Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Invasion of the Body Snatchers was first filmed in 1956, directed Don Siegel and then later remediated in 1978 by Philip Kaufman. It was one of the first films to introduce the concept of cloning, eliciting fears of a human race being taken over by humanoids who lack any moral or emotional agency. While both films maintain similar plot lines, the varied renderings of their posters suggest the contrasting ways in which they approach cloning, human agency, and cultural fears.

The poster on the left comes from the 1956 version, and I would say that at first glance, it looks nothing like a science fiction film. The two most prominent elements of the poster are the groups of people scattered throughout, moving from the foreground to the background, as well as the handprint stretching across the entire space. The poster is meant to look as if the humans are running from something, and the handprint suggests that what they are running from is actually quite human, devoid of monstrosity.

This visualization might suggest a sort of reverse colonialism, but minus the racial undertones. With the postwar apprehensions during this time period, many feared political upheaval from the inside. In Katrina Mann’s article for Cinema Journal, she writes, “The ubiquitous homogeneity of Invasion of the Body Snatchers sutured audience identification to an idealized suburban whiteness besieged by outsiders who force a new and foreign version of “mongrelized” homogeneity on a suburban town” (52). In a way, this poster represents how, with the lack of explicit racialization and difference, this community fears the uncanny more than what is more obviously 'other'.

On the other hand, the poster from the 1978 collector’s edition presents a completely different rendering of the same theme. Only two individuals are displayed facing each other with some kind of transmission taking place between them. Rather than displaying a community running from a humanoid force, we are presented with figures that look outwardly alien. A key aspect of this poster rests on the fact that, similar to the 1956 poster, we cannot tell which is the true human and which is the humanoid; yet, both seem to look alien. I would argue that that, as demonstrated by the poster, the film does not hinge as much on the fear of the uncanny, or familiarity, but rather it hinges more on visual difference and explicit alien-ness. Similar to the 1956 poster, a certain fear of reverse colonialism that might stem from the ongoing Cold War is present; but rather than being subject to homogeneity, the fear stems from difference, or, arguably, racialized difference.


Mann, Katrina. ""You're Next!": Postwar Hegemony Besieged in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"" Cinema Journal 44.1 (2004): 49-68. JSTOR. Web.