El último día del mundo

At the moment I'm writing this review, the world is faced with the Corona-virus pandemic. Many countries, mine included, are in lockdown and the immediate future doesn't look too hopeful, so I though it was perhaps appropriate to watch a Sci-Fi/horror film with a title like "End of the World".

Well, when the world does come to an end for real, whether due to Corona or another biblical catastrophe, I sincerely hope it won't be as slow and boring to sit through as this dud of a film. There are two noteworthy scenes in this film; - namely the pre-credits opening sequence and the cataclysm-montage during the climax. Everything in between is painfully dull, difficult to follow and plain uninteresting. The almighty Christopher Lee stars as a priest, but his persona is taken over by an evil alien bent on destroying the world from within a secluded little monastery. It's up to a clueless scientist and his wife Lolita to save the planet. In other words, we're doomed!

I saw this movie in the theater when I was a kid and always remember it as my first experience with getting ripped off by a horrible movie with a good commercial. The commercial was great, but it I found out later that it had every explosion or 'special effect' in the entire movie (about 4) and even some that weren't in the movie. There was some sort of plot relating to the aliens but the aliens were never actually shown in the movie as far as I remember. It was clearly a case of someone making a buck off a cheap movie designed to scam people. I guess my world of innocence ended that day, when I found out there were bad people out there who make bad bad movies.

The Earth is destined to be no more thanks to Father Pergado and a bunch of Nuns. Christopher Lee (who has since said that he was duped in to appearing in this by his producers who told him loads of great actors were involved) is Father Pergado and gets to do his usual serious and scary routine. The cast are not too bad, though most have now retired from acting. The film has terrible sound effects (mainly created from pressing keys on an old computer it seems) and it ridiculously pondering at times - showing a scene of the sky, for instance, for what feels like hours at a time. Despite this the story is pretty humorous in a world-is-doomed sort of way and the production is adequate. Interestingly one scene features Albert Band and wife Jackie; Meda Band; Writer Frank Ray Perilli and Charles Band's assistant Bennah Burton. Despite its plodding nature I genuinely wanted to see how it all worked out and thus quite liked it.

A good deal of running around. A badly conceived adversary with very little complexity. A scientist who works in communications sending off signals into space and receiving them, gets caught up with aliens. Along with his pretty wife, he invades their territory and is given secrets about them. He becomes rather traitorous in the process. Granted, he is given little choice anyway. There is a scene where he gives them everything they want. This is a dull movie with lots of long stretches where little happens. The plot isn't technically bad. It's just that we are usually following a car, a trip through a woods, investigating a building. This is what editing is all about. I suppose the story wouldn't technically support much more. Not much here.

Dull, cheap sci-fi thriller, made with an almost total lack of conviction (a control room full of computers and other devices used to receive and decipher messages from outer space is run by only ONE MAN, and is VERY poorly guarded at night), and full of campy sound effects. Christopher Lee is not only wasted, but he also gives one of his few "I'm here strictly for the money" performances. (*1/2)