Invasion of the Body Snatchers

The real pod people are the ones who claim Invasion of the Body Snatchers is some sort of metaphor for McCarthyism or Cold War Malaise or something. It was a B-grade horror film from the mid-’50s, which means it’s a B-grade comedy for the mid-’00s. Director Don Siegel himself, who’s been granted a dubious retrospective at Film Forum, never claimed he was making anything more than an alien invasion movie. The studio even imposed an awful flashback bookend, complete with wavy vertical-line fadeout and fade-in, to give it a happy ending; Siegel’s original cut had the aliens conquering the human race.