Stars: Richard Denning, Lori Nelson, Adele Jergens, Raymond Hatton, Jonathan Haze, Touch Connors, Paul Birch

Director: Roger Corman

Summary: After a nuclear holocaust, a rancher and his daughter hole up in a mountain cabin protected from the radioactive fallout. Another group of survivors, including a geologist and a criminal, descend upon the cabin for refuge and cause a series of romantic entanglements with the rancher's comely daughter. Added tension arrives in the form of mutated radioactive creatures roaming the countryside in a murderous rampage.

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A far-fetched combination of psychological thriller and over-the-top horror movie, The Day the World Endedis a brash, rather ham-fisted piece of work. With Nastassja Kinski leading the cast, the odds were never on this being an example of great cinema, but Terence Gross's film is exceptionally ridiculous in parts.

The director manages to pull a range of clichés out of the bag, from the Lynchian small-town American weirdos to the handy thunder storm during moments of high drama. The premise of a lonely, gifted child hiding a dark secret has been explored before but never quite to such a bizarre extent--the events involved here leading to a gory, tasteless finale. Kinski sleepwalks her way through her role with little conviction, matched by Randy Quaid's caricature villain. Much is made of the special effects skills of Stan Winston (Jurassic Park, Terminator 2), but without any degree of budget, his efforts are merely terrifyingly ordinary.

On the DVD:one thing becomes clear from the DVD version of the film--despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the makers of The Day the World Endedconsider it a fine example of the genre. The audio commentary from producers Winston and Shane Mahan is especially self-reverential, even going so far at one point as to praise the film's great character acting. A hectic visual style and suitably monstrous sound effects it may have (all admittedly enhanced by the digital format), but great character acting it does not. Likewise, there is an in-depth feature on the rather shoddy special effects. The last thing anybody wanted, the earnest voiceover tells us, was for the monster to look like some guy in a rubber suit. --Phil Udell

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Production Interview - 1. Samuel Z. Arkoff - Producer (50 mins.), Original Theatrical Trailers (9)
Year:	1956
Release Date:	May 26, 2003
Runtime:	79 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	D V D U K 013 D
Label:	The Arkoff Film Library
Keywords:	World, Day, General, Ended, Horror, Occult, Sci, Fi
Genre:	Horror/Occult