuclear War, and McCarthyism were occurring. Fear and paranoia still spread throughout the country like when the Terrorist Attacks occurred and when the United States went to war with Iraq. Some people will not believe something happening because deep down they are truly scared. They will not believe it until they are forced see it. Two movie reviews written by Tim Dirk and John Whitehead, both believed that the movie reflected the idea of fear of communism and McCarthyism spreading. However, I disagree with Dirk and Whitehead thinking that the movie was created to be a politically influenced movie. Invasion of the Body Snatchers was created to simply be a great horror movie with the idea of making people fear the possibility of scientific ideas taking over the country in a negative way.

In a paragraph in Whitehead’s article, it states that people “viewed the movie as a warning of the dangers of science and inventions (Whitehead).” The idea of space travel and exploration was getting popular during this time. People were terrified that space predators were going to invade and destroy the earth (Whitehead). They were also feared the idea of new inventions such as the construction of the Hydrogen bomb (Whitehead). People believed that scientific progression would affect the country negatively. Dr. Miles Bennell, played by Kevin McCarthy, explains why he thinks these giant seed pods have come to take over his town, “So much has been discovered the past few years. They may be the result of atomic radiation or weird alien organisms.” He believes that all of the scientific advances are the reasons for the chaos of his once normal town. The scientific process of cloning was taking place in the town in a negative way. Everybody was conforming to be the same. They had no emotion, love, or feelings and they all believed in the same things.

“Look! You fools! You’re in danger! Can’t you see? They’re after you! They’re after all of us! Our wives… our children…they’re here already! Your next!” Dr. Bennell yells this to all of the cars that passes by on the highway desperately trying to find help. This is an example of how people do not believe something because deep down they are truly scared. In the movie, the characters fear the idea of pods taking over the world and everybody being the exact same with no feelings. They do not want that to happen at all. At the end of the movie when Bennell is in the hospital talking to the doctors, nurses, and police officers, they think that he is going crazy and that he is ‘”mad as March hare.” They do not believe him at all. A doctor then comes in with a patient who had been in a car accident. There was a wreck between a greyhound bus and a truck. The truck driver was buried under a pile of “great big seed pods” and the driver was coming from Santa Mira, Dr. Bennell’s town (Dirks). Now all of sudden they believed Dr. Bennell’s story and went into action to stop the spread of these cloning seedpods. This example also shows how people will not believe a story that seems impossible to happen or occur until they hear it for themselves. They fear and hope that nothing like this would ever happen.

By these examples, it is obvious that Invasion of the Body Snatchers was a classic horror movie of how people were scared of new scientific ideas. They feared that the new ideas would take over the country. People today can relate to this because now we live in a scientific world. Technology is getting more advanced, cloning is actually being performed, genes are being changed by hand, and there are thousands of satellites in space. Technology is taking over the world. Of course I can see how one would relate the movie to McCarthyism and communism because they were events occurring during this time. However, I would not have known that they were occurring if I would not have read the two movie reviews explaining what events were happening in the 1950’s. When I watched Invasion of the Body Snatchers for the first time, I still thought it was a good classic horror film.

In the twenty first century, people expect a good horror movie is created with intense special affects, gory scenes, spooky music, dramatic deaths and famous actors. Thousands of dollars and a lot of time go toward all of these movies. However, sixty years ago this was not the case. Not as much money was put into movies. There was a little blood if any and very few special effects that help create horror movies in this era. What made movies scary in the early 1900s was the psychological themes. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a movie with little special effects and no bloody deaths or gory scenes. What makes this movie so suspenseful is the spine-chilling music, the “slow building tension,” (Dirks) the romantic scenes, and the fear of new scientific ideas going bad. This movie was obviously successful without the violence and blood because it “is still considered the greatest of all the horror and science fiction classics” (Whitehead), although some viewers may not agree. People are so use to the special effects and computer generated movies that they would probably laugh at this old classic because of the poor cinematography and the cheesy acting of not so famous actors. Nevertheless, this was truly a great horror film because of its simplicity. Today, directors go overboard on special affects and goriness that they forget the plot or the whole point of the movie. They end up not having a good theme and it becomes a corny movie instead of a horror movie. Invasion of the Body Snatchers was more than a grade B movie; it is an all time classic horror movie. People should see this movie with an open mind. Since not a lot of time or money was spent on the movie, it lacks acting, props, and special effects. However the plot and dialogue was very strong and it all made sense. I think the movie was very convincing because we can relate to it today. We can all fear that several scientific ideas are going to affect our country negatively, but many other ideas will also affect our country in a positive way too.

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