The Day the World Ended (2001)

A Brilliant Conflict

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED is another lame TV movie released as part of a Creature Features set of '50s remakes. I've yet to see one I liked! Just the other movies in the series, this bears no resemblance to the movie it's a remake of, and in addition it has absolutely nothing to do with the world ending. It's another run of the mill alien on the loose outing, complete with weird townsfolk, poor attempts at humour and a psychic kid. Somehow, some notable actors have been roped into this mess, including Nastassja Kinski (TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER) looking aged as the doctor heroine and Randy Quaid (INDEPENDENCE DAY) playing another weirdo, this time the stepfather from hell.The film has the whole 'is the alien real or not?' thing going on but it's so mundane, routine and downright boring that you end up not caring. The cast give bizarre, non-serious performances which takes away from any dramatic tension that might have been built as a result of their attitudes. The alien in the woods stuff has been done to death and close-up shots of the extraterrestrial's teeth have been ripped off from ALIENS. I'll admit that there's one decent set piece, a ferocious encounter in a toilet, but it's not worth watching the film just to see that. The best action would be go and watch some of the ORIGINAL '50s creature features like IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE instead just to see how fun and campy they are in comparison to this lacklustre cash-in.

Well, not really bad for an evening's entertainment. If you can digest a mixture of outdated horror effects, pseudo psychological insights combined with a plot that verges on the incredible ... astonishingly enough, you'll consider this movie as fairly amusing. The fact that "The Day.."succeeds in keeping our attention focused on the developing story is obviously due to the great acting by Natassja Kinski and Randy Quaid. Miss Kinski is not only a natural talent but a very beautiful lady who seems to become more attractive as the years go by: her appearance always seems to blend perfectly with her actual age. It remains a mystery why one has not seen her more frequently in top-class productions.Randy Quaid needs no renewed appraisal: he has a remarkable presence and performs equally convincingly in both comedy and drama. It's sometimes difficult however not to picture him as cousin Eddie in "Christmas Vacation", certainly in this movie when at a certain moment he appears on the deck in front of his house with Christmas illuminations in the background. Bobby Edner gets away with a kind of "Sixth Sense" imitation and as for the monster who is very threatening and bloodthirsty at the beginning and in profile definitely resembles a Tyrannosaurus Rex, well, at the very end he obviously winks at the child but also at us, the audience, as if to convey the message: "Please do not take all of this too seriously!"

Why the producers of this film chose to name this with the title they did is a mystery. This is not a post apocalyptic thriller nor is it about the end of the world in any way. A typical low budget low quality thriller about a young boy who comes to believe that he is the offspring of an alien creature that is terrorizing a small town in Nevada. He uncovers suppressed memories of his mother who was killed by the frightened townsfolk. She however turns out to be a rather pretty human female and not anything like the alien creature. Which raises some obvious questions. First how does this pretty human female end up meeting and making love to an alien being in order to produce a rather human looking kid,who has no resemblance at all to the extraterrestrial daddy? Also what is not explained is the real reason why the townsfolk killed the boy's mother. Supposedly the boy's mother like him had some psychic powers but that alone cannot explain why the narrow minded townsfolk went after and killed her. This is not exactly your intelligent cerebrally stimulating movie, but at least the acting of RAndy Quaid and the beautiful Natassia Kinski saves the film from being a total flop.

Horror film finds a killer alien, who is just misunderstood, devouring people. A school psychologist (Nastassja Kinski) investigates the death of a student's mother and finds the boy (Bobby Edner) believes he is the son of the being. His earthling father (Randy Quaid) is also a doctor who has the boy in his care and holds that it is all in the boy's imagination...or is it? A good cast and an original premise high-light this mediocre made-for-TV monster flick. The creature effects aren't bad but the film generally lacks tension, suspense and gore and is rather predictable despite a good, well-written finale and adequate direction from Terence Gross. Interestingly, the title has absolutely nothing to do with the film (Not to mention the fact that this movie is completely unrelated to the 1956 original Roger Corman film barring the same name!). Check out the "face-skinning scene for some hilariously bad effects. 4.5/10.