Writing has been progressing well since I got back from Pittsburgh.
I finished sketching out the plot of Brain From Outer Space last week, but decided to take a break, then look over it again next week for one final go. This will probably mean not getting done as soon as possible—and I know once I start writing, the plot will change—but I want to do the best plot outline I can, and be satisfied that everything will hold up.
Progress on Enemy Within has been slow, but adequate. I finished a book on fears of Satanism that will be useful, though it’s more about the ritual satanic abuse panic of the 1980s (which doesn’t tie in to any movies I’m aware of), and I’m working through a good one now about Invasion of the Body Snatchers in its various incarnations, plus of course, reading the original Finney novel. One creepy element in that someone should really use in a future adaptation is that the fully developed pods only have a five year life span: Once they’ve duplicated all life on Earth, the next generation heads out to the stars, the pod people left behind on Earth all die and the world is lifeless (not out of malice, which makes it creepier—it’s their equivalent of slash-and-burn agriculture).
I watched the most recent version, the mediocre 2007 The Invasion, last week and this week I’ve already seen I Was a Communist For the FBI and Red Menace, both of which dramatize the terrible threat the American Communist Party poses to all free human beings. The former of the two films is so extreme, it makes The Manchurian Candidate look like gritty realism.
