INVASION OF THE BODYSNATCHERS

When Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) returns home to his small California town of Santa Mira, he is confronted by strange reports from several of his patients, who insist that their relatively begign relatives are in fact imposters. After some initial skepticism, Miles is convinced when, during a barbecue with some friends, he discovers two huge seed pods that burst open to release a bubbly fluid and two incomplete human replicas, one of which looks like himself! Speculating that a bizarre alien invasion is underway, Miles and his love interest Becky (Dana Wynter) attempt a getaway with the entire town of ‘alien converts’ hard on their heels.

One of the most popular paranoid films from the Golden Age of American Sci-Fi, the film is both an ambivalent Cold War allegory and an extraterrestrial terror tale as it dramatizes the dangers of social conformity and the threat of invasion coming from both outside and inside one’s own community. (pandemic panic, anyone?) And the film’s pessimistic ending, as Miles wanders onto a highway and shouts “You’re next!” directly into the camera, will make you wonder who you’re really sleeping next to at night. Enjoy a pristine 35mm print projected on the big screen in ‘Superscope’! (Screening sponsored by artist Maurice Roy.)

Guest speaker: Mafalda Ade has a degree in film production from the École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL) and is currently pursuing an MA in film studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of cinema at Concordia University. She has previously worked on several documentary and feature productions and taught courses in film genre.

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