Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman, 1978)

This movie talks about a fear that is most deep and disturbing. The fear of waking up one day and find that the person that lives with you is no longer the person that you knew, but someone else. A person without his own character. A person most threatening and scary. A person that will eventually do you bad and he will harm you. And the nightmare doesn't stop there but it goes and fills the whole society after some time. After some time you feel that you are the only one left that you are not some kind of moving object in this place. And that's why we are talking about an invasion. An invasion that didn't happen with lasers and guns, but with the power of the mind. The people are not dying, but they change. They become empty, without their distinctive characteristics. They become some kind of a mindless puppet that is here only to produce and live a life that is most unsatisfying. And the ones that stay behind are the ones that they are going to suffer the most. The ones that still have their brains are the ones that they are going to feel deeply threatened, they are going to feel that they are living in a world of zombies, a world that has no place for them. That is the ultimate nightmare, not waking up and find that there is a war outside your window, but there is another world outside your window, a world that you will never fit in. And then you become an outcast, a virus, an insect. A guy that you live only to bring trouble to the good and hard working citizens of this society.

The Invasion Of The Body Snatchers can really work also as a metaphor. A metaphor for the evil that comes in a society, whether that is fascism or any other extreme thing. But it can also work as the thing that it is. A game that the participants have no longer the control of themselves. You can say that this model fits our modern societies where the individual is lost and can't find a way in his own society. The alienation that we seem to witness or feel in our modern world fits perfectly with the story of Body Snatchers. We have our feelings, we have our thoughts but there is no one out there to share them with. We feel alone, we feel threatened, we feel that these people that surround us speak another language from us. And the more different we are, the bigger the problem that we are having with society. Because society hates the different. It wants all of us to be the same. To love and to hate the same things. To be obedient, to be like the ones in Invasion. To be walking dead. To work, to produce and then nothing else. No feelings, no thoughts. Just simply existing without a fucking reason. Invasion Of The Body Snatchers is a movie that can be read in many ways. It's a movie that seems to be a simple science fiction horror film but there is definitely more to it. The invasion doesn't have to be from aliens as the film says. It can be from within. From inside the society. From us. The evil that comes from us.