Original subtitles

- CONELRAD channel. This is a class one emergency.

- I think everybody's fascinated

with society falling apart.

[dramatic music]

- Disaster movies used to just be about bridges collapsing

and buildings blowing up,

but now, disaster movies are about the end of the world.

♪

- Nobody wants to be in the apocalypse.

♪

But we would all hope to survive the apocalypse

depending on what that future entails.

♪

- [snarls]

- People that think that

some kind of zombie apocalypse would be fun...

♪

And as soon as things shut down,

it's like they can't even handle

a toilet paper shortage.

- The very foundations of civilization

are beginning to fall.

♪

- It is really every man for himself.

♪

It's like you don't know what's worse,

the infection or each other.

- Run for your life! They're already here!

♪

- What would it look like if that really, really happened?

'Cause we--it feels like we're right on the edge of it.

[zombie snarls]

♪

[eerie music]

[stairs creaking]

♪

[evil laughter]

[screaming]

♪

[chainsaw revs]

[dramatic music]

narrator: Movies with post-apocalyptic themes

used to be unusual and shocking.

- [screaming]

♪

Now, they're a genre unto themselves.

- I think it's a human trait that we imagine

that we're the last civilization.

I think every civilization throughout time

has thought that they're probably going to be the ones

who end it for everybody that comes to follow.

♪

So it's generated this whole genre

where we get to see or imagine what that might look like.

[upbeat music]

♪

narrator: You might remember a time

when movies about the zombie apocalypse were hard to find.

[screaming]

But over the last two decades, the undead have taken over.

♪

How do you stand out from the herd?

♪

With "World War Z,"

actor/producer Brad Pitt found a way.

[gunfire]

Making a zombie apocalypse movie

filled with the globetrotting locations

and spectacular set pieces...

only a Hollywood blockbuster can deliver.

♪

"World War Z" casts Pitt as a CDC field agent

who saves his family from a zombie outbreak...

[zombies snarling and gunfire]

Then crosses the planet searching for a vaccine.

- I'm going down!

♪

The film is very, very loosely

based on the bestselling novel by Max Brooks.

- I wrote "World War Z" to answer my own questions.

And the big question I had is

what would a zombie plague look like across the planet?

♪

[indistinct radio chatter]

What were governments doing?

Different governments in different countries.

How were different cultures dealing with this?

How was one part of the planet affecting another part?

It's like a world war,

and I wanted to know about this world war.

♪

[screaming]

[glass shattering]

- If you're going to call your movie "World War Z,"

you better deliver the goods, and this film does.

- [straining] [zombies shrieking]

- And Brad Pitt is the kind of hero who's up to the test.

- [grunts] [zombie rasps]

- When you're put in a really distressing situation,

so much about a person is revealed.

And for me, that's why I love the apocalyptic films so much

because there is so much of human nature in it.

[screaming and snarling]

Your fears, your-- that's your vulnerabilities.

That's the entire movie.

♪

[suitcase thuds]

[zombies snarling]

- That was what was so great about Brad Pitt's character

in that movie is he's constantly just like,

"What is happening is insane,

"and I'm just going to do the best

that I possibly can in this given moment."

[grenade pin clinks]

♪

He keeps on barely making out alive.

And I just think that's a wonderful through line

for a character.

[snarling and screaming]

[gunshot]

- I think that future zombie historians will see that movie

as a turning point for zombies in pop culture.

♪

The special effects are now copied in every zombie movie.

♪

Because I was just watching "Train to Busan."

♪

And the zombies coming together in a river of humans?

That's straight out of "World War Z."

♪

narrator: "Train to Busan" drew from "World War Z,"

but the South Korean film's relentless action

and social commentary put it in a place all its own.

♪

- It is interesting how that genre,

you think it's been done before

and then a movie like "Train to Busan" comes out

and you just go, "Oh yeah,

"they just-- I have never seen anything."

- Yeah, no. You're the one that turned me on to it.

When "Train to Busan" came out, I was like,

there's no way I can watch another zombie movie

or infected people movie. I just can't do it anymore.

And I was wrong.

♪

Just that image of the father carrying the little girl,

running with, like, seemingly a thousand

[chuckling] infected people chasing him.

♪

[ominous music]

- "Train to Busan" is probably

one of the greatest Korean films.

♪

There's something about Koreans where we have a lot of protocol

in terms of, like, hierarchy and age

and manners are so deeply ingrained in your being.

- [speaking Korean] - [speaking Korean]

- Part of the horror if you're Korean is watching it

and seeing people lose all of those kind of protocols,

all of those social niceties.

♪

- A lot of it is really sort of the relationship

of a father and his child.

And he basically, is too busy for her in the beginning.

[zombie snarls] - [screams]

- And then ultimately,

is as present as a parent can be for a child,

which he sacrifices himself for her.

♪

- [groaning]

- It's an odd commentary on Korean film and Korean society

that I think most would consider it

a terrible, sad, horrible ending.

But actually, it's kind of hopeful.

[tragic piano music]

♪

- Throughout the film, he finds out what's truly important,

the lesson that he learns about what he values in life.

♪

I mean, I think that horror films are really about

when you can get to the root of a character

and pull out the strength of them.

And that's what this film really is.

narrator: Surviving an apocalypse

is hard and stressful work.

[snarling and gunfire]

It helps to have a sense of humor.

- [chuckles]

narrator: They say comedy is tragedy plus time...

which may be why years of zombie apocalypse dramas

were eventually followed by zombie apocalypse comedies.

[zombie rasping]

- Just get her off me!

narrator: The best combined humor with genuine horror.

- Are you okay?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

- Remember mad cow disease?

Well, the mad cow became mad person became mad zombie.

And gave you a really, really bad case of the munchies.

[clown nose honks]

narrator: One of the most successful was "Zombieland"...

[tense music]

♪

A horror/comedy featuring a small cast

of heavyweight actors fighting their way across America.

♪

- "Zombieland" takes place in a post-apocalyptic world

where zombies have pretty much disposed of most people

and there's only a handful of survivors that are left

that we're aware of.

There's Tallahassee played by Woody Harrelson.

- You got a perty mouth. - [snarls]

[rock music]

- Who's managed to survive

just by simply being the most badass zombie killer there is.

- My mama always told me someday,

I'd be good at something.

Who'd have guessed

that something would be zombie killing?

- Probably nobody.

- Wichita and Little Rock,

who are played by Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin...

- We'll take your weapons, your car keys, your ammunition.

- And if you got it, sugarless gum.

[lever action click-clacks]

- They've managed to survive

by just putting their own interests above anyone else's.

- You see, you just can't trust anyone.

The first time I let a girl into my life

and she tries to eat me.

- For Columbus, played by Jesse Eisenberg,

it's ironic, but the reason he's managed to survive

is because he's the most afraid person in the world.

- I survive because I play it safe and follow the rules.

- He's so afraid that he's created

a set of rules for himself

that have allowed him to survive,

and it's like a handbook.

- Rule number four... [horn honking]

- [screaming]

♪

- Fasten your seatbelts.

- So the biggest problem with zombie films at this point

is the idea that anyone would be surprised by zombies.

[dramatic music]

Everyone has a zombie apocalypse plan

and "Zombieland" is the first movie

to sort of take that head-on...

- Don't let them catch you with your pants down.

Rule number three: beware of bathrooms.

- To admit that this is a scenario

that is almost a cliche at this point

and that everyone is prepared for it.

And--and here are the rules

you need to follow to keep you alive.

- Which leads me to my second rule:

the double-tap. [gunshot]

- The double-tap, I think is one of

the greatest acknowledgments in all of horror.

- I mean, one more clean shot to the head.

- [snarling] - [screams]

And this lady could've avoided becoming a human Happy Meal.

- Someone finally acknowledging, like,

you have to make sure it's dead.

Finally, someone called it out.

♪

[zombie rasping]

narrator: Much of the film follows the characters

as they journey west across zombie-ravaged America...

[zombies snarling and gunfire]

Gradually becoming a family

despite conflicting personalities.

[tires screech]

[suspenseful music]

- Hey, for [no audio] sake. Enough already.

We were being chased by ravenous freaks.

We don't have enough problems?

- I think one of the reasons

that it works as well as it does,

is it--it's very well-cast with good actors

who are not playing it for laughs,

which is why the presence of Bill Murray

is such an effective joke.

- Bill Murray, you're a zombie?

♪

- [screams in pain]

narrator: Bill Murray appears as himself,

disguised as a zombie.

- Oh, I do it to blend in.

You know--you know, zombies don't mess with other zombies.

narrator: But still living large in Beverly Hills.

- Greatest cameo in the history of film.

Bill [no audio] Murray.

["Ghostbusters" theme] - Come get him.

- Light 'em up, Ray!

- Making a commentary about being Bill Murray?

[evil chuckle]

narrator: Unfortunately, Murray's zombie makeup

is a little too effective.

- No!

No, it's okay. It's okay. I got him.

- [groans]

- I just love, like,

the collective gasp of the audience.

Like, "Oh my God, you just shot Bill Murray."

- Is that how you say hello where you come from?

- Like it just, you know, people don't see it coming

and it's a bit morbid, but certainly very funny.

- [chuckles]

I'm sorry. It just gets me. [chuckles]

But it still is sad.

- The characters drive the story

and it's the relationships that matter most.

At the end of the day,

the zombies are window dressing.

[dramatic music]

♪

narrator: Apocalypse movies are often about

groups of people who band together to survive.

[telephone ringing]

But what if there was no one else?

♪

What if you were the last human on Earth?

[shrieking and gunfire]

♪

[lion roars]

[dramatic music]

- There is something about the idea of society collapsing

and being left to fend for yourself.

That's a little bit exciting.

[metallic thump]

[wood shatters]

A little bit fun, you know?

No more trying to figure out how to pay my taxes online.

- Stop, stop!

♪

- No more with my Aunt Sally

texting me about her gall bladder.

[rasping and snarling]

♪

It's just going to be me and my dog and my rifle,

and my cans of beans.

[metallic clinking and cables whipping]

[shrieking]

And it's gonna be awesome.

- [shrieking]

narrator: The origin point, modern post-apocalyptic horror

is Richard Matheson's 1954 novel "I Am Legend."

♪

- "I Am Legend," which purportedly is the novel

that Stephen King read and said, "I want to do this,"

has been made into a movie three times.

[dramatic orchestral music]

"The Last Man on Earth" with Vincent Price in the '60s...

♪

"The Omega Man" with Charlton Heston

in the early '70s...

- [screaming]

[dramatic music]

And "I Am Legend" with Will Smith in the early 2000s.

narrator: In all three films, the protagonist is a scientist

who spends his lonely days

killing the zombie-like survivors of a plague

that has wiped out most of the human race.

- More of them for the pit.

Every day, there are more of them.

narrator: Matheson wrote the script

for "The Last Man on Earth,"

and it's the most faithful to his book.

- I can't afford the luxury of anger.

Anger can make me vulnerable.

It can destroy my reason

and reason's the only advantage I have over them.

- "The Last Man on Earth" is fantastic.

I don't know why that's not as well-regarded

as "Night of the Living Dead" or something. It's so good.

[suspenseful music]

- It's a very bleak movie.

You watch basically the guy's entire family die

of this disease.

And then there's these big pits that they throw the bodies in.

- Why are they burning the bodies?

Why don't they bury them?

- Because it's the best-known way to control the contagion

to keep the germs from spreading.

narrator: The hero discovers

the real reason the bodies are burned

when he buries his wife...

and she comes back.

[tense music]

- When you look at it with "Night of the Living Dead,"

you see that George Romero was definitely inspired

by "The Last Man on Earth."

♪

His treatment of the zombie characters

is extremely similar to the ones in this movie.

They're lethargic and they're--they moan and groan

and they call the name of the hero.

- Morgan. Out...out.

♪

- Robert! [gunfire]

[dramatic music]

narrator: In 1971, Matheson's book

was turned into "The Omega Man."

♪

A movie that reflects the turmoil rocking America

after the social upheavals of the '60s.

♪

- "The Omega Man" is one of the grooviest

of all apocalyptic movies.

[upbeat funky music]

♪

- "Omega Man" is essentially a "Last Man on Earth" story

starring Charlton Heston

where he is terrorized by zombie mutant vampire-types.

Let's just say hippies.

[upbeat music]

- One of the first things that happens in that film

is that Charlton Heston runs "Woodstock"

for himself in an empty theater.

And there's that weird kind of amazing moment

when he has clearly memorized some lines.

- [with character onscreen] If we can't live together

and be happy, if you have to be afraid

to walk out in the street,

if you have to be afraid to smile at somebody, right?

- And then everything that happens after that in the movie

is this total repudiation of the "Woodstock" idea.

- We need to cancel the world you civilized people made.

We will simply erase history from the time that machinery

and weapons threatened more than they offered.

- The anti-capitalist, reformist, Utopian impulse

turns into this racially- and sexually-integrated

zombie horde of Luddite monsters

in pancake makeup and fright wigs.

♪

narrator: But if the infected have inherited the Earth,

is Heston really the hero?

- You are the angel of death, doctor, not us.

- There's always that fascinating idea.

It's so well-executed in "The Omega Man,"

which is well, who's the villain?

- Last night you killed how many? Three of us?

And today, we don't know yet.

- So he's killing them and they're trying to kill him.

And who is the real villain?

- Oh, my God.

[ominous music]

♪

- My name is Robert Neville.

I'm a survivor living in New York City.

narrator: Both "The Omega Man" and "The Last Man on Earth"

were ambitious films that suffered from low budgets.

That was not the problem with 2007's "I Am Legend."

- I think "I Am Legend"

benefited so much from embracing the wish-fulfillment.

[engine revving]

That opening sequence where he's in a gorgeous red car

hunting a deer in the middle of Times Square.

Yes, we're doing what only this movie with this premise

can deliver a scene like this.

- "I Am Legend" does so many things right.

There's a brilliant scene where he is in a video store

that he has put mannequins into to make it feel normal

when he goes in to pick out a movie.

And he has a breakdown trying to get

one of the mannequins to talk to him.

- Please say hello to me.

- I mean, I think that movie really plays into

one of the greatest fears that we all have,

which is yes, of course,

we're all afraid of the apocalypse

and the end of the world, zombies, that whole thing.

But also just being alone.

- The hell are you doing out here, Fred?

- He's been alone for so long

that he thinks he's actually started to go crazy.

narrator: Neville eventually meets normal humans

and gives them a vaccine,

but the cure was created by experimenting on the infected.

- This will almost certainly kill it.

♪

narrator: Once again, is he the hero or the villain?

- Did all of them die? - Yes.

- All of them have the same thread that at some point,

man is the monster,

that science and society will keep reinventing itself

over and over.

And if you stay stuck in the past and don't evolve,

you may be the source of legend.

You may become the monster.

narrator: Some apocalypses are man-made,

but the most spectacular...

[tense music]

Come from beyond.

[lasers firing]

narrator: "The War of the Worlds"

chronicles the devastation of Earth

by Martian invaders with superior technology

and a ruthless drive for conquest.

♪

When H.G. Wells conceived the story

at the end of the 19th century,

it was a sly critique of British imperialism.

But by the time Hollywood took it on,

it became a tale about the limits of American power.

- Now fought with the terrible weapons of super-science,

menacing all mankind and every creature on Earth,

comes "The War of the Worlds." [dramatic musical spike]

narrator: "The War of the Worlds"

was first brought to the screen in 1953

by producer George Pal.

The film is drenched in the militaristic mood

of post-World War II America,

but the real draw of the film wasn't its theme,

it was the special effects.

[all gasping]

No one had shown an apocalyptic attack

like this before...

[power thrumming]

[lasers firing]

[screaming]

or created anything like the Martian war machines.

- I remember when I was a very little kid,

my mom telling my brothers and I,

"Your father and I watched a movie on TV last night.

"They had these things like manta rays

"and they came up out of the ground,

"and then a snake came up

and it was shooting lasers at people."

And we thought, "Oh, Mom's been into the drinks again."

[screaming and lasers firing]

- I just loved the sound design and the production design,

and the special effects in that movie.

The heat ray,

the death ray that came out of the wingtips,

and then the sort of brilliant optical effect

of when the General gets frozen.

He's like, "Oh."

And he freezes and then his outline

and then he turns green and then you see the skeleton,

and then he disappears.

And the miniature work is impeccable.

There's these fascinating photos of the entire farm field

with Martian war machines suspended above the miniature.

The Martian war machines were, like, 38 inches across,

so they were pretty big.

These technicians were worried about burning the sets down

because they were pumping the electricity through the wires

that were suspending this-- the ships.

[lasers firing]

narrator: Downtown Los Angeles is thoroughly,

some might even say lovingly destroyed

in some of the most spectacular effects sequences

of the time.

[lasers firing and explosions]

Pal's film warned that military might

and scientific know-how

were no guarantee against a determined enemy.

The apocalypse could happen.

[thunder and explosions]

- [screams] Here!

narrator: We could only pray for divine intervention.

[screaming]

[dramatic music]

♪

Steven Spielberg's 2006 adaptation

had an equally blunt message

about American complacency and overconfidence.

[thunder cracks] - It's okay.

- I want to go inside. - It's okay.

narrator: Set in New York

and made just a few years after 9/11,

it's a nightmare vision of a terrorist attack

waged by shadowy enemies we don't understand.

- Lightning doesn't strike twice

in the same-- - [screams]

narrator: In this version, the Martian war machines

don't fall from the sky, they emerge from the ground,

where they've been buried for millennia,

a tip of the hat to the classic Hammer horror film

"Quatermass and the Pit."

[mysterious rasping]

- Get back! Let's go! Now!

- There's so many interesting visual things about it.

I love that the whole front of the church comes off.

♪

That effects sequence of the first war machine

coming out of the ground is absolutely stunning.

♪

[machine drones loudly]

Then when the little death ray comes out and starts,

[imitates lasers]

And the people are running down the street.

And all of a sudden,

you just see the clothes floating with the dust.

It's definitely technically more proficient.

You know, when they're on the ferry

and you look over and you see the machine

coming underneath the water up at them.

♪

I think that's a great example of what technology gives you

in terms of the advancement over five decades.

♪

- They found a different way to tell that story.

[suspenseful music]

It's completely subjective.

Like, you only see what Tom Cruise sees.

- Robbie!

[dramatic music]

- It's Boschian in its vision of worldwide horror.

There is a moment, a peaceful morning,

when a shaken Tom Cruise takes his family

down to the riverside to find freshwater.

And they freeze on the banks of the river

to watch one bloated corpse after another float by.

♪

That's, like, the whole film in a nutshell.

Every time they think they've had to witness the worst,

there's always something more terrible

waiting around the next corner.

narrator: Every telling of "The War of the Worlds"

ends with civilization aflame,

but the Earth proves more than capable of defending itself.

- So at the end, they show up, they think they're going to,

you know, take us over, kill us all.

But what they don't realize is that humans are filthy

and our diseases just destroy them.

Aliens not being prepared, that's a good feeling.

That's a hopeful feeling.

I like the idea that aliens don't do all the research.

♪

narrator: There are many ways to cope with an apocalypse.

Some hide in heavily- fortified bunkers...

[motorcycle engine revving]

While others meet the disaster head-on.

narrator: How would you face the apocalypse?

- Help, they're coming! They're coming!

narrator: Curse the fate that brought you to this point?

- I've been condemned to live.

narrator: Play games

in your fully-stocked survivalist compound?

- Is that "Monopoly"?

narrator: Or motor to the mall and help yourself

to some bitchin' threads?

If you answered yes to the last question,

you might be a betty in the mid-'80s

apocalypse film "Night of the Comet."

[automatic gunfire]

- That movie could not be more '80s.

[dramatic music]

Down to the music and the fashion,

and the hairstyles and everything.

- Like, I'm 18, okay?

And I can watch the comet

wherever I want to watch the comet.

♪

narrator: A mysterious comet

reduces most of the Earth's population to dust.

- Everybody's gone. - What?

- I swear to God.

- [coughs] You made me swallow my gum.

- There's nobody. I mean, there's nobody!

narrator: A pair of sisters from the LA suburbs

must run a gauntlet of deranged cannibals...

- [screaming]

♪

narrator: Mutant mall employees...

- Let's play a game. It's called scary noises.

narrator: And sinister scientists.

♪

- [snarls] - [screaming]

narrator: All things considered,

they handle it pretty well.

- Like this is the height of, you know,

valley girl mentality.

This culture that's very ditzy LA women.

- Daddy would've gotten us Uzis.

- And to see a movie where they end up

surviving and kicking ass,

it just makes it really stand the test of time with how,

like, how great it is.

- They said you were dead.

- They were exaggerating totally.

- Hey, that's a great outfit. - Thanks.

♪

narrator: You could look at "Night of the Comet"

as being an expression of the fear of nuclear war.

- Thirsty. - Yeah?

Well, what are you going to do when your complexion freaks up?

Dermatologist is dead, you know.

narrator: That's probably overthinking it.

[suspenseful music]

If the apocalypse does come,

you'd better hope you can spend it outdoors and free...

[ominous music]

narrator: Not locked up with the doomsday prepper

at "10 Cloverfield Lane."

[metallic impact] - [yelps]

[tires squealing]

♪

narrator: After a traffic accident,

a young woman wakes up to find herself

chained to a railing in a survivalist's bunker.

He tells her that he has saved her

from an apocalyptic attack.

♪

- Everyone outside of here is dead.

[ominous orchestral music]

narrator: Leaving the bunker means certain death.

♪

Can he be trusted?

- No one comes in or out.

♪

narrator: The tense scenario is played out

between three actors:

Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Michelle,

John Gallagher Jr. as Emmett,

and John Goodman as the inscrutable Howard.

♪

- It's quite a still movie.

Purposefully, we are--we have very specific compositions

to make our characters feel boxed in

and, like, we're watching a little diorama unfolding.

Then there are moments where things get more unhinged

and the camera loosens up and we're more handheld.

[tense music]

- [screaming] - Stop!

narrator: One of those moments comes when Michelle,

convinced that Howard is a dangerous predator,

tries to escape and discovers the apocalypse is real.

- [screaming unintelligibly]

[snarling and head bashing]

♪

- The obvious reference points that we had were "Misery."

- You did it! You did it! You murdered my Misery!

- Which we could homage because it was a remake

up until our final act.

I kept on saying to everyone is that we're sort of the inverse

and that in "Misery," you meet Kathy Bates

and you like her and you trust her.

And then you're not sure if there's a darkness.

[thunder rumbling]

♪

- [groans]

- In our movie, we meet this guy

and we are immediately going, "He's trouble."

- You think I sound crazy.

Crazy is building your ark

after the flood has already come.

- "I've seen this horror movie before.

I got to get out of here."

And then it flips on us and we go, "Oh wait,

maybe he's not trouble," you know?

♪

- You gonna walk out on me?

narrator: But as time passes, Michelle realizes

she is in a worst-case scenario

because Howardis a homicidal maniac.

[metallic scrape] - [screaming]

And when she finally gets out of the bunker,

she sees the apocalypse is still in progress.

♪

- Come on.

narrator: And the audience sees why this film is a sequel

to the giant monster movie "Cloverfield."

♪

- It's a psychological thriller

that becomes an apocalyptic horror at the end

because you don't know if any of it's real.

♪

And then this is a great reveal of,

like, no, not only is it real, it's infinitely worse

than what you thought. [chuckles]

- [gasps] [glass cracks]

[windshield wiper squeaks]

[creature roars]

There is an apocalypse. There are aliens.

It's super [no audio] up.

And I think Trachtenberg did a really fantastic job

making a movie that was really more spiritually a sequel

to the first one.

♪

narrator: Most movie apocalypses

arrive with a bang.

♪

But what if the end of the human race comes quietly

and we don't realize it until it's far too late?

- [screams]

narrator: "Planet of the Apes"

gave us one of the most indelible images

of post-apocalyptic Earth ever recorded:

when Charlton Heston comes across

the centuries-old ruin of the Statue of Liberty.

- You blew it up!

Ah, damn you!

God damn you all to hell!

[dramatic music]

narrator: And in "Soylent Green,"

the bleakest of Heston's '70s-era apocalypse movies,

a world ravaged by climate change and overpopulation

resorts to a high-tech form of cannibalism

to feed the masses.

- Soylent Green is made out of people.

Next thing, they'll be breeding us like cattle.

You gotta tell 'em! Soylent Green is people!

♪

narrator: But the end of the human race

doesn't always require ruined cities

and blighted countrysides.

[shrieking]

There is the quiet apocalypse of being stealthily replaced

by things that look like us, but are utterly alien.

♪

That's the paranoid premise of Jack Finney's novel

"The Body Snatchers."

- They're like huge seed pods.

narrator: Which has been adapted and ripped off

countless times since it was published in 1955.

[dramatic orchestral music]

- "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"

is a movie that gets remade, like, every generation.

I mean, we all get the

"Invasion of the Body Snatchers" that we deserve.

- Miles. - Miles.

♪

- For mine, it was the 1956 version

which was an almost film noir.

- Listen to me! We're in danger! Danger!

- Get out of the street! Go on! Get out of here!

[ominous music]

narrator: In a small California town,

people are being replaced by duplicates.

♪

Emotionless creatures grown from pods

that all think identically.

- No emotion. And you have no feelings.

Only the instinct to survive.

narrator: Clearly, there's an allegory here

about conformity and political extremism,

but the targets of the critique

depend on your point of view.

- Desire, ambition, faith.

Without them, life's so simple. Believe me.

- The genius of the first

"Invasion of the Body Snatchers"

is that it can be interpreted as anticommunist.

And it can be interpreted as anti-McCarthy witch hunts.

- He's been talking day after day about the way he wants to

get anyone tainted with communism out before sundown.

- It's a malignant disease

spreading through the whole country.

♪

- So that's a really clever thing is that the, you know--

like, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"

is like a double whammy.

[dramatic orchestral music]

♪

[screeching]

narrator: Phillip Kaufman's 1978 version

is more of a sequel than a remake.

- [screaming]

narrator: Set in San Francisco,

it's a chilling horror film and a satire

of the baby boom generation's drift away

from the free-thinking values of the '60s.

- Matthew, I've lived in this city all my life,

but somehow today, I felt everything had changed.

People were different.

[ominous music]

narrator: Donald Sutherland,

a one-time symbol of the counterculture,

stars as a health department inspector who slowly realizes

his friends are being replaced by pod people.

♪

- All right. Let's back up and go through it once more.

narrator: In one of many clever bits of casting,

Leonard Nimoy appears as a pop psychologist

who at first seems to be the voice of reason.

- You're jumping into a very bizarre conclusion

that this man you live with has been replaced by somebody else.

Isn't it more likely that want to believe that he's changed

because you're really looking for an excuse to get out?

- Nimoy who up until then had always been seen as a good guy,

as Spock from "Star Trek," suddenly playing a villain,

made that film extra frightening.

- You will be born again into an untroubled world.

Free your anxiety, fear.

- But he also was, like, a strange sort of ambassador

or emissary for their point of view.

He almost made becoming a pod person

sound somewhat appealing.

- We don't hate you. There's no need for hate now.

♪

narrator: In keeping with the bleak spirit of the times,

the hero ends up being absorbed

into the emotionless collective.

- [screeching] - No, no!

- I mean, that last shot of Donald Sutherland

is absolutely terrifying.

And the way Veronica Cartwright screams.

It has the scariest ending to any horror film in the '70s.

- [screeching]

- Horror films are fun

when they take the kind of paranoid fantasies

that skitter around our brains and say,

"But what if it was true?"

- [gasps] Jack!

- Reality, however, becomes a little less fun

when we can't parse the difference

between truth and paranoid fantasy.

♪

narrator: Someday, the end will come.

[zombies snarling]

♪

Civilization will collapse.

♪

Will you be a victim?

Or a survivor?

♪