O Dia do Juízo Final

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 rented this movie as part of the mini-series "cult video", hoping for as much fun as I had with "Laserblast" or "creepozoids" that are also part of the edition. Unfortunately, this movie cannot keep up with those gems. Even though it is stupid enough, it is all in all just boring, and moments of fun (like the seconds where the "true face" of the aliens is shown) are too rare to make it up. I have to say, however, that the concept of destroying the whole earth is somewhat audacious, and the movie even delivers one scene of odd true horror, that is when the couple watches the end of the world (earthquakes, inundations) on some TV screens like from the distance ...

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 .

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.

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.