10 Apocalypse Horrors That Broke All The Rules
4. Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers
It’s an oldie but a goldie. In the 1950s when this was released, apocalypse films were all about wars and nuclear annihilation - apart from maybe World Without End that dared to give us post-apocalypse mutants and terrible special effects - so this sticks out as something that dared to be different.
Pods have landed in a field after travelling through space, and they are capable of replicating any living being. People are being replaced by exact copies of themselves, but the copies are devoid of emotion and humanity.
At first those who bring up their suspicions that something dodgy is going on are dismissed. It’s blamed on the Capgras delusion: the irrational belief that your loved ones have been replaced by false versions of themselves. Well, this time it’s not irrational!
In a way this film sits in the pre-apocalypse part of the timeline, as events unfold in time with the extraterrestrial world-alterations slowly beginning to take their toll. People must convince the world of what is going on before it’s too late to fix things, as soon enough the population will have been quietly replaced with stoic clone people.
It’s a bit like Stepford Wives but on a wider scale and with less social commentary - definitely worth a watch if you’re after a classic horror with a twist.