"America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within." Quoting Josef Stalin, this statement conveys the threat that America faced during the 1950s. Commonly referred to as the "red scare", American citizens feared the destruction of capitalism. In 1956, the cult film Invasion of the Body Snatchers premiered at theatres across the country. Through careful analysis, Invasion of the Body Snatchers can be viewed as a metaphor for the Communist scare of the fifties.
Although the special effects budget was under 15,000 dollars, Invasion of the Body Snatchers presents a clear picture of a society being overrun by another kind. The characters are faced against intergalactic pods who wish to replace human kind with clones formed by the pods. In America, people feared the idea of Communism replacing capitalistic society. Evidence throughout the film supports the tie between Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Communism. For example, there are many shots of the town functioning as a normal society, where in actuality pods have taken over the majority of the town's inhabitants. The town's populace looks normal on the exterior, yet are totally different people on the inside. This is quite similar to how American citizens could not tell who was Communist just by looking at them. The concept of covering up what seems strange and unusual is also present in the film. For instance, the police chief has an elaborate explanation concerning the missing unidentifiable body. This supports the conspiracy that figures of authority were trying to make everything seem normal and as it should be, whereas Communism was a serious threat. Once it is known that the police chief and the psychologist are the main propagators of the pods, it suggests that physical and intellectual authority can no longer be trusted.
