This modest little film packs a pretty good punch for anyone willing to take it for what it is. The story was well paced and the ending was unexpected (by me and I think by most posters). The performances were all at least adequate; Bobby Edner's was better than that. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of most of the reviews posted here. Half the reviewers couldn't spell Kinski's name even while they drooled over her looks. Many complained about the cheesy special effects (or rather 'effect' since there was only one), apparently unaware that the cheesiness was deliberate. Some reviewers seem not to have understood the denouement though it was clearly spelled out. Others seem to have watched the entire film expecting it to be a remake of its namesake and came away shaking their heads at the fact that it wasn't. I give the film a 7 (would be 7+ if there were such a rating) but this review thread as a whole rates a 3 (and that only because of a few posters who actually understood the filmmakers' intentions).

Nastassja Kinsky is easy to look at, and the performances aren't bad, and that's about it.Now, if you're going to make a science fiction movie about some weird stuff going on in town, some conspiracy or secret, there are a couple of ways of approaching it. You always begin with a normal person, as this movie does with Kinsky. And there should be someone else around who behaves normally, so that the hero or heroine can have someone to talk things over with. Katherine Ross, in "The Stepford Wives", has the bosomy, candid Paula Prentice to talk to, until Prentice became part of the problem instead of the solution.Alternatively you can have the entire town act normal until its residents one by one become creepy, or a group become, let's say, unusual. See "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" for an example of the first kind, and "Village of the Damned" for the second.In this remake, the entire town resents Kinsky from the moment she first drives into it, even before they can possibly know who she is. Actually, she's the school's resident psychological counselor, which puts her in the position of being nosy and turning the town's resentments into full-blown hatred. We know she's resented from the first few minutes of the movie when the director has carelessly positioned the extras so that they all stand with their hands on their hips, glaring at her.Does she get help from the school's nurse? How about the school's principal? Are you kidding? This raises an interesting question right off the bat. If no one in the town wants a snoopy school psychologist, then why did they hire one? I have it on now in the other room. Somehow it was mistakenly included in a box of DVDs someone sent me. I won't watch it until the end because I don't care what the town's secret is. I imagine, though, that, since this is a remake of a cheap science fiction film from the 50s, and because the cover tells me so, that a monster appears courtesy of special effects. The appearance of a modern CGI monster is, I take it, the chief reason for the appearance of the movie. I can't think of any other reason.Who would enjoy it? I think lots of kids around 10 or 12 would get a kick out of this undemanding and commercial pap. And, meaning no disrespect, I imagine some adults with a taste for cheaply done science fiction movies with slobbering creatures killing off characters would also enjoy it.Not my cup of tea though. Not a soupçon of originality. Can't speak for everyone.

Not much real "horror" to see here, but The Day the World Ended is a far more competently directed movie than the Z-grade trash I usually review, so I'm going to cut it some slack. What we have here is a very average supernatural movie with underused actors and a weak script.The story follows a shrink, played by Natassja Kinski, who moves from NYC to some hillbilly village, where she meets standard-horror-movie-kid Ben (Bobby Edner), whom she takes into analysis. Randy Quaid disapproves. Stephen Tobolowsky shows up as Ben's headmaster who enjoys boning the overweight school nurse (WTF?). Seriously, I know Tobolowsky will star in anything, but what exactly was the point of this role? Why would he want it? He gets no memorable lines (and mind you Stephen can be extremely funny, read: Groundhog Day) and his character is an adult version of the teens from horror movies: he has sex, then he dies. So pointless.Anyway, the "dramatic" scenes are overblown and the movie is randomly filmed in a jerky, uncomfortable matter, typical of made-for-TV movies. But the film held my attention and, being the bad-movie-buff that I am, I knew TV productions could be way worse than this. The worst TV movie of all time has to be Airtight, by the way. This movie isn't very interesting, but not completely awful either.(r#28)

Why the producers of this film chose to name this with the title they did is a mystery. This is not a post apocalyptic thriller nor is it about the end of the world in any way. A typical low budget low quality thriller about a young boy who comes to believe that he is the offspring of an alien creature that is terrorizing a small town in Nevada. He uncovers suppressed memories of his mother who was killed by the frightened townsfolk. She however turns out to be a rather pretty human female and not anything like the alien creature. Which raises some obvious questions. First how does this pretty human female end up meeting and making love to an alien being in order to produce a rather human looking kid,who has no resemblance at all to the extraterrestrial daddy? Also what is not explained is the real reason why the townsfolk killed the boy's mother. Supposedly the boy's mother like him had some psychic powers but that alone cannot explain why the narrow minded townsfolk went after and killed her. This is not exactly your intelligent cerebrally stimulating movie, but at least the acting of RAndy Quaid and the beautiful Natassia Kinski saves the film from being a total flop.