END OF THE WORLD (1977)
Remastered Blu-ray
Label: Full Moon
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 86 Minutes 43 Seconds
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 or 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1)
Director: John Hayes
Cast: Christopher Lee, Sue Lyon, Kirk Scott, Lewis Ayers, Macdonald Carey, Dean Jagger,
End of the World (1977) is a slice of low-budget '70s vintage apocalyptic science fiction directed by John Hayes (Grave of the Vampire), written by Frank Ray Perilli (Laserblast) and produced by the brothers Charles and Richard Band. In it research scientist Professor Andrew Boran (Kirk Scott, Heathers) and his wife Sylvia (Sue Lyon, Night of the Iguana, Crash!) have been scanning the skies for evidence of alien life, when they finally do tap into a series of strange signals from space they are shocked to discover the are coming from earth. The cryptic messages seem to predict a series of natural disasters on earth, with their curiosity peaked they track the source of the signal to a mysterious convent run by Gather Pergado (Christopher Lee, Dracula: Prince of Darkness) and six nuns. The visit doesn't turn up anything solid, but when the next transmission makes reference to their visit they realize that they were on to something. The make another trip to the convent at night, only to discover that the priest and the nuns have all been cloned by aliens and are using abbey as a base camp for their mission. When Hayes and his wife end up captured they are told that the aliens are from the planet Utopia and have been stranded on this planet, and are only looking for a way to home, and the key to making their interdimensional portal work is a key that is kept under lock and key at the research center that Hayes works at. To force him to play along they keep his wife hostage and send him out to steal the crystal, but when he returns they reveal that earth is a cosmic cesspool and must be destroyed, and that their real intent is to trigger global destruction by way of an apocalyptic series of natural disasters, before teleporting off the planet.
This low-budget 70's planet apocalypse was produced by Charles and Richard Band who secured the legend that is Christopher Lee through deceit, in his book Lee refences the film as such, "Some of the films I've been in I regret making. I got conned into making these pictures in almost every case by people who lied to me. Some years ago, I got a call from my producers saying that they were sending me a script and that five very distinguished American actors were also going to be in the film. Actors like José Ferrer, Dean Jagger and John Carradine. So I thought "Well, that's all right by me". But it turned out it was a complete lie. Appropriately the film was called End Of The World.". You have got to love how candid Lee could be about his career and the movies he appeared in. So, is this as bad as all that? I don't think so, it's a solid enough slice of eerie science fiction, slow moving and cash strapped for sure, but exactly the sort of thing that set my young mind on fire with fear and dread as a kid. I love the somewhat cheesy electronic/synth score by Andrew Belling (Ralp Bakshi's Wizards), but I remember reading that the score was actually composed by Joel Goldsmith, who is credited as "electronic music programmer", the son of legendary composer Jerry Goldsmith.
The film also features a couple of notable veteran actors, including Dean Jagger (X the Unknown) as Ray Collins who is Hayes supervisor at the NASA lab, Lew Ayres (Salem's Lot) as Commander Joseph Beckerman, and Macdonald Carey (It's Alive III: Island of the Alive) as John Davis.
The film opens with a scene of Lee's Priest entering a diner only for the coffee maker to explode like poltergeist activity, before the priest is confronted by his alien doppelganger. It's a cool opening, at that point you don't realize what the hell is happening, but it's just weird enough that it hooked me as a kid. The electronic gadgetry is quite vintage looking, with Hayes staring at banks of CRT computer screens and reading dot-matrix printouts, while computer tape reels spin around in the background. The alien lair in the Abbey is also chock full of vintage sci-fi technology that looks like it could have appeared in any number of cheap science fiction flicks, accompanies by neon lighting with lots of bleep and bloops, and electronic score to heighten the mood, it's fun stuff in a schlocky short of way. When Lee's Father Pergado/Zindar reveals his true alien form for a split second he look like Uatu, the Watcher from marvel Comics, it's awesome. The apocalyptic global destruction afflicted on the Earth is a montage of stock footage supposedly licensed from Roger Corman.
It's not a great flick, but I still find it an entertaining slice of serious-minded schlock, it has just enough mystery and eeriness about it that it captured my imagination as a kid, and it still has it's vintage schlock charms watching it now. The aliens in disguise on earth elements echoes earlier film like Invaders from Mars and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and foreshadowing later films like The Arrival. It's cheap, slow and not all the acting is of the highest caliber, but Band duping Lee into appearing in it certainly elevates it, and makes this an interesting curio from the Christopher Lee's filmography, one I think is worth checking out.
Audio/Video: The apocalyptic The End of the World arrives in Blu-ray from Full Moon Features in 1080p HD, sourced from a recently unearthed 16mm interpositive, framed in 1.78:1 widescreen. The image is rough-hewn, it has fuzz 16mm qualities like course grain and fuzzy textures, colors are inconsistent but generally looks good, while black levels are imperfect, but passable, the film looking rather dim throughout. There's an unevenness to the colors which tend to fluctuate a bit sometimes within the same scene, and there's some occasional film jutter, as well as emulsion digs, scratches and white speckling. Audio comes byway of lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 dual-mono or 5.1 surround, the audio track has source limitations, it's very thin and flat sounding, the surround mix does very little to improve things, though it does spread the electronic/synth score by Andrew Belling (The Killing Kind) and/or Joel Goldsmith, into the surrounds. I love the electronic bleeps and bloops of it all, which adds oodles of creepy atmosphere .
The only extras are a handful of vintage Full Moon Trailers. The single-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork. Sadly its not the cool original movie poster illustration of the alien head emerging from a shattered earth like the yolk of an hardboiled egg, but some ugly floating head Photoshopped turd.
Special Features:
- Vintage Full Moon Features Trailers: Crash!, Mansion of the Doomed, The Day Time Ended, Laserblast, Fairy Tales, Last Foxtrot in Burbank
Screenshots from the Full Moon Blu-ray:
Buy it!
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