This remake of the 1950s original is set in a lightly multicultural San Francisco instead of the small-town setting of that other film. When people start losing what we consider essential essential personality features and begin to act secretively, Elizabeth Driscoll's (Brooke Adams) suspicions are raised. Gradually we learn that the plan is to serve the interests of an alien lifeform of a vegetable nature we end up knowing only in the most superficial fashion. The acting and directing pushes hard to portray fear and uncertainty caused by the shadowy conspiracy, and is great at showing the distrust of the authority figures represented here by book author Dr. David Kibner (Leonard Nimoy). Our sympathies are with the small band of characters trying to piece together what's happening as the final half-hour suggests that piecemeal action of the individual can only serve ultimately as a symbol of revenge against overwhelming societal change. The film has lots of resonances for me, ones the film doesn't reference explicitly. The promises of harmony expressed by the pod people have cult vibes reminding me of how Jim Jones and the People's Temple movement were just at that time reaching their height and sudden destruction. There is also the anxiety after Watergate where things shifted from the counterculture to something more buttoned down, as though Reaganism was being foreshadowed. Since this film, other remakes have been made which bring out other paranoid obsessions in American culture. Maybe it is time for another one.