Strange Invaders (1983)
Alien Invaders
Appealingly quirky film that pays homage to the alien invaders genre of the 1950s as filtered through post-E.T. sensibilities where the invaders still live in a fifties timwarp
Body Snatchers
Body Snatchers (at least in the usage on this site) refers to non-human entities that steal human appearance. They can create identical duplicates of the human body, take over control of human minds or else this can be a form of Alien Possession. The key aspect of this is body snatchers replicate every aspect of humanity except for emotions.
Body snatchers appeared in a number of other classic works of the 1950s Alien Invasion film beginning with It Came from Outer Space (1953) and others of era, culminating in the key paranoia classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).
The theme has regularly reappeared ever since then. Most commonly, body snatchers are alien invaders. In other variations, they can be Android duplicates, Parasites, plants or some form of Doppelganger or the idea of the changeling. Another variant on the theme is of the creature that hops between bodies, discarding one as its use runs out.
Historically, body snatchers is also a term given to those who rob graves, another recurrent theme in genre material. To avoid confusion, these are listed here as Grave Robbers.
The Stuff (1985)
Possession by Sentient Fast Food
One of the films of cult director Larry Cohen in which he makes a body snatchers film involving sentient fast food. As to be expected from Cohen, this also becomes a sharp and witty satire
The Suicide Squad (2021)
Team-Up of DC Comics Super-Villains
James Gunn takes over the Suicide Squad franchise and welcomely rescues it from the dud first screen outing
Taking Earth (2017)
Alien Invasion
Alien invasion film made by industry outsiders from South Africa. The plot is like a much better version of I Am Number Four but played out on a much more ambitious scale where the novice filmmakers do sensational things in the visual effects department on a minuscule budget
There’s Something Wrong With the Children (2023)
Evil Children
Quite decent Blumhouse film in which children suddenly go bad and begin playing malicious, murderous games with adults
The Thing (1982)
Shapechanging Alien Nasty
John Carpenter at the peak of his career, remaking The Thing from Another World as a wild and phantasmagoric film steeped in paranoia that proved to be the absolute epitome of the era’s fad for air-bladder transformation effects
The Thing (2011)
Shapechanging Alien Nasty
Though pitched as a prequel, this is essentially a remake of John Carpenter’s classic. Alas, this only finds the same phantasmagoric outlandishness as Carpenter did in a couple of scenes that may be moderately impressive for those who have never seen the original
Trail of the Screaming Forehead (2007)
1950s SF Parody/Invading Alien Foreheads
From Larry Blamire, a deliberately ridiculous spoof of the 1950s alien invasion film. Blamire’s dialogue and the deadpan with which everybody plays is frequently hilarious
Troll (1986)
Mischievous Creature
Low-budget Charles Band produced film that has entertainment value for its cheesily absurd creature effects and an amazing cast line-up
Under the Skin (2013)
Mysterious Alien Visitor
Fascinating film with Scarlett Johansson as an alien visitor luring male hitchhikers. The film is beautifully made but frustratingly opaque in terms of explanations for what is happening. indeed, feels like a science-fiction film that has been stripped of any easy science-fiction handholds
Unearthly Stranger (1963)
Alien Invasion
A British response to the 1950s alien invader fad that swept the US. Despite a low-budget, this achieves an undeniable atmosphere of paranoia as a scientist discovers that his newlywed wife may be an alien infiltrator
The Veil (2016)
Ghosts of Mass Suicide Cult Members
This has a great premise – a camera crew revisiting the site of a cult mass suicide stir up the ghosts of the cult members – and a director who I always maintained had much untapped potential. Alas, the finished result seems to slip by his hands
The Watch (2012)
Neighbourhood Watch vs Alien Invaders Comedy
An uninspired comedy about a neighbourhood watch encountering alien invaders that falls somewhere between Ghostbusters and The ‘Burbs. The film’s virtues lie less in the weak premise than in the director allowing the stars to freely improvise with occasionally funny results
The Watchers (2024)
Mysterious Creatures in the Woods
M. Night Shyamalan’s daughter Ishana directs a film of her own. Say what you will about nepotism, it is a really good film
The Whisperer in Darkness (2011)
H.P. Lovecraft Adaptation
An H.P. Lovecraft adaptation that makes exacting effort to get the mood and period setting right
The World’s End (2013)
Alien Body Snatchers Comedy
Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the trio behind Shaun of the Dead, return to conduct a very similar effort – the story of a pub crawl that is affectionately mocking the characters’ nowhere lives, before taking an abrupt dogleg turn to become a comedic take on the alien body snatchers film
You Are Not My Mother (2021)
Missing Mother Returns Changed/Folk Horror
An unsettlingly effective Irish Folk Horror film about a teen whose mother disappears and then returns ‘changed’
Zebraman (2004)
Japanese Superhero
Head-scratching effort from Japan’s Takashi Miike about a schoolteacher who gains superpowers after putting on a costume from his favourite superhero tv series. Miike never seems to be mounting a parody, while the film is too low-budgeted to ever work in terms of kick-ass superheroic action