DAY THE WORLD ENDED (1955)
Tagline: A new high in naked shrieking terror!
(Sci-Fi, Horror, I Am Radioactive) [PG]
Note – This movie did not originally have an MPAA rating, but the DVD release was rated PG.
All I know is there are two forms of life fighting for survival here in this valley, and only one of them can win. It's got to be us!
This one is about a group of seven people trying to survive after an atomic war. They are protected somewhat by a house that is located in a valley and designed to handle the apocalyptic situation they are in. Unfortunately, there is only enough food for 3 and on top of that, they are being ravaged by an unknown figure a few of them believe is one of them.
Noteworthy – This movie was remade almost line for line in 1969. The title was changed to IN THE YEAR 2889. The 1955 version in the review is not to be confused with 2001’s THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED which is completely unrelated. THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED does mention DAY THE WORLD ENDED though, so there you have it.
First off, the setting for this movie is decidedly a downer. Having said that, some post-apocalyptic movies actually do a decent job of sending in some rays of hope for the future in a world gone mad. This is one of those movies. This was the 4th film Roger Corman (who directed IT CONQUERED THE WORLD, ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS, THE BEAST WITH A MILLION EYES, and more) made and it’s pretty good overall in spite of some issues I will get into. It’s honestly very difficult to blow it completely when you have the cast he was able to assemble for this movie.
The first thing I have to mention is this crazy monster costume for the beast in the movie. It looks like a bunch of 4th graders were challenged to come up with a monster design in 10 minutes and were given a bunch of clay, mud, and foam. I can see what Paul Blaisdell (who designed it and wore the costume) was going for because this is supposed to be a nuclear-ravaged world, but man oh man, this one is rough. Even if we had gotten something that looked more like the monster in the poster, that would have been fine, but as much as I dig Paul’s body of work design-wise, this is one I would put in the bottom. If you are going full goofy, just go full goofy. This looked like it was an effort at a serious design and it didn’t quite get there for this particular movie.
Acting-wise this is another great outing for Richard Denning (best known for CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON and a bunch of other cool sci-fi stuff) who plays Rick. His back and forth with Paul Birch (who plays Jim Maddison the most responsible person in the movie) is almost like a real father and son situation only on screen. Birch was also in THE BEAST WITH A MILLION EYES. Lori Nelson is also pretty solid in this as Jim Maddison’s daughter Louise Maddison. Lori Nelson is best known for her role in REVENGE OF THE CREATURE shot the same year as this movie. Adele Jergens plays a bit of a desperate man-pleaser in this movie named Ruby. I wasn’t crazy about the character, but Adele was awesome in this and the role kind of gave this thing a bit of a love triangle situation adding to the drama.
Overall the creature design wasn’t enough to detour me from liking this movie and both Rick and Jim as characters put this movie in the better than average range. I also loved that some 1950s sci-fi had the balls to mention God and His significance, so that also affected my score just because it was gutsy for the genre even back then.
I have to give this thing a 5 out of 7. A better monster design would have raised this up a bit, but I just can’t give it a 6 with that 3 eyed mud-pile with plastic dangling all over it running around.
GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF GOLDEN STATE PRODUCTIONS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.
Please check out the link below by clicking on the picture. Because no one should die buttonless.
Comments
Post a Comment