With Carpenter’s, The Thing there is a greater intimacy created with its characters, as the chief focus is placed on a research team multiple oceans removed from civilization. This is established in the very beginning, as a helicopter chases down a husky dog over vast expanses before finally reaching the station by mere coincidence. Being precariously positioned on (practically) the edge of the world, the horror aspect is naturally created when an alien lifeform inserts itself into the crew’s dynamic. Positioned so far away from any town or city, the atmosphere is given a more huddled air, as the men are gathered together in their desolate corner of the world. It feels as though this sensation is turned on its head as the plot picks up pace, for the closely knit nature of the outpost becomes a potentially fatal risk. As such, a prevalent feeling of infiltration coincides with the upheaval of trust amongst this single group of men; thus, many of the characters display paranoid dispositions which are certainly justifiable given the nebulous circumstances. When faced with a formless foe using their peers as disguises, the members of the research team have their friendships challenged, as former comrades now become the subjects of scrupulous examination. Just so, the audience themselves are left wracking their heads for the little bit of characterization they’d been fed in the film’s exposition, as it is the only potential indicator of a suspect’s humanity. Though the film intentionally omits much about these men, opting only to present a surface level display of their temperaments and motivations. Moreover, without any one mate’s standing being concretely laid out, the viewer is just as helplessly out of the loop as the film’s protagonist, MacReady. With the true intent of any one nervous action thrown into question, the predicament becomes a futile waiting game as much as it is a guessing one.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers follows a very similar horror concept. The film is too about an alien creature’s overtaking of a group from the inside; however, the group under threat in this film is more of a community. Whereas The Thing centers around an isolated, Antarctic research facility thousands of miles separated from civilization, Invasion of the Body Snatchers follows the journey of a local doctor, Miles Bennell, through his friendly home town in California. Though he’s known these people his whole life, Miles gradually uncovers more and more evidence pointing to their replacement, thus chipping away at the façade now plaguing his community. In a sense, the film looks to paint a frightening picture in which such a catastrophe could, without forecast, occur inconspicuously in any man’s own backyard (this proves to literally be the case later in the picture). The film therefore heralds caution for viewers to stay weary of the forces around them which drain their very own humanity. This punctuates an overarching message exposing the dangers of false security, as the displacement of the town residents by pod-people was not something which was bound to happen – it was evitable.

Though both films touch on entrapment as a means to inculcate unease in the audience, The Thing very clearly places its characters in a position without escape from the get-go; considering the film’s finale as well, it permeates a constant feeling of hopeless dread. Given the monumental seclusion of the men in The Thing, the horrific happenings almost appear to have been inevitable and fitting for the circumstances. Moreover, with each new discovery made over the course of the film’s events, there is not necessarily a feeling of enlightenment, but a forlorn sensation in the wake of yet another dead end or dismal setback. We're not being led down a path, but deeper down into the rut we started out in.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers cultivates a far greater dichotomy between an initial feeling of security and the attritionary onslaught of dread. Initially, Miles' community is perceived as a safe-haven - even more so given that the film opens on his optimistic return from a business trip. Only after vexing discovery after discovery does he come to realize how his home has been infiltrated, and therefore how he is surrounded. In the film, Miles Bennell does not start out as a man sick and manic with worry or a maliciously coveted victim, but becomes more and more cornered in his own town as the plot progresses. This feeling is manifested by showcasing large swathes of human-facing pod-people, seemingly working towards a concerted, self-preserving effort (akin to a fleet of ants). This sort of imagery presents pure prowess in numbers, and, especially towards the end, it effectively displays how Miles, and by proxy all of humanity, gradually becomes a fleeing minority in his own world.

Though the covert pod-replication process occurs unbeknownst to most people, the proceeding questions surrounding any one person’s true status as either a human or pod-person is made quite obvious by the film. Diverging from the tactics of Carpenter’s horror icon, Invasion of the Body Snatchers tends to throw ambiguity right out of the window, trading it instead for the overt, visual terror of a human-posing hive-mind. Where The Thing works as a film in which entrapment is imbued through a withholding of information and a whittling of trust, Invasion of the Body Snatchers succeeds as a horror flick that relies on a blatantly zombie-esque multiplication of its scheming imposters. Made crystal clear is the distinction between human and pod-person, to the point where the film’s main method of horror is to overburden its protagonist with a mob of mindless drones.

But at least Miles can flee at all, for in Carpenter’s The Thing, there is nowhere to run and nothing to truly run from. It keeps viewers guessing throughout, never giving its “antagonist” (if “the thing” itself can even be labeled as such) one true, distinct form to inhabit. The line between alien saboteur and human being is intentionally blurred, introducing danger not necessarily just in a foreign beast, but in the underbelly of human nature as well. Though Invasion of the Body Snatchers exudes the creeping sensation of a hostile and ever-growing outside world oozing in, The Thing presents its own characters as pawns to be flipped, thereby sowing fear with the insides alone.

In both films, the situation in which humans become vessels for a subversive alien lifeform is taken to its logical (perhaps inevitable) conclusion. In The Thing, the film ends with yet another question, thus leaving the audience again paranoid and unsure – a fitting finale for the picture. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, despite having an ending which was forced onto director Don Siegel by the studio, doesn’t leave off on a very high or reassuring note either. Miles, in police custody after narrowly escaping from the pod-people masquerading as his townsfolk, is vindicated when the unconvinced officers and therapist hear word of trucks full of giant, alien pod seeds heading out from Miles’ town. The film ends with talk of calling in federal agents to handle the emergency situation, leaving the viewer unsure as to whether or not the spread of these pod-people is ever successfully thwarted. A grisly interpretation would be that any attempt to halt the spread at this point would be folly, thus the film’s ominous close on the still beleaguered face of Miles. However, after traveling down the rabbit hole alongside Miles, it does provide a feeling of refuge to see him reach safety and to hear proper authorities called to action (as was ostensibly the intent of the studio here). Although Siegel had been wrangling for the film to end at an earlier, darker, and, truth be told, more impactful moment, Invasion of the Body Snatchers actually contains a slice of optimism amidst its greater, forlorn tone.

Compared to The Thing, which has a plot predicated on the ability of an alien being to perfectly emulate the features, disposition, and speaking patterns of any one human, Invasion of the Body Snatchers contains the theme that humans are especially unique, and incapable of being replicated flawlessly. Early on in the film, one fearful woman expresses suspicions that her uncle Ira is no longer himself. She describes to Miles that though her uncle appears just as he always had, and speaks just as she’d known him to, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something missing in him. Try as they may to use the guise of any old human form, these pod-people can only go so far in their transition. Their stone-faced visages and brusque, unlively cadence become dead-giveaways to their inauthenticity. Near the end of the film in fact, it is shown that a mere sympathetic cry or emote is enough to oust true humans to their hostile, ersatz counterparts. In this way, Invasion of the Body Snatchers actually manages to present a slightly more hopeful message than The Thing, at least in its depiction of humans.

By comparison, The Thing is of a more cynical and nihilistic tone. Throughout the film, the trust between the members of the research crew gradually erodes, making way for a wave of jittery paranoia and cantankerousness. By contrast, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, as I explained, makes a clear, unavoidable distinction between the real humans and the pod-people attempting to replace them; going so far as to represent a sort of brotherhood amongst the few remaining authentic humans. Thus, it makes a definitive statement regarding human nature, its beautiful uniqueness, and in the process places an importance on its preservation. In The Thing however, the darker side of human nature is illuminated, as men who’ve lost any semblance of fellowship with each other stoop to intense bickering, accusing, and fighting – actions, mind you, which are not atypical for anyone under such duress. As the plot progresses, the line between human and imitation blurs, and it’s demonstrated clear as day that men don’t need to be overtaken by a malignant and foreign being in order to segregate, isolate, and kill one another. This, as the film presents, is the natural state of man after having his trust revoked and his innately ingrained fight-or-flight response engaged.  

Though a large part of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is dedicated to bolstering the redeemable aspects of human nature, and showcasing the cold, sterile world wrought from a lack there of, it is not without its own criticisms of people at large. As I touched on in my initial review of the film, one of the final scenes showcases Miles attempting to provide a forewarning to passing drivers on the highway following his escape. As he stumbles from car to car, he’s met with repeat rejections and dismissive sneering from the drivers. As it appears that these freeway drivers are in fact human themselves, this segment displays a blemish on modern society. Just as Miles is incorrectly skeptical of the claims made by his clients early in the film, the drivers he so desperately wishes to impart his message to are wearing deaf ears. Though Miles managed to figure the truth before his own demise and eventually escape his overtaken town, perhaps the same stubbornness that he himself, and evidently many others, possessed in defiance of presumably outlandish claims would end up being the final nail in humanity’s coffin. It’d be putting words in the mouths of Don Siegel and the screenwriters to claim that their cinematic vision included a staunch defense of all conspiracy theorists. Although, given Siegel’s filmography, as well as his history in Hollywood, it’d be a pretty solid inference to state that they were providing credence to the notion that America had irresponsibly inducted an era of dangerous and subjugating conformity. Invasion of the Body Snatchers was, in essence, an indictment of that induction.

It's clear that both films have their fair share of ideas to express regarding human nature, whether it pertains to man’s shortcomings or the very essence of their individuality. In the case of The Thing, there is quite a lot to potentially delve into as an analytical viewer, as the film doesn’t exactly give itself away with thematically heavy dialogue as Siegel’s film does. However, it’s not so much what the characters say, but what they do which speaks volumes about the intrinsic inclinations embedded into all humans. Though many of the acts in the film are realistic and likely mirror the impulses of any normal person, they are also often times rash, and lack the clear-headedness needed to navigate the precarious predicament. The nuances of any one situation are often times discarded, falling to the wayside under the immense pressure of the situation at hand. Even speaking for myself, I suspected the dog-keeper, Clark, of being an imitation the moment he was ominously framed in a shot tightly wielding a scalpel down by his side. However, there was ample cause to believe he was still human, as his motivation for violence (the death of his dogs) had been established clearly early on. Yet, I, and perhaps others watching the film, succumbed to the pure intensity of the scene, swayed into believing for a moment, and without a shadow-of-a-doubt, that he’d become a ravenous emulation looking to kill MacReady (the biggest danger posed to its own self-preservation). But it was later revealed that Clark was never transformed at all, and he’d been human the whole time. It was almost as though John Carpenter was trying to toy with the tentative audience who themselves would question whether this man was truly human based on a sinister shot of him wielding a scalpel. After likely cheering on Clark’s death by MacReady’s gun, only to find it’d been a murder in actuality, an observant audience member may proceed to realize that they’d been duped. Just as it had for everyone else in the film, the few established nuances of each character completely subsided to the will of an adequately vitalized tension. If The Thing is a film presenting man himself as a potential monster – given the right motivations –, then a revelation like this begs the question of whether or not the audience would behave any differently themselves.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers presents a dilemma in which harmless common folk become vacant shells of themselves – mere vessels for a malignant outer lifeforce. With each passing minute in the picture, the aspects of the townsfolk which comprise their very existence (whether common to all people or unique to the individual) slip away with their off-screen replacement by a hollow imitation. As the odds are stacked against him, Miles Bennell remains steadfast in his aim to evade such a fate. Even when it becomes the most demanding and physically arduous option possible, he clutches his humanity in his evasion of the parasitic frauds surrounding him. To both him and the audience, the alternative is made frighteningly crystal-clear, and his goal is solidified as a resoundingly righteous one.

In The Thing, similarly strenuous circumstances push a research crew to the fringe of their sanity and dissolves all remaining trust. With their belief in each other corroding more and more after each elapsed moment, the members of the crew revert to their base impulses. The film frames humans as subject to regression towards their darkest, most cavernous selves under particular - if peculiar - circumstance. Some become quicker to reach for a gun, and others are more prone to accusations. In a way, their own humanity crawls away from them and into the deathly cold of the outside. By refraining from ever allowing the thing itself a distinguishable form of its own, the film ingeniously flips the script in such a way that the men themselves are made capable of being either a hero or villain.

Though both films approach ideas of what it means to be human, Invasion of the Body Snatchers makes a much clearer separation between man and alien. In showcasing a world where hot-blooded emotion and vivacity become endangered character traits rather than the ubiquitous norm, the film makes a reverent stand in defense of humanity and individualism. Conversely, John Carpenter’s, The Thing, orchestrates a dilemma in which people quickly abandon their basic principles of civility. Cynically highlighting a forgoing of civilized doctrine amidst raised stakes, the film never truly declares that a man need be infected in order to lose sight of those values.