Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers was a surprise in the vein of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead or Ishiro Honda’s Godzilla – films that transcend their b-movie, sci-fi/horror origins and have something far richer and more substantial to say about the human condition that has lasted far longer than the cultural moment that gave birth to the fears they originally articulated. Siegel’s direction is sharp and effective, cold and unsparing. You’re glued to the edge of your seat from the beginning, right up to the hollow victory at the end. I find it absolutely fascinating that a film that was originally made to warn against the threat of encroaching communism could end up – 60 years later – playing today as a warning against the dangers of mass conformity and a cry of despair at the thought that the country we thought we knew was replaced overnight by cold and callous, unfeeling pod people from another planet.