Synopsis
A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.
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Cast
- Kevin McCarthyDr. Miles J. Bennell
- Dana WynterBecky Driscoll
- King DonovanJack Belicec
- Carolyn JonesTheodora 'Teddy' Belicec
- Larry GatesDr. Dan 'Danny' Kauffman
- Kenneth PattersonStanley Driscoll
- Virginia ChristineWilma Lentz
- Jean WillesNurse Sally Withers
- Ralph DumkePolice Chief Nick Grivett
- Guy WayOfficer Sam Janzek
- 100
The Guardian
The film features an acting cameo from Siegel’s assistant and protege Sam Peckinpah, who also worked on the script, and is known for its high-octane pulp thrills. It should also be praised for elegant satire. - 100
The Telegraph
It’s the very open-endedness of the film’s subtext that gives it power. When a sleepy California town is overrun, first by the outbreak of a strange delusion that people have been replaced by doppelgangers, but then gradually by the doppelgangers themselves, the film is brilliantly placed, however unwittingly, to illustrate America’s political paranoia from both ends. - 100
Time Out
A film steeped in psychological realism, its rigorously compact plotting and stark, noir-influenced photography perfectly complementing the mounting sense of clammy, metaphysical dread. - 100
Empire
A 50s horror classic that remains a gem of allegorical paranoia. - 100
TV Guide Magazine
A superbly crafted film by innovative director Siegel, this low-budget science fiction tale became one of the great cult classics of the genre. - 100
The A.V. Club
The film plays just as easily as a stand-in for the mob mentality that let Joseph McCarthy run amok in his attempt to sniff out every last American with communist sympathies—past, present, and future—until all had conformed to a rigid definition of the right thinking. - 100
Entertainment Weekly
An extremely tight, beautifully made film. - 88
Chicago Reader
This genuine SF classic says a good deal more about the McCarthyist hysteria of the early 50s than about the danger of invasion from outer space by soul-stealing pods.