Rating: 
Summary: One of the Best!
Review: This is one of the best old sci-fi movies. It is one you can watch over and over. Much better than the remake. The special effects for the time are very well done. It takes place in a small country town. Not unlike the Andy Grifith show. Where everyone knows everyone, but people are starting to act strangly. A young couple over hears a conversation and finds out that aliens are replacing people. Soon they are the only ones in the town that have not been changed. It happens wile you sleep. So they must stay awake. Soon the whole town is after them. If they don't get away, the whole world will be taken over.
Rating:
Summary: Blend of Horror and Science Fiction.
Review: Erie science fiction/horror film from 1956 in which a man (Kevin McCathry) watches helplessly as all his friends and family are "replaced" by alien pods from outer space, a fate that will be shared by the rest of the world unless he can warn the outside world quickly.Filmed in Black and White and complete with scary music.
Rating: 
Summary: An 80 minute movie with a 4 hour plot
Review: The film moves too fast and would have been better as a mini series. Too much is happening but the premise is easy to follow and the acting is acceptable. Whenever I watch this film I am always left with a creepy feeling of dispair. Overall, if you enjoy 50's science fiction, you will probably be satisfied with the video.
Rating:
Summary: Body Snatchers
Review: This is probably one of the best-known science fiction films of the 50s. Kevin McCarthy is the doctor who upon returning from a medical convention finds his hometown "different". He soon discovers that alien pods have the power to replace people with soulless look alikes (we never find out what happens to the original bodies). There are some really chilling scenes - this movie is worth watching.
Rating:
Summary: Still One of the Creepiest Movies Ever!
Review: It's beginning to show its age a bit -- OK, more than a bit -- but this original version of IBS is still one of the creepiest movies ever, masterful in its evocation of dread and paranoia. Better than either of the remakes. A "must see."
Rating:
Summary: Another '50's Gem!
Review: I've said it about other '50's Sci-Fi Films: Since they couldn't rely on big-budget effects, these old classic movies relied upon storyline and acting. Some stunk, others were gems. "Invasion" was one of the gems. Of course it's not scary by todays standards (no gratuitous violence with a mainac chopping heads in half, etc.) but this is a deep, methodic thriller that slowly builds the suspense, giving us just enough info to keep the interest. Late in the movie we find out what the subdued paranoia of Kevin McCarthy was all about, and it really pays off. The storyline, pods growing and then hatching mind-controlled replicant twins of normal people is great, and scary. It's what great Sci-Fi is made of. There is no real explanation for the pods (how they got there in the first place and who put them there) but it doesn't matter. This is another great '50's Sci-Fi movie worthy of sitting by a fire on a cold evening with a bowl of popcorn. In my opion, the newer big effects "blast-o-rama" movies don't have the same appeal. Special effects don't make a movie; writing and acting do. The newer version of "Snatchers" (with Donald Sutherland) doesn't hold a candle to this old one...just in the same way that the older "Invaders from Mars" blew away the newer Karen Black version of the same movie. Don't buy this movie if you are looking for laser-blasting aliens with blood and guts. Do buy this movie if you are looking for an intelligent, suspenseful sci-fi story with great acting.
Rating: 
Summary: They're coming, and you're next!
Review: Wonderful science fiction classic that concentrates on Kevin McCarthy's growing sense of fear and isolation. If anybody doesn't know the plot of this movie, its basic premise is that people are being replaced with alien replicas, with the only clue being a lack of emotion in the new versions. Paranoid people should not watch this film, which has also been classed as a horror film. I think it would have been better in a "Director's Cut" - originally there were no voiceovers, and the film ended with McCarthy standing in the middle of a highway, desperately trying to get someone to stop and listen to him, but the studio decided that was too bleak and demoralizing. Still, this is a great movie, only slightly less shocking for the additions. This version is presented in crisp B&W, in both widescreen and pan and scan. Also included is the original trailer and a short interview with McCarthy on some local TV show from the Seventies. I give the movie itself 5 stars, as it is one of the true classics (better than the 1978 version, and FAR better than the 1997 version), but the DVD gets 4 for its rather bland presentation.
Rating:
Summary: Superb
Review: Being a teenager in the Fifties, we went to see movies with the most outlandish titles. Expecting the usual rubber monsters and hackneyed plots, you can imagine our near-speechless response at movie's end. (We were relieved by the upbeat ending.) Despite the film's breath-taking accomplishments, it soon faded into obscurity, undone no doubt by the catch-penny title and B-movie budget. Revived periodically on tv, it quickly attracted a cult following, finally emerging from the late night underground to become the widely recognized classic that it is. There are few movies that connect at a deeply subconscious level with the audience. This is one of them, and can now be seen as a parable, not only of the 50's Red menace (Scriptwriter Dan Mainwaring was briefly blacklisted), but of the many depersonalized encounters that fill the ordinary day. The movie's one flaw - the "pop-out" replicas that make a distinctly rubbery sound as they pop from the pods in the greenhouse scene, a technical defect that may have inspired the f-x'ed remake. Frankly, I'm concerned that contempoary teens may not find this a scary or affecting movie. Styles do change as does technology, but the underlying theme that Bodysnatchers renders so effectively is timeless. Perhaps the mind-snatching forces of commercialism are winning after all. Nevertheless, for this now 60-something, my teenage quarter was never better spent than on this film, nor will yours if you haven't seen it.
Rating: 
Summary: Amazon.com sells COLORIZED version of 1956 film
Review: Film is great, but avoid the colorized version. It's unfortunate enough that the studios altered the film in the 1950s by adding unnecessary footage to the beginning and end. But at least the original film remains as the director intended in between the extra footage. The film is terribly damaged, however, by colorizing it.
Rating:
Summary: I liked it so much I went there.
Review: This is my favorite science fiction movie.Seed pods falling from outer space take root in a farmer's field, eventually taking over human bodies, as they sleep. The only problem is, the new replacements have no emotions, no need for love, no ambition and no desire. The movie is set in the town of Santa Mira, California, (in reality, filmed in the town of Sierra Madre, near Los Angeles). I vacationed in that area, driving to the town where it was done. I pulled into a gas station, asking about the movie, only to be told it was filmed across the street! I looked and there was the town square, still standing, where the pods had been passed out in the movie over 40 years ago. One incredible movie. Sam Peckinpah, the famous film director, had a few lines in the movie. He was the gas man standing in the basement. Peckinpah went on to direct such famous films as: Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) The Getaway (1972) The Wild Bunch (1969). The director of this film, Don Siegel, played the cab driver in the 1978 remake of this movie. My next trip to Los Angeles I'll have to find the famous outdoor staircase that allowed Miles and Becky to escape.
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