When Geoff Simpson and I led a week of summer camp at Camp Allen, we introduced our campers to science fiction movies from the 1950s. This genre has long been an enthusiasm of mine. Particularly striking, as I consider it, is the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers from 1956. In the movie, malevolent aliens invaded earth by taking over human bodies. This was the terror: the friend or family member you knew and loved might be your sister — or she might also be an alien. This was an artistic rendering of the fear people of that time felt of Soviet infiltration. Of course, the McCarthy hearings, searching for communist agents in government and elsewhere, had been held a couple of years before in 1954. The Red Scare was the impetus of many science fiction films of the day. My wife and I have been watching the third season of the Netflix hit series Stranger Things. Last night, we finished Chapter 3 and (together with an awesome 80s soundtrack!) it has some of the same themes as Invasion of…
