Planeta Infernal

Having read the classic sci-fi story by Asimov, I was, of course, expecting something better. In this case, seeing two wheelchair-bound spasmatics fighting each other with brooms and a bucket of manure would qualify as "better". This film was even worse than "A Boy and His Dog", another sci-fi semi-classic rendered horribly on film.

After being told about this film, Asimov reportedly told everyone he could that he had nothing to do with making the film, and to avoid it at all costs. He's probably rolling over in his grave right now just thinking about it.

The filmmakers attempted to portray a primitive society on the brink of technology, but what it looks like instead is that they simply raided the wardrobe closet of a low-budget renaissance festival. All the sets are little more than tents erected in the middle of a desert. Their astronomical "sounding" instruments are seashells and string glued to pieces of wood. (Yes, seashells - I wish I were making this up, but I'm not.)

My only regret is that I actually stayed to see the end of the film, in the hopes that the film might redeem itself with a climactic ending. Nope.

Take my word for it, if you don't like the first five minutes of it (and you won't), stop right there.

The temptation to quote the comic shop guy on 'The Simpsons' and leave my entire review at "Worst movie ever" is tremendous, but there *have* been worse movies than this inept and insulting version of one of the masterworks of science fiction.

Not very many, though.

I can only assume that Mayersberg came up with this version based on no more than a one-line plot summary of Isaac Asimov's classic short story. It's inconceivable that he actually *read* it, given what he put on film.

The resemblance to Asimov's original 'Nightfall' is limited, and strictly, to the fact that this culture hasn't experienced a sunset. Other than that, he has taken off on a tangent that, had Asimov written it himself, would have immediately been ripped from the typewriter and consigned to the trashbin.

My experience with this film was even worse, being the great Asimov fan that I am. Had the tape I watched not been a rental, I would have taken it out into the street and run over it several times, ground what remained into a powder, and burned it before it could hurt anyone else. Alas, I had to return it to the video store, there to sit quietly and innocently on the shelf, awaiting its chance to cruelly crush the hopes of a subsequent SF fan.

This movie should only be rented if you're holding an MST3K night and want something suitable for riffing. Otherwise, save yourself the money. It ain't worth it.

Oh, the humanity!

There must've been a budget for this, but it must've been used for advertising! The sets are boring, akin to filming in someone's backyard with no attention to detail. The acting? Well, it's just not really. Continuity of story? Must've taken a vacation that day. Were the filmmakers ambitious? Maybe, but it was a heartless attempt to tell a story with film.

It's not Asimov's fault, rather these film-makers lacked vision.

The other reviews here I can truly say are valid, since I sat through this turkey in the theater, hoping desperately for it to get better. I mean, it had to didn't it? Alas, it never did...

Skip it, go watch the Georgio Moroder version of Metropolis again instead... Or read Issac's story, either way you'll be happier, trust me.

If you did not know the story line is about a planet surrounded by suns and knows no darkness but every couple thousand years an eclipse occurs and pure anarchy breaks out but this movie turns the story into a New Age Northern California Greek play set in the Arizona desert with people running around doing performance art.

David Birney is in this as a leader/astrologer or something that is never quite explained. Sarah Douglas is his former wife who left him for a religion or the religion's leader. Believe me you won't care. But it is nice to see her as something other than a villainess and this the only good I can say for the 'movie.' There are terrible sets, if you can call them that, terrible acting, editing, writing, and music that might have seemed advant- garde for 1979 but is just noise now

The most hilarious scene in the movie is the assassination attempt on Birney, it is something straight out of Ed Wood with the brute assassin foiled by the glare of some quartz or crystal that Birney picks up or it might be the performance art piece that the desert people put on or the performance art that the daughter does after killing someone or Douglas getting her eyes taken out by pet crows or...

If you are expecting a movie based on the Asimov story forget it but if you are a Northern Californian New Ager wondering what might have been then you might like this movie. Not Really.

Somewhere . . . somehow . . . one of the finest short SF stories ever to be penned was brutally transmorgrified into a mishmosh of New Age symbolism heavily overlaid with bad acting. Asimov's original story was a well crafted tale of slowly consuming fear over a natural event. Mayersberg's film version by rights should have been a major genre event. Instead we find veteran character actors such as Sarah Douglas and Alexis Kanner (who should've known better) trying to shore up one of the worst David Birney performances ever filmed. Only two things can be recommended about this film: an interesting poster, and the fact that it was filmed in and around Paolo Soleri's "Arcosanti" architectural project out in Arizona.