10 Most Dangerous Cinematic Aliens
5. Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978) - The Body Snatchers
Based on Jack Finney’s original novel The Body Snatchers and itself a remake of a 1956 film, this Philip Kaufman work blends science fiction with big city paranoia and the 1970s emphasis on individualism in the American society.
When San Francisco health inspector Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland) discovers that alien duplicates are replacing people, he has to find a way to make everyone believe that this plan is not a fictional conspiracy.
The most frightening thing about the body snatchers is that they suck humanity out of humans for the sake of perpetuating their own aimless life cycle. They replace everything that makes a person who they are with an empty vessel, an expressionless being with no personality.
Furthermore, they use sleep - a state essential to human life - to accomplish this dastardly mission. Imagine falling asleep and not waking up. Imagine not even realizing that you do not exist anymore.
Kauffman’s alien pods are a metaphor for being deprived of one’s individuality in a conformist world. This is the true horror of the body snatchers story - losing one’s soul and one’s identity forever.