After directing two westerns, Roger Corman turned into territories where he is best known of - science fiction and monster movies. 'Day the World Ended' is typical Corman's vehicle. After an atomic war destroys human civilization, a small group of people trying to survive in the house prepared for nuclear holocaust by former Navy commander. The group of people must face many threats and problems - how the radioactive contamination affects them and when will it dissipate, there is also a monster loose in the valley, and of course the most important, the relationships between people who all want to stay alive as long as possible, while the supplies of clean food and water decline.The film starts with nuclear blast, and we are already thrown into a post apocalyptic world where these seven people might be the only survivors. All the action takes place in one house and in the valley surrounding it, so no need to get excited about seeing ruined city landscapes. There are plenty pseudoscience and some outright laughable moments, but all this is compensated by pretty good acting and hauntingly claustrophobic atmosphere through most part of the film (until the finale reveals the monster who we only saw through shadows and moving leaves) that is pretty close to the eerie feeling in 'Night of the Living Dead'. While we only get the subtle glimpses of the monster, the thing is not that bad and I actually kept the fingers crossed that it could stay that way. Of course, I know it's Roger Corman's movie, and finally we have to see the hideous (in the movie's context and in awful costume's context) beast in it's laughable glory so the main hero could have heroic battle with it.With all that 'Day the World Ended' remains one of the best and most haunting early Corman monster movie, and for a hardcore fan - it is a treat.

Seven survivors (and a sleepy mule!) of a nuclear disaster hole up in a California home and eventually begin to get on each other's nerves; meanwhile, a mutant monster borne from the radioactive fallout terrorizes the females. Hopefully, all the duck-tailed teenagers who went to see this tacky Roger Corman sci-fi in the theater had dates to neck with during the slow spots! The monster--who's afraid of water--isn't frightening at all...in fact, he's rather sympathetic. The humans are the ones I would want to avoid, including Mike "Touch" Connors as a tough-talking gangster so oily he puts Mario Puzo's Mafiosos to shame. Played to the rafters, but with such barren material it's hard to stay interested. * from ****

The Day the World Ended looks super cheap, but it is actually a watchable movie. It all begins with a nuclear holocaust. As poisonous radiation blankets the earth, only a few pockets are able to sustain normal life. The film is about one such pocket located somewhere in a mountainous desert probably in or near California.A father and his daughter are hunkering down in their remote house, fully prepared to survive the nuclear winter. Five survivors straggle down from the nuclear fog-bound hills and make it to the house. There are seven people in the house, but only enough supplies for three (the father and daughter were expecting her fiancée to join them).At this point, the movie becomes a great little character study. The small time hood and the hero, Rick (Richard Denning), compete for the affection of the daughter, Louise (Lori Nelson). An ex-stripper tries to hang onto her man while the father tries to keep everyone in line. The dying guy, surprisingly, does not die, but begins to have strange longings for the nuclear fog and strong cravings for raw meat. An old prospector and his mule round out the cast. The father can't get anyone on the radio, so these folks might be all alone in the world, trapped in a small house, surrounded by poisonous fog.The sets are by far the worst part of the movie. The house looks like a Palm Springs vacation home rented out for the weekend. It just does not look like the father and daughter live here (for a guy who was planning to survive a nuclear war you'd think he would at least remember to trick out his house!). The decor is dull, which is bad because we spend most of the movie looking at it. Oh and the curtains! All the windows are curtained. The characters spend lots of time peering out of the curtains (but we never see what they are looking at), and they enter and leave through curtained doors too. It just looks really cheap.If some of the scenes took place in another room, especially one with survival gear, the film might have been much more interesting. I felt like I needed to see what a 50s survival bunker (or storeroom) might have looked like. After all, it was not unheard of for people to have converted basements or backyard bunkers during this time period. Unfortunately the movie was too cheap to show something that really needed to be shown.The most interesting plot dynamic involves Louise. She has been hoping for her fiancée to arrive at the house, but he does not. Her father urges her to forget about him (and marry Rick within the week and get busy repopulating the earth). But she is not ready. At odd times Louise hears a strange psychic piping noise that seems like a voice calling her (no one else hears it) and she feels she is being watched.It's not too long before the household realizes there is a monster on the prowl outside. And the father and Rick start coming up with theories of humans and animals mutating into monsters due to radiation. I don't think the monster looks any worse than most cheap monster-suits of this genre. At least the monster is somewhat mysterious. The monster uses its psychic piping noise to lure Louise out of the house. Will she be taken by the monster into the poisonous fog? Will the monster let her go? Can Rick kill the monster and save the girl with an army surplus M-1 rifle? Whatever happened to the fiancée? The theme of the movie is survival, but with an emphasis on letting go of the past, letting go of the dead, and finding love and reasons to live in the midst of catastrophe. The only survivors in the movie are those able to let go and embrace a new future as the poisonous nuclear fog dissipates.

I saw the remake of this film, "In The Year 2889", before I saw the original, and I have to say that the experience made me appreciate the good points of this Roger Corman quickie much more than I might have otherwise."2889" was a piece of dreck, while this is an actual movie, with actual actors, that a person can watch with some enjoyment...once, anyway.Denning (a geologist) and Connors (a crook) give their usual snappy performances in this movie, and Paul Birch (the fellow who owns the house that the cast of characters take refuge in) is given better direction, better lines, and a part that shows his strengths to much better advantage than the previous movie I saw him in ("Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes").On the other hand, Corman's usual problems with pacing and energy and rhythm manifest themselves immediately. There are too many talky scenes that go nowhere (especially between Connor and the girlfriend);too many plot holes that the movie hopes we will overlook; too many badly choreographed action sequences (except for one beautifully staged scene where Denning/"Rick" fires a rifle at the advancing creature as the camera stays behind Ricks shoulder - that was NICELY done) and too many moments of glib hand waving pretending to be actual major movie elements (did you know that mutants with diamond hard skin are created by H-bomb blasts and die when exposed to non-poisoned water?) And if you're going to invoke God in a Doomsday scenario, you need to do it a lot more convincingly than Corman's screenplay does at the end.Oh, and the monster is ridiculous. He's just another prototype/ variation of the Giant Pickle from "It Conquered The World". I'm not casting aspersions on Paul Blaisdell, I'm sure he did his best with no time and a tiny budget...but the monster is ridiculous.Still, there was plenty to like about it. I always enjoy watching Richard Denning, Lori Nelson makes a great Barbie Doll, and there is a nice sense of claustrophobia and paranoia as the plot advances. Worth seeing once if you are interested in the history of Science Fiction movies, or Corman, or Giant Pickles.