This is not an easy movie to
objectively assess. It was released in the days when most sci-fi
films were B-movies. Coming out 3 years before The Twilight Zone,
I don't think there's a single scene with production values high
enough to allow an otherwise ignorant viewer to determine that it was
from a theatrical release, rather than a work of Rod Serling.
My personal view is that this movie hit
a cultural nerve because of the time it was released. Much of the
population saw this movie as a commentary on Communism. Still others
saw it as satirical, sarcastically mocking McCarthyism and the Red
Scare, with the suggestion that good law-abiding American citizens
were going to sleep one night, and evil Communists were waking up the
next day. That does indeed appear to be all that the original is
remembered for. Personally, I find this to be a bit of a stretch.
The film was neither the first nor last to suggest that inhuman
monsters looked exactly like normal people.
The setup for the film is that Miles
Bennell (Kevin McCarthy), a Doctor, has been called back early to his
small town practice from a conference, due to a large build-up of
patients. When he arrives, however, they all mysteriously cancel
their appointments. He and his former lover (Dana Wynter) then begin
to hear reports of citizens claiming their loved ones have been
replaced by impostors. It gradually becomes clear that this is in
fact the case. Duplicates of the originals are being grown in
mysterious pods, which then absorb the memories of the originals,
replacing them.
What I find interesting about the film
is the creatures themselves. In most films about humans being
assimilated into a collective there are scenes that establish the
assimilated as monsters. This film doesn't seem to have that. While
they try to prevent the protagonists from leaving town, the Pod
People never seem hateful or malicious. In fact, they try to
negotiate the humans into surrender. To me, this suggests that they
don't see themselves as invaders, but as symbiotic. By absorbing the
memories, they believe that the original human lives on. In this
sense, the conflict is of two creatures with fundamentally different
ways of thinking: Collectivism vs. Individuality (I'm not saying the
Communism metaphor doesn't work, by any means. It’s just that I
doubt it was intended.).
The obvious comparison to this movie is
The Thing. Both films deal with aliens replacing humans, and
are based on two separate works on literature that have both been
adapted multiple times in film. The major difference that gives The
Thing a definitive edge is that John Carpenter knew the real
horror of assimilation was complete uncertainty in regards to who is
friend or foe. That's the great weakness of this movie. While that
element is used in passing, we come to understand that the aliens
cannot mimic the personalities of the original perfectly, thus anyone
who knows the original well will be able to distinguish an impostor
with fairly little effort. So, once the villains are established,
there's little real effort to keep their identities secretive.
One thing I have to give the writers
credit for is that the book-ends of the film, forced on by the studio
at the last possible second, do not weaken it. In the original
ending Bennell, the last unassimilated person in the town, makes it
to the Highway, but no one is willing to pick up the crazy guy
ranting about aliens, let alone believe him. The film would then
have closed on him looking at the camera, and telling the audience
that they were next.
The studio felt this ending was too
depressing. And so instead, scenes were added to the beginning and
end, showing that Bennell was picked up by the government and told
them his story. The government initially assumes that he is crazy,
but then found out about pods being shipped from the town. This was
actually a fairly good choice. Because rather than ending on clear
defeat or victory, the movie ends with uncertainty, and it works.
I recommend this movie about as
strongly as I would recommend a really good episode of The Twilight
Zone. It's certainly not a film anyone needs to rush out to see.
But likewise, I can't imagine anyone demanding that the sparse 80
minutes of their lives be refunded to them. It's not like the film
is hard to find.
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