Don Siegel’s INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956) is a fun movie and a bonafide sci-fi/horror classic for the resonance of its premise alone. A group of friends notice some people acting odd in their California town, then find a strange humanoid drone body that turns out to be the result of alien seeds that drifted through space and grew pods that create lookalike bodies of humans and replace them. The doppelgangers duplicate every cell and even the memories of the infected, but they lack human emotions. The more observant people start realizing their loved ones aren’t themselves, but nobody believes them.
It’s just such a timelessly unsettling idea – sensing that something isn’t quite right, not being able to convince anybody, even questioning it yourself, until you realize it’s a massive conspiracy. The one thing maybe creepier than finding an unfinished clone unconscious in your basement or greenhouse – what in the holy fuck!? – is seeing people gather in a parklet to distribute truckloads of pods for infiltrating the surrounding locales. They’ve taken over enough of the town that they’re comfortable doing this out in the open now.
