sal_p

This is the kind of movie that won't win many awards but for some reason, has stood out in memory for a great many years. The special effects are a product of that time and would be laughed at by today's younger movie goers but they did the job. The scientific aspect of the story was full of errors perhaps (the theory on why the young girl was paralyzed for instance) but again, it was sufficient to carry the story. No, the most memorable part of the movie was the simplicity of the "monster" itself: a crystalline material that seemed to forever replicate itself, grow and then fall upon anything in its path. And no one knew how to stop its slow, methodical but deadly progress. It was far from indestructible, but if you blew it up, each splintered piece would continue to grow and you only made the situation worse. It truly was monstrous and I love it for it's simplicity.

And then there's the final line from the governor, "don't blow up the dam, (pregnant pause) unless you're absolutely sure it's going to work". In my little world, it's a classic.

A note made in a previous comment is absolutely true: "turn your brain off". I really liked George Peppard and take a little bit of associated pride in that he went to the same school system in Dearborn, MI that I did but this really is a weird movie. To call it science fiction means it should have some scientific background to substantiate the story. Killer cockroaches? And then when they needed to repair these state of the art "RV's", they happen to be on top of "what's left of Detroit" and find a replacement rear end in a junkyard. And the special effects were sad even for the time the movie was produced. With all due respect to Mr. Peppard and Mr. Vincent, you should be forewarned that this movie has a great deal of "cheesiness".

That was the caption in the cable guide that got my attention. OK, so I'm a frustrated artist who can really appreciate the end result of CGI work. And it keeps getting better and better with each new release. I just caught this one on cable and missed it at the "one theater" that IMDb says it was shown at. Sure, the storyline has gaps and the characters could use more development but the artwork is state of the art and phenomenal. From an artist's point of view, drawing 16 frames per second to simulate motion has always been an overwhelming task but not with computers. It still takes an army of programmers but what they're doing today was impossible just a short time ago. The freedom of expression as evidenced by this work is truly unlimited. Every scene had me in awe. The delicate motion of bodies and fluids was mesmerizing. Now if they can only get people to look like real people instead of textured geometric shapes. One can only dream.