End of the World

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.

After witnessing a man's death in a bizarre accident, a coffee machine explodes sending him through a window and into a neon sign where is electrocuted , Father Pergado (Christopher Lee) encounters his alien double bent on world conquest and he then retreats to a convent . Meanwhile , a marriage formed by a scientist (Kirk Scott) and his wife (Sue Lyon) are investigating weird signals from beyond space , it leads them the convent where are some nuns and the Doppelganger Father Pergado who have malignant objectives .

This laughable below average Sci-Fi deals with an extraterrestrial invasion from outer space formed by aliens plotting to destroy the Earth while disguised as religious figures . It's realized in a television style , terribly developed and slowly paced . This is a low-budgeted film and plenty of stock-shots about disasters and catastrophes . Protagonist duo is mediocre as Kirk Scott and the famous ¨Lolita¨, Sue Lyon , who had a bad career . Stoic and serious acting by the incombustible Christopher Lee , still today successfully playing , such as ¨Dark Shadows¨and ¨The Hobbit¨ . Support cast is very good , but really wasted , being featured by experimented veterans in brief interventions such as Dean Jagger as Collins , Lew Ayres as Beckerman and Macdonald Carey . Middling cinematography and electronic musical score by means of synthesizer , being composed by Andrew Belling and Joel Goldsmith , Jerry Goldsmith's son . The picture was produced by Charles Band and absurdly directed by John Hayes . John was a writer, director, usually produced and edited as well as often penned the scripts for his films , and occasionally actor who made a wide variety of outlandish and obscure low-budget independent pictures throughout the 60's and 70's . John made his feature length debut with the interesting 1961 drama "The Grass Eater." Hayes went on to make a diverse array of drive-in exploitation outings in such sub-genres as World War II potboilers ("Shell Shock," "The Cut-Throats"), rowdy redneck romps ("The Farmer's Other Daughter," "All the Lovin' Kinfolk"), sleazy crime fare ("Convicts' Women," "Mama's Dirty Girls"), Terror ("Dream No Evil," "Tomb of the undead," "Grave of the Vampire" , ¨Garden of dead¨), low-brow comedy ("Up Yours - A Rockin' Comedy" , ¨Five minutes to love¨), Drama (Sweet trash , Fandango) . John pops up in bit parts in the wholesome Disney family features "The Shaggy D.A." and "Treasure of the Matecumbe." His last directing credit was an episode of the horror anthology TV series "Tales from the Darkside." ¨. ¨The End of the world¨ results to be his only Sci-Fi movie and is considered a bottom of barrel flick . It might be good for a few , for the Christopher Lee hardcore fans . Rating : 3,5/10 . Below average .

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!

"A scientist discovers signals from space that appear to carry information concerning a series of seemingly unrelated natural disasters, occurring across the globe. Hoping to discover the source of these signals and who's behind them, the scientist and his wife set out on a trek to locate the intended recipient of the signals. What the couple eventually discovers is a small remote convent with occupants who are not really who they appear to be," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

Kirk Scott (as Andrew Boran) is the scientist who intercepts alien messages on his computer. He suspects a series of "Large Earth Disruptions" may be connected to the weird space static. Mr. Scott and pretty blonde wife Sue Lyon (as Sylvia Boran) investigate the mysterious signals from outer space. They discover priestly, but creepy Christopher Lee (as "Father Pergado"), and other silliness. Given that, "End of the World" is remarkably dull.

*** End of the World (1977) John Hayes ~ Kirk Scott, Sue Lyon, Christopher Lee

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.