If major multiverse-themed movies like Spider-Man: No Way Home and Everything Everywhere All at Once are any indication, audiences have never been hungrier for narratives featuring doppelgängers and/or the cloning process. Fortunately for them, just about every genre from science fiction to drama to comedy and, of course, horror, has touched on the topic.
With the advent of CGI, clones and doppelgängers are easier to make convincing on camera, but they're not always friendly like Sam Rockwell's in Duncan Jones' Moon. Instead, many come in the form of antagonists, particularly in horror. But there are exceptions to every "rule," and just as not all horror films are straightforward horror films, not every clone is a shrieking body-snatcher or re-birthed cinema icon.
Matthew Bennell In Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978)
1978's remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers manages to become one of the best classic sci-fi movies of all time, far superior to its still solid predecessor. No small feat.
It also contains what could be fairly considered the most stone-cold bone-chilling final moment of mainstream American horror. Veronica Cartwright's Nancy Bellicec approaches protagonist Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland). He's unresponsive at first, but that's also been the strategy to evade the snatchers. But he's using no strategy, and he's not himself at all. Matthew's jaw hangs, and he emits the same piercing scream as his newfound pod-people brethren.
Helen In Possession (1981)
While easily one of the best Sam Neill movies not titled Jurassic Park, Possession features a bone-chilling performance from Isabelle Adjani, who is a powerhouse in her dual role. The plot follows Neill's spy, Mark, and his wife, Anna. Anna greets him after a mission with divorce papers, but it's her increasingly bizarre behavior that follows that proves even more concerning. Further adding to Mark's confusion is their son's new teacher, who looks just like his wife save for a new eye color.
Possession is not a movie for the faint of heart, and it goes to some very weird places. But it's also loaded with horrifying yet beautiful imagery, even when it's a tentacle monster lying in a blood-soaked bed. As for the beast, the tentacle monster itself ends up being another of the film's doppelgängers, this one for Mark.
The Thing In The Thing (1982)
The remake may feature some of the worst use of CGI in horror (or any other genre), but John Carpenter's perfect 1982 original features perhaps the nastiest version of a clone ever committed to public consciousness. Each variation of the alien is uniquely memory-searing, with teeth and eyes coming from areas that make no sense when viewed through the lens of rationality.
Whether it's the Palmer-Thing or the Blair-Thing, the alien takes some remarkably grotesque (and impeccably aged) forms. If The Thing doesn't feature the scariest doppelgängers, it at the very least features the most disgusting.
Carol Malone's Clone In Body Snatchers (1993)
Abel Ferrera's Body Snatchers is a worthy update of the pod people story for the 1990s, but it was mostly swept under the rug. However, Meg Tilly's performance as Carol Malone is truly committed and phenomenal. She's a mostly silent woman dragged along with her husband's new gig on a military base (where folks tend to run silent with or without an alien invasion).
Body Snatchers is an eerie film that manages to stand apart from the previous adaptations. The switch to a military base is smart, but it's really the performances that sell the film. And, even with Forest Whitaker on the cast list, none can beat Tilly, who makes Carol Malone frightening even before she's converted.
Holly Gooding's Twin In Doppelgänger (1993)
Doppelganger isn't the best film of Drew Barrymore's career, but it does feature one heck of a practical effects baddie. Barrymore portrays Holly Gooding, who moves across the country after being accused of a murder she didn't commit. She claims it's the work of a doppelgänger. But Patrick, her newfound NYC roommate, starts noticing some escalating behavior, and before long, he's wondering if there's a copy out there at all.
By the end of the film, it's revealed that there's less of a doppelgänger and more of a split personality. However, Holly is no ordinary case, and not only is she being gaslit by her doctor, but she also has an absorbed twin, and the partially formed Holly has no love for the good doctor.
Ripley 8 In Alien: Resurrection (1997)
Sigourney Weaver is an actor people instantly associate with one character, and that character is Alien's Ellen Ripley. Naturally, Weaver is one of the most recognized and revered performers of her generation, but no amount of Working Girls or A Year of Living Dangerously-type films can detract from the impact of her Nostromo crew member.
However, something's off about her Ripley 8 in Alien: Resurrection. From moment one, the viewer is made acutely aware that this isn't the Ripley they saw jettison a Xenomorph into space, save a little girl from an alien queen, or throw herself back into a molten pit to stop the Xeno spread. It's because she's a replicated abomination, and while she has trace amounts of Ripley's personality, she's far more of an unsettling physical copy than she is a genuine clone.
Alice Clones In Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)
The concept of cloning protagonist Alice (Milla Jovovich) hit the chaotic Resident Evil film series early on. In fact, it essentially closed out the third film, Resident Evil: Apocalypse. Its follow-up, which saw director Paul W. S. Anderson return to the franchise, then opened with much the same. Alice and her clones assault Umbrella HQ, and it's as if they're The Avengers if all the Avengers looked identical.
Umbrella Corporation is substantial, so the fact that Alice and her clones could do real damage to it is both impressive and indicative that she's a force to be reckoned with. The average person wouldn't need to worry about Alice, but a corrupt scientist or greedy CEO would be right to sweat.
Kane Clone In Annihilation (2018)
Alex Garland's science fiction horror film Annihilation features a dynamite lead performance from Natalie Portman, but it still failed to make a mark at the box office. Furthermore, it divided viewers, but even detractors had to admit "The Shimmer" (AKA a quarantine zone containing alien life) was gorgeous, and the ideas at play were impressive.
The plot mostly follow's Portman's Lena, a biology professor and army veteran who leads a team into "The Shimmer." There are several doppelgängers in Annihilation, with the first being Lena's husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac). However, before the movie concludes, there's more than a good chance Lena herself has faced the same copycat fate.
Red In Us (2019)
Jordan Peele's sophomore film, Us, managed to be nearly as impressive as his first, Get Out. A major accomplishment, considering that debut could hold a fair claim to the title of being the best horror film of its respective decade. Us isn't quite as ingenious, but it is easily one of the best mainstream doppelgänger-themed horror films to date.
Lupita Nyong'o pulls double duty as Adelaide Wilson and her "tethered," Red. "Tethered" is the film's word for doppelgänger, and it turns that concept into something on a global scale. Us is like Body Snatchers if the pod people could take over in 24 hours with the right leader.
Sarah's Double In Dual (2022)
One of 2022's best underseen movies, Dual features Karen Gillan in the roles of both a woman diagnosed with a terminal illness and the clone she commissions to reduce her family's sadness. Gillan is magnetic on screen, and she brings a surplus of personality to a character that has mostly shut herself off from the world.
Dual isn't strictly a horror film as much as it is dystopian sci-fi, but dystopian can be scary in and of itself. And, in Dual, Gillan's Sara has everything thrown her way. And that's even before she's forced to fight her clone to the death.