How about Valley of the Spiders, then? Some classic Shatner action. The world effectively ends at the conclusion of that movie, but I’m not sure I’d consider it an “end of the world” flick.
The 50’s version of Bodysnatchers is far superior to the 70s remake, end of the world or no.
Waterworld was not THAT bad. :lol:
Wasn’t the 50s Invasion of Body Snatchers originally shot with a Pod people winning ending? And the studio demanded a more upbeat finish, so the famous highway scene at the end was added? Or am I thinking of some other film?
Absolutely agree. It’s a fine line with some films but the key is that the “Great Disaster” (whatever that happens to be) will have already occured and now the characters are dealing with it. “Impending Doom” films really are something entirely different.
I a huge fan of the genre, so I can’t imagine there’s anything major I missed (other than probably some nuclear war stuff from the 80s).
Thanks for the comprehensive list. Looks like I’ve got some renting fodder for a while…
Re: Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I never did see the original but the remake seems to fit the mold pretty well.
Here’s one: Def-Con 4
It’s absolute dreck, and it’s not something that you’d really want to include on a list like this unless you were a total completist freak. I remember catching it on pay cable in the late 80’s, thinking it’d be an ok post-nuke movie. I ended up turning it off after about 15 minutes because it was so awful. And that was despite being a mid-adolescent with a possibility of seeing some boobies. The line that did me in was when some post-nuke survivor asked the male astronaut what color his female co-astronaut’s areolas were. I knew after that line that no amount of boobage would make up for having to watch such moronic dialogue. Not only was the writting terrible, but the acting made pornos look Shakespearian in comparison.
Is that “Food of the Gods”? It wasn’t grandly apocolyptical, but it did have giant critters feasting on hapless humans. We might not be thinking of the same movie, though.[/quote]
Actually that sounds very familier, thanks.
And I watched Testament when I was too young. That move gave me nuclear war nightmares for about 10 years.
Delicatessen?
Endgame by Samuel Beckett.
(I really do have a filmed version)
Isn’t just the town destroyed? Or covered in webs, at least?
Didn’t see it mentioned, but Crack in the World also fits. The world gets a big crack in it and the crack is growing – what will happen?!?
I don’t know this movie. I could look it up on IMDB, I guess, but what’s it all about?
The US government starts a war on drugs?
I don’t know this movie. I could look it up on IMDB, I guess, but what’s it all about?[/quote]
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0059065/
Hmm, based on the short description it seems to fall into the category of “Impending Doom”. Sounds interesting though…
Oh, it’s definitely impending doom. The scientist warns that the nuclear testing underground has the possibility of fracturing the world – can’t remember the details, but the “crust” is mentioned quite a bit. No one believes him, of course, and the world does crack. The last half of the movie is disaster movie stuff as the crack races around the world, destroying cities, causing earthquakes, etc. Spoiler to follow:
In the end the crack makes a hard turn and doubles back and meets at the point it started, and big chunk of the earth breaks off and flies into space and becomes a new moon, so we have two moons. The scientist and the beautiful girl are almost killed but barely escape being on the chunk that flies into space. Instead, they are literally yards away as it happens, and hold each other as they watch the new moon being born.
How about animated films like Ralph Bakshi’s “Wizards”:
My father brought me to that in '77 (I was 11) and I remember being completely enthralled by it. I loved it. I had dreams about it. I wanted to see more movies like it. I wanted to read books with similar stories.
Hmm, come to think of it, “Wizards” is probably what kick-started my love affair with the whole fantasy/sci-fi genre to begin with (although that other sci-fi movie in 1977 might have been a tad influential too). :wink:
Crack in the World would have been perfect for Mystery Science Theater 3000. One of the great unintentionally funny movies every made. In addition to that ending scence described by Mark, there were other priceless scenes, including Dana Andrews demonstrating to the world’s leading scientists how the crack in the world would occur by breaking a pane of glass with a chisel and, best of all, the method by which they would bore into the earth’s mantle: A rocket sitting on a launch pad, pointing down.
How about “When the wind blows?” I saw it a long time ago, and I was pretty affected by it.
“Threads” is the mid-1980s BBC end-of-the-world film. Very, very well done, incredibly depressing.
There’s a British movie from the 1960s that I’ve caught twice on TV without ever finding out the name. It’s a post apocolyptic satire, in which the remaining Londoners try as hard as possible to maintain their pre-apocolyptic livestyles. I remember that in it, the queenship has devolved onto this clueless old lower middle class old lady. The movie ends on an upbeat note when the (last remaining?) young couple give birth to a normal baby. Anyone recognize this? I found it to be a quite enjoyable movie.
The Handmaid’s Tale.
Good book and movie.