THE DAY TIME ENDED (1979)
Label: Full Moon Features
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: PG
Duration:
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 & 5.1
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: John 'Bud' Carlos
Cast: Jim Davis, Dorothy Malone, Christopher Mitchum, Scott Kolden
The Day Time Ended (1979) is a bit of drive-in schlock from director John 'Bud' Carlos (Kingdom of the Spiders), and it's is weird one! A sci-fi fantasy film that feels like a series of semi-connected vignettes concerning a space-time warp/vortex of some kind that besets a family on their isolated California desert property. This is a premise that is a set-up with opening talk of three simultaneous supernovas that have been observed by astronomers in the distant night sky, with speculation that the ancient radiation from these supernovas is due to begin entering the Earth's atmosphere. Of course all of this allows for the introduction of pony stealing glowing lime-green pyramid, a few unidentified flying objects, green dancing aliens, and stop-motion creatures that inexplicably battle one another on this family's front lawn.
The cast here is headed-up by Jim Davis (Dracula vs Frankenstein) as Grant, the grandfatherly patriarch of three generations living at the desert home. No one here is really turning in a good performance, though the little Natasha Ryan who plays the adolescent granddaughter does an OK job of appearing charmingly naive and clueless in the middle of what transpires. The real stars of this drive-in dud though are the special effects, we get some cool-looking stop-motion animation from David Allen and Randall William Cook, and some cheap but fun looking miniature work from Paul Gentry (Airplane) along with some otherworldly optical effects and vintage matte paintings, so at least on a special effects level the film is fun even if the story is a bit of an undefined mess of sci-fi adventure, with an ending that doesn't so much explain anything to any sort of satisfaction, but sort of says, "well, there you go"...
Aside from some cool effects the film is notable in that it features a number of future Empire Pictures/Full Moon regulars by way of co-writer David Schmoeller (Crawlspace) and editor Ted Nicolau who would go onto direct the Subspecies films for producer Charles Band, with a tasty score by Richard Band (Re-Animator).
The movie sort of feels like made-for-TV film, the direction and performances are flat, and the special effects are fun but very low-budget, it definitely feels like the worse half of an already bad double bill, this would have been the film kids use to make-out during a trip to the drive-in at the end of then 70's, now it makes for a cheesy fun watch at home for lovers of bad movies who were conceived at those drive-ins.
Audio/Video: The Day Time Ended (1979) arrives on Blu-ray from Full Moon Features sourced from a 35mm print of the film, presented in 1080p HD and framed in 2.35:1 widescreen. The source is not stellar looking, showing plenty of flaws by way of dirt, debris, cigarette burns, nicks, scratches and straight up deterioration. The image is fairly washed out but on occasion shows some good color saturation and decent fine detail, though grain levels would indicate that some digital noise scrubbing has been applied throughout the film. The original press release for the film advertised “now in a totally remastered HD version with new and improved FX shots”, not sure what they might have tinkered with here but most of the optical FX looks appropriately dated to my eyes.
Full Moon again opt for lossy English Dolby Digital 2.0 & 5.1 mixes, there's a bit of noise throughout the presentation, but nothing I couldn't live with, and the score from Richard Band (Re-Animator) is a goodie.
Samples of the more egregious moments of print damage in the film.
The single-disc release comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a one-sided sleeve of artwork featuring the original movie poster, the same artwork appears on the disc.
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary with Producer/Visual Effects Supervisor Paul Gentry and Writer/Producer Wayne Schmidt
- Gallery (7 min)
- Rare Footage (7 min)
The Day Time Ended (1979) probably won't set the world on fire for those coming into it with fresh eyes, but I think that if you grew up watching this on TV as kid or you just love 70's drive-in cheese there's plenty to enjoy about this slice of silly sci-fi. I'd put it one the level of The Crater Lake Monster (1977), as in it's not very good, but it's got some cool vintage stop-motion, and that's enough the monster kid in me to give it a recommend.
