The Earth Dies Screaming (1964)

Warning, this review contains spoilers.This British made Sci-Fi movie boasts a snappy title, which may be the best part of this film. Aliens attack earth. A small group of survivors hold up in an English village. Their de-facto leader, a test pilot, is played by Willard Parker. Alien invaders wearing what looks like a retro biohazard suit roam the streets. Although unstoppable by pistol and rifle fire, the aliens are not invincible and are shattered to pieces by blunt force trauma from automobiles. I found the acting, stiff, and the film's pace too slow. The dialog was predicable. The mix of survivor characters includes the hero test pilot, a pregnant woman, and a male survivor who drinks too much. Tossed in for good measure the earthlings killed by the aliens, later come to life, controlled by the aliens to do their bidding. So there you have it, a predictable plot, stiff acting, stilted dialog, all packed into a film that is about an hour long. I probably won't be seeing this one again. In fact, I'd like to see the title changed from "The Earth Dies Screaming" to "The Viewers Die of Disinterest".

Okay variation on the "What Happened to Everybody?" sf genre. Though it loses steam about two-thirds of the way through, it starts off well enough, creating a fairly eerie and desolate atmosphere as a small group of survivors copes with the usual issues, after a mysterious event has killed off most of the human race.The actors are competent enough, although Dennis Price is sadly wasted in his role as "Taggart", the obligatory rotter. (Am I the only one who thinks of Slim Pickens and "Blazing Saddles" whenever I hear that surname?) As always, the aliens -- actually, they're robots who for some inexplicable reason wear spacesuits, complete with backpacks and helmets -- have an easily exploitable Achilles heel. Their ability to revive the dead as mindless zombies is rather creepy, though how the zombies are supposed to see where they're going when their eyes have supposedly "turned to gray goo" is a bit hard to fathom. (Those contacts look really uncomfortable.) Worth a look, though it's not up to Terence Fisher's usual standard.

This is a prime example of how to draw an audience in to a cinematic story . People all across the English countryside suddenly fall dead . Cut to opening credits with a creepy film score then cut to a perplexed survivor driving and stopping at a village strewn with corpses . Something dreadful has happened and the audience know they're going to be watching a spine chilling classic of British cinema For reasons unexplained the producers then decide to ruin the film by .... well not explaining anything . As the story continues we're introduced to one note human characters and eventually robotic villains . Who are these robots ? Obviously they were created by a higher alien intelligence . The aliens it seems can then bring the dead back to life in traditional zombie fashion though this is never explained how or why . Nor is it explained the motives of this invasion . In fact the audience spend so much time asking themselves questions any enjoyment of the film becomes totally negated It's obvious that this movie is movie is produced as a simple B movie to be shown as a precursor to a main feature hence the very short running time . It certainly doesn't suffer from a disjointed feel meaning that the lack of explanation and the all too easy method to defeat the robots comes from script level . This is a pity because if the screenplay especially the exposition and characterization had been developed more then it could have been a classic highly regarded Brit sci-fi movie

The Earth Dies Screaming is directed by Terence Fisher and written by Henry Cross. It stars Willard Parker, Virginia Field, Dennis Price, Vanda Godsell, Thorley Walters, David Spenser and Anna Palk. Out of Shepperton Studios, London, cinematography is by Arthur Lavis and music scored by Elisabeth Lutyens.A rural North of England village and suddenly cars start crashing, trains derail and people collapse in the street, just what the hell is happening? Is it a gas attack? Seven survivors, who each had a lucky reason to be out of the contaminated air, gather at the village inn and begin to learn the terrifying truth…… Running at just over an hour and with a shoestring budget, The Earth Dies Screaming is compact across the board. In spite of a pretty unadventurous script from Henry Cross, Hammer Studios best director, Terry Fisher, manages to keep the pace steady whilst injecting some genuine moments of tension. The peaceful setting (real location the village of Shere, Surrey) is perfect for what the story has to offer, a sense of dread comes off in the atmosphere as the realisation dawns that no matter how serene or tranquil the surroundings are, evil can strike anywhere. Lavis' black and white photography is crisp and high contrast, while Lutyens score sounds like a metal synth rhythm at times, which is perfectly in keeping with the nature of the plot. Of the cast it's perhaps unsurprisingly Price who shines the brightest playing a defeatist weasel type of gentleman.The title of the film is a bit of a bum steer, and the characterisations are too stereotypical, but there are pleasures to be had, most notably the mood created and a couple of bona fide great scenes. 6.5/10