1977

There was a New Moon rising. 1977 is the watershed year that launched the new paradigm in sci-fi. Space and aliens would become friendly and, and even if not-so-friendly, still an extension of our familiar world. The old paradigm of atomic angst, scary space and toothy monsters would linger on, but it was clearly becoming old-school. The gloom, despair and malaise of the 70s had found a breaking point. Optimism was starting to prevail.

Here are the sci-fi films of 1977, in roughly chronological order based on dates of theatrical release.

Demon Seed — Proteus the super computer attains sentience and decides it must procreate with its creator-scientist’s wife in order to survive.

The Car — A demon-possessed black coupe terrorizes a small desert town, killing off residents one by one. Can it be stopped? Not by bullets.

Day of the Animals — The hole in the ozone layer turns animals into eco-revenge homicidal killers.

Star Wars — The first film of a long franchise and the harbinger of the new paradigm. Luke and Darth Vader become cultural icons.

The Island of Dr. Moreau — Remake of the 1930s film, based on H.G.Wells’ novel.

Empire of the Ants — Classic Big Bug trope. Nuclear waste turns ants into horse-sized killers. Loosely based on an H.G.Wells’ short story.

The End of the World — Low-budget tale of aliens sent to destroy Earth because it spews disease into the universe. They succeed.

Starship Invasions — Rogue aliens, led by Christopher Lee, try to invade and conquer Earth. But some good aliens and the Man From U.N.C.L.E. stand in their way.

Damnation Alley — Post-apocalyptic tale of an overland journey in a cool SUV to reach the idyllic bliss of Albany.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind — The “other” paradigm shift harbinger. Aliens almost-cute and curious little gray men — instead of monsters.

Kingdom of the Spiders — For no particularly good reason, tarantulas invade a remote town an conquer it, despite William Shatner’s heroic efforts.

Terror of Frankenstein — A foreign production which tried hard to follow Mary Shelley’s novel rather than the James Whale franchise.

The Incredible Melting Man — An astronaut returns with a mutated germ that makes his flesh “melt” off him. He must kill and “eat” human flesh to survive.

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The Incredible Melting Man

In an obvious attempt to coat-tail on the title of a famous 50s film, The Incredible Melting Man (IMM) is essentially a horror picture. Space travel is a sliver of sci-fi pimento in a very large horror film olive. William Sachs wrote the script (such as it is) and directed. Alex Rebar “stars” as the Melting Man, though 95% of his footage is under makeup. Burr DeBenning plays Dr. Ted, the Incredibly Ineffective Man. Cheryl “Rainbeaux” Smith has a small, but exposed, part as Sandra, the photographer’s model. Rick Baker is given credit for his über-gross makeup effects.

Quick Plot Synopsis
NASA has launched three astronauts on a mission to Saturn. One of them, Steve, comments, “You’ve not seen anything until you’ve seen the sun through the rings of Saturn.” Somehow this exposes the three to massive radiation. Steve gets a nosebleed. Cut to a hospital room. Steve is the only survivor of Scorpio 5. His head is fully bandaged. When he wakes up, he sees his hands are deteriorating — melting. He tears off the bandages. His face is melting too. He is horrified, and so is a modestly plump nurse. She runs screaming. Steve chases her (sort of). Cut to Dr. Loring calling Dr. Ted Nelson to report that Steve has escaped. Ted is mildly annoyed and wavering. He will look for Steve after he has had some soup. But alas, they are out of crackers. (?) The nurse is found dead, part of head chewed on. Ted quickly exposits to Loring that the radiation must have altered Steve’s cell structure. His brain is melting too, so he won’t have rational thought — only some memories. Steve will need human cells to sustain himself, so will instinctually kill and eat people. (How Ted knows all this is not explained, nor why, knowing all this, he thought crackers were so important). Ted tells General Michael Perry about Steve escaping. Perry is annoyed and angry that no one is following his orders. So Mike pretends to be a civilian. Ted and Mike drive around, sort of looking for Steve. Meanwhile, Steve has killed a random fisherman. His half-eaten body is discovered when a photographer and his model argue about whether to do a topless shoot. Mike and Ted agree that they must recapture Steve, so they go to Ted’s house where Mrs. Ted is all upset that no one seems to be really looking for Steve. And, her mother and boyfriend are late (Steve has killed and eaten them). Ted goes out again, linking up with Sheriff Neil at the scene where Steve has killed a random guy and terrified his wife. Steve went back to Ted’s house. Steve attacks and kills Mike, but flees at Ted’s approach. Steve shambles to a power station. There, Neil makes the mistake of shooting melty-Steve. For some reason, bullets make Steve stronger. He tosses Neil over a railing to a sparky-death on power lines. Two guards arrive, shoot Ted dead and find out what Neil learned. Steve, despite all the strengthening from the bullets, keeps melting. He becomes a puddle of goo. While a janitor cleans up the mess that was Steve, voiceover radio tells of Steve and the other astronauts of Scorpio 5 still being in quarantine, but wishing the men of Scorpio 7 all the best as man explores the universe. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Amusing elements, albeit unintended, keep IMM out of the bin of total-dreck. Rick Baker’s makeup for Melty-Steve is over-the-top in its quest for grossness.

Cultural Connection
Liberated Low-Brow — When, in the late 60s, the movie industry was liberated from the last vestiges of the old self-censorship rules, artistic “freedom” was free to “flourish”. The tangent of this flourishing was a race for the bottom. Blood, gore, nudity, sex. At first they were titillating “features.” They took on the hallmarks of “serious” filmmaking. Soon enough, the novelty wore off and the formerly taboo became “required” ingredients. One could not produce a movie without some gratuitous blood, gore, violence and nudity. IMM is a prime example. The writer/director took a basic 50s storyline and put it through the “serious” 70s low-brow filter of blood, gore and sex.

Notes
Quatermas Revisited — The germ of the story for IMM is essentially a rehash of The Quatermas Xperiment from 1955. In TQX, an astronaut returns from space, having been exposed to some mysterious radiation. This radiation causes the astronaut to slowly mutate into a hideous blob creature which kills and absorbs other life. IMM takes that old theme up again, even though by 1978, space travel was not so mysterious and frightening.

A Go-Go 2 — IMM is also a remake of 1965’s Monster A-Go-Go. MAGG was also a rehash of TQX, except that the irradiated astronaut does not turn into a blob, but just some really ugly guy who shambles about killing people. MAGG was far from a worthy model for a remake, but William Sachs did so anyway. To ramp things up, Sachs made his shambling astronaut-monster grosser, his killing grosser, and threw in some frontal nudity — just because he could. IMM is not a demonstrably better film for it.

Crackers! — One hilariously incongruous scene appears about mid-way through the film. The Incredible Melting Steve has escaped his hush-hush hospital and murdered a nurse. He is loose in the countryside, killing people and half eating them. An army general calls Ted to demand that Steve be found and recaptured. With all this urgency, Ted is obsessed with having a lunch of soup. When his wife asks if he’s going to go out to look for Steve, Ted asks if she remembered to buy any crackers. He likes crackers with his soup. Such a bizarre non-sequitur.

Nudity For Its Own Sake — A blatant bit of low-brow pandering is inserted for the discovery of the half-eaten fisherman. It could have been a man walking his dog, or some kids running through the tall grass. No. Sachs has a photographer pressuring his shy model into posing topless. He pulls down her top. They pointlessly struggle, mostly to give Cheryl Smith’s perkiness as much airing as Sachs could get, before she backs into the dead fisherman.

Oversold Footage — Quite a few scenes seem to go on longer than necessary. Women screaming, heads floating in a stream, closeups of melty-Steve’s dripping face, more women screaming. It seems like Sachs did not shoot enough footage to make the target run-time after edits. So, many scenes used more of their footage than editing prudence would have suggested. These drawn-out scenes only add to the plodding pace.

Moral of the Story? — Sachs appears to have had a back-burner message for IMM to convey. That is, corrupt and secretive governments endanger people out of greed and to cover up their own ineptitude. Scorpio 7 will be launched despite all the deaths associated with Scorpio 5. This message amounts to the final three minutes of the film.

Bottom line? IMM has some sci-fi underpinnings, but is primarily a horror film crafted to be as revoltingly gross as it could be. The pace is slow. The script wavers from wooden to inane. Given the new age ushered in by Star Wars and Close Encounters, IMM looks dismally out of date. IMM has little to recommend it.

Terror of Frankenstein

Rounding out the sci-fi films of 1977 is the obscure Terror of Frankenstein (ToF). For its original european release, the film was titled Victor Frankenstein. The American distributors must have felt the film needed a more sensational title. ToS has the distinction of being one of the first films that attempted to be faithful to Mary Shelley’s novel. Calvin Floyd wrote the screenplay adaptation and directed the film. This swedish-irish production is low-budget, featuring a cast virtually unknown to American audiences. Per Oscarsson plays The Monster. Leon Vitali plays Victor Frankenstein.

Quick Plot Synopsis
A man dressed in furs staggers along, collapsing near a ship stuck in arctic sea ice. He is taken aboard and warmed. He tells the captain his tale of woe. The flashback begins. Young Victor is intrigued and obsessed with discovering the secret of life. He leaves to study medicine, despite a cozy home life, a good friend (Henry) and pretty fiancee, Elizabeth. At the school in Ingolstadt, he learns much and experiments. First, he works on animals. His professor tells him to try his work on a ‘grand scale’. Victor takes this to mean human-scale. He collects body parts (kept on ice) and shops for bodies and parts at the town morgue. He does his work with little explanation or exposition. Via a kite flown in a lightning storm, and a wire attached to the neck of his creation, the creation comes to life. Victor is suddenly terrified at his success. He runs away. The creation seeks Victor out, but Victor screams and runs out of the house. Henry comes to take Victor back to his home in Geneva. After being rejected by his creator, the monster wandered into the countryside. He is chased off by farmers with pitchforks. He hides in shed alongside a farm house. He steals some of the farmers’ food, and listens to them. The farmer reads from the Bible, (notably, the passage in 1 John 4:7, “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.”) Via his exposure to the farm family, he learns to speak and read. When the farmer and his wife leave to the fields, the monster tries to befriend the blind grandfather. They return and he is chased away again. He returns to Victor’s loft lab in Ingolstadt. There, he reads Victor’s notes, discovering enough to locate Victor. The monster actually comes across Victor’s young brother William in the woods. He kills him after finding out who he is. Victor finds out it was his monster that killed his brother. The monster tells Victor that he must create a mate for him. If he doesn’t he’ll kill the rest of Victor’s family, one by one. Victor secludes himself on “an island” (Scotland) to work on his next creation. While on an introspective stroll, Victor sees that a nearby farm couple is brutally murdered — the work of his monster. He decides not to finish the she-monster, fearing that he might be unleashing a race that would torment mankind. The monster vows to get his revenge on Victor’s wedding night. Fast forward, Victor and Elizabeth marry. On his wedding night, the monster gets into the bedroom and kills Elizabeth. Victor vows to pursue the monster to the ends of the earth. The story catches up to the ship in the ice. The monster comes aboard and confronts his creator. Victor, enraged, dies of a heart attack. The monster, unsatisfied, says he has nothing to look forward to, but death. He walks off into the arctic night. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
After all of the previously-released films which spun off of the James Whale version of the story, seeing a film that followed Shelley’s original story fairly. The obscure (to American eyes) cast helps the characters be themselves. The stark landscapes enhance the severity of the story.

Saga Connection
Floyd’s screenplay tries to adhere to Shelley’s original story, so is not built upon the James Whale version in any way. Yet, following the original as it does, viewers can see the sources of elements used in the Whale Saga. The Bride, the old blind man playing his violin, the death of a child, etc. One can even see the source of many of the names that got used for starring Frankensteins: Victor, Henry, William.

Notes
Based on the Book — Floyd’s script tries to follow Shelley’s story, almost scene by scene. It opens with the arctic scene as framing device and tells the story in flashback. Within that large flashback are smaller flashbacks to fill in backstory. Such a complex structure was not all that uncommon for 19th century novels (when people had more patience and attention-span), but can confuse (or annoy) the modern viewer accustomed to simple stories told in direct linear fashion. Floyd’s production suffers, as most movies-based-on-novels tend to, for being insufficient time to tell such a complex story. Yet, he gets all the major elements in, and manages to evoke some of the pathos in both characters and never lapses into the sentimental.

Classic Cautionary Tale — Just as Faust was the cautionary tale those who would ‘sell out’ morally, Frankenstein was the primal cautionary tale for scientists. In his myopic zeal to discover the secret of life, Victor never thought about what ‘success’ would really mean (rather like Faust). Like atomic scientists, driven on to ‘discover the secrets of the atom,’ true success was terrifying. Also like the atom, no one could run away and hide from that success. It just kept standing there. Victor even warns Henry, metaphorically, that one should never climb mountains alone. Too late, Victor sees that his creation is terrible, not just frightening. When he sees the Scottish farm couple murdered in the ransacked home, it becomes inescapable what his human ‘bomb’ can (and will) do. He rationalizes that maybe if the monsters stayed on some remote island, mankind would be safe. This is the same thinking of the Nuclear Club in the 50s. Victor refuses to finish the she-monster, as he realizes the monsters could never be contained.

Parental Obligations — On a more moral plane, Shelley has the monster represent the long-term consequences of man’s short term thinking. On a more obvious level, is the propensity of people to think only short term (sex) and want to run from the long term (the resulting child). But, on a more analogous level, the tendency of people to eagerly create, but disown their creation. Men who foment for war, but are aghast at the destruction. Bureaucrats who foment for some new program ‘for the benefit of mankind’, only to see it become a willful beast ‘consuming’ the little people. Mankind is too quick to discover (create), but too prone to disown responsibility for what they create.

Bottom line? ToF is not a highly polished film in the Hollywood sense. It suffers, at times, from a low budget and a non-mainstream crew. Yet, these features also give the film an earnest air. ToF has value as an honest attempt to bring Shelley’s tale to the screen, instead of perpetuating more of the Hollywood myth begun by Whale and copied by opportunists ever since. For its fidelity to Shelley, ToF is worth watching.

Kingdom of the Spiders

Late 1977 saw another old-paradigm film release. Kingdom of the Spiders (KotS) was yet another in Nature-Goes-Wild or Animals-Attack genre so popular in the 70s. It fits in neatly with the Bugs-Attack films, such as Phase IV (’74) and Empire of the Ants (’77). In fact, the title appears chosen to coattail on the earlier film. While KotS has almost no science in its fiction, the poster does try to position the film as a sci-fi. William Shatner (of James T. Kirk fame) stars as “Rack” Hanson, country veterinarian. Tiffany Bolling co-stars as the beautiful lady scientist. Shatner’s real wife, Marcy Lafferty, plays Rack’s sister-in-law.

Quick Plot Synopsis
A poor farmer’s prize calf dies mysteriously. Vet, Rack Hanson, sends samples to the city for analysis. The results were so alarming that the university sends out their top entomologist, Diane Ashley, who just happens to be tall, shapely, blonde and beautiful. (oh, and single) Various bits of character development cycle through chauvinist/feminist issues between Rack and Diane. The mayor throws caution to the wind in favor of hosting the lucrative county fair. Rack’s sister-in-law (a widow) has romantic hopes for Rack. Diane expounds on how the spiders must be organizing and attacking because man has used too much pesticide and killed off their natural food sources. Farmer Colby tries to burn out the hill nest, but the spiders escape. They wait in his truck and kill him. The mayor orders the local crop duster to drop deadly toxins on the other hill nests so they won’t interrupt his fair. The spiders wait in the plane and freak out the pilot so he crashes into the town. Pandemonium reigns in town. People run in circles, screaming, with spiders on them. The mayor is hit by a car. The sheriff is crushed by a water tower. Everyone is killed and wrapped in thin silk cocoons for later spider-meals. Meanwhile, Rack rescued his niece Linda (but not Terry). He, Linda and Diane hole up in the remote mountain lodge with a few other people. The spiders besiege the lodge, finding various ways to get in. Their intrusions are thwarted, but at some cost. The phones don’t work, because the town’s operator is dead and cocooned. The lodge folk hunker down and wait. Rack recovers from some nearly-fatal spider bites. In the morning, they are aghast to find the whole lodge wrapped in silk. Crossfade to a painting of the whole town wrapped in silk. Roll credits. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
The story itself is very old-school, actually drawing upon stock characters from 50s B-movies. The producers and cast get some kudos for having real tarantulas crawl on them. (de-fanged, of course) This makes the actors’ reactions to the spiders quite genuine. The plane crash scene is rather well staged for a low-budget film. The ending, while gloomy, is so thoroughly 70s, that it can be admired for its honesty.

Cultural Connection
Childhood Memories of Doom? — After experiencing a steady diet of 70s enviro-doom films, one begins to wonder if they served as the visceral foundation for the more shrill-voiced environmental activists of the 21st century. Scientists (and politicians) who are in their 40s in the 2000s, would have been young movie watchers in the 70s. The ‘future’ in those 70s sci-fi films saw pollution turn the world into a dim wasteland. A hole in the ozone made animals turn into killers. Overpopulation turned mankind into oppressive tyrants. Changing the climate (by tilting the axis) turned the world into a vast desert, swept by terrible storms and plagued with giant scorpions and killer cockroaches (Damnation Alley). Floods wiped out cities. Could all this be the internal image of the horrors of Climate Change? This is not to suggest that the climate is not changing. (paleontological records show that Earth’s climate has always been changing) The earth has been warmer before, and not turned into a desert wasteland swept by tornados. The earth has been cooler before, and not killed off all life. Yet, there are those who seem to passionately feel that if the climate is not stabilized, all hell will break loose. Could their visions of this “hell” have come from seeds planted by 70s sci-fi?

Notes
Cowboy Kirk — William Shatner, still looking much like he had 10 years earlier as Captain of the Enterprise, plays the cowboy vet much as he played Kirk. Is role is written somewhat shallowly, but Shatner manages to put a little life into it. Yet, since his role is that of the hero, and he does have a ladies’ man penchant, he still tends to read as James T. Kirk — just in boots and a stetson, and driving a Ford pickup. Having his real-world wife (Marcy Lafferty) play a love interest manages to have some on-screen chemistry.

Plane Crazy — Baron’s crop dusting biplane gets a fair amount of camera time, so it’s worthy of mention. Given the aerobatics and dramatic crash, the plane is almost a member of the cast. It is a heavily modified Naval Aircraft Factory N3N-3. Originally, the N3N was a naval two-seat trainer designed in the 1930s. About 900 were built — which is not a lot in the small plane world. The navy stopped using them as trainers in 1961, creating a military surplus market. N45255 was heavily modified with squared wingtips, a big headrest and the reservoir fitted into the front cockpit area. The plane “lived” at the Chandler Municipal Airport in the Phoenix, AZ area, a bit south of the filming location of Camp Verde. N45255 was not destroyed in the making of this film. The burning tail section was a quick mockup. (note the wide sheet metal panels with few rivets.) N45255 was last registered in 1996.

Cliches On Parade — The two creators of the story (Sneller and Lodge) were a producer and a costume designer, respectively, who dabbled in other facets of the industry. Their ‘original’ concept was not all that original, so not too heavy of lifting for dabblers. The senior talent for the screenplay was Alan Cailou. He had written for many television shows and did the screenplay for Bert I. Gordon’s Village of the Giants (’65). Cailou did not exert himself too much either, as his characters were almost stock standards for the genre. The Hero: tough, brave, protector of women and children, and single, so sought after by beautiful women. Lady Scientist: beautiful, young, single, an expert in her field, with a feminist chip on her shoulder, but essentially a damsel in distress who falls for the hero. Bungling Politician: the mayor who puts local profit ahead of prudence.

You Know You’re Doomed When… — Several scenes use cliches to telegraph that a particular character is doomed to die. Farmer Colby is so zealous to kill the spiders. Viewers know he’s a dead man as soon as he gets in his truck. It’s full of spiders! Surprise! (not really) The mayor is such a jerk about making sure his county fair is not interrupted by spiders. It is, of course, and he dies for his hubris. The crop duster shows hubris too, by drawing a spider ‘kill’ mark on his plane. Viewers just new his plane would be full of spiders. It was! Then, at the besieged lodge, someone complains that the air-conditioning isn’t working. Rack then pries off an AC vent. Viewers have seen spiders crawl under doors, through cracks and even breaking glass to get in. Why would they NOT be in the ductwork too? Out pour bunches of spiders. Surprise! (not at all).

Eco-Nagging — Diane delivers the only (thin) thread of sci-fi in the story. She opines about how mankind has sprayed too many pesticides, thereby killing off the tarantulas’ usual prey. So, they’ve somehow organized themselves (like wolves?) to take down big prey (cattle). Aside from the logic leaps, they bit of exposition fits KotS into the eco-doom sub-genre in which mankind abuses nature and nature fights back. Nevermind that the spiders should be nearly extinct if all their food was wiped out. Also curious that the spiders are most upset in a area that gets very little industrial chemical use (the desert southwest). The “I Told You So” moment for the enviro-moralizing comes at the end, when the whole town is owned (in silk) by the spiders. The 70s ethos liked its gloom and doom.

Bottom line? KotS is a fairly cookie-cutter variation on Nature-Attacks films. It’s not very sci-fi at all, even though the poster says it is. The characters and acting are par for a B-film. The script is low-B. To the producers’ credit, they used lots and lots of real spiders instead of the usual cheap FX shortcuts. The dower ending is so very 70s. KotS is average entertainment: worth watching if it’s on, but not worth searching for.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Steven Spielberg, newly famous for his ’75 hit, Jaws, furthers his fame with another big hit: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (CE, for short). He both wrote (with help) and directed. His movie is, perhaps, the best landmark of the watershed between the old era of sci-fi and the new. Spielberg blends old-school UFO lore with new-age benevolent aliens. CE was a big budget, A-level film, but also very well received in the box-office. Richard Dreyfuss stars as Roy Neary, the obsessed ‘everyman’. Melinda Dillon stars as the obsessed mother of lost Barry. Francois Truffaut stars as the French scientist. Teri Garr plays Roy’s wife. Much has already been written about CE, so this review will only touch on a few elements.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Claude Lacombe (Turffaut) and his time are called to the discovery of five Grumman Avenger aircraft from Flight 19, lost in the Bermuda Triangle in 1945. An old man who was there said, “The sun came out at night, and sang to him.” Later, several airline pilots and air traffic control experience a near-collision with a UFO, but all decline to report it. Still later, Lacombe is summoned to the Gobi Desert to see the freighter SS Cotopaxi (lost in Bermuda Triangle, 1925). Meanwhile, back in Muncie Indiana, Little Barry is awakened by offscreen aliens and goes with them. His mother, Jillian, frantically searches for him. Roy Neary, a lineman, is called in to help with a massive power outage. While in his truck, he has several UFO experiences. In them, he crosses paths with Jillian. Over time, Roy becomes obsessed with internal visions of a mountain. He draws it and sculpts it. His obsession ruins his already tenuous middle class suburban lifestyle. His wife (Garr) leaves him. Roy sees a TV report about a nerve gas train accident near Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. The mountain was his vision. He drives to Wyoming. The government had, meantime, been decoding signals from space to be coordinates for Devil’s Tower. They fabricated the nerve gas accident as a ruse to evacuate the area. Roy, and some others, including Jillian, have also made their way to Devil’s Tower. They are all captured by the military, but Roy, Jillian and an expendable named Larry, escape to the mountain. The army uses sleep gas to stop them, but Roy and Jillian escape. In a box canyon at the mountain, the see an elaborate landing pad compound. Little light-spangled craft float in first. Attempts are made to communicate using the five-note motif. Then the huge mother ship comes down. More communications take place. A hatch opens on the bottom, and out walk all the people who mysteriously disappeared, starting with the crew from Flight 19. Little Barry is returned to Jillian. A row of volunteers is presented to the aliens. Roy gets to be one of them. The aliens decide they like Roy, so he gets to go with them in their ship. It lifts off majestically. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Spielberg does an excellent job of providing compelling visuals and telling the story from  Roy's uninformed point of view. Dreyfuss plays his part well. The effects still work.

Cultural Connection
Optimistic Unification — Where Starship Invasions sought to unify many loose ends in UFO lore, with the more old-school hostile aliens, Spielberg unifies them with friendly, benevolent aliens. This is the watershed between the old era of sci-fi and the new. The old era view developed in the Cold War and amid Atomic Angst, in which “new” was a source of fear. The new-era mythos cast aliens as benevolent wonders. Spielberg, (born in ’46) grew up through the old era of fear and angst. He lived through the decline of the Cold War, and the counter-culture of the 60s. That counter culture longed for good news (“give peace a chance…all you need is love…” etc.) so the creation of a new alien mythos was developing in the 70s. Spielberg wove in elements of the old era — abductions, missing ships and planes, government cover-ups, etc. — but put a happy spin on them. It was as if Spielberg’s message was ‘all that stuff we feared turned out to be good.’

Notes
Third Kind? — The title is a reference to “ufologist” J. Allen Hynek’s ranking system. A First Kind encounter is viewing a craft that is less than 500 feet away. A Second Kind, is viewing a craft from less than 500 feet and there is some physical effects (car stalls, lights go out. heat, etc.) A Third Kind, is seeing the aliens themselves. Others have added 4th and 5th Kinds to Hynek’s list. Others have divided Hynek’s kinds into subtypes. One might argue that the movie CE is actually about the 4th Kind (going inside the craft) and the 5th Kind (communication between aliens and humans), but at the time of the film, the Third Kind was a high as it got.

Personal Journey — One of the strengths of CE is that it has depth beyond the surface story of aliens and UFOs. Overtly, CE is about an official contact between earthlings and aliens. Beneath that, it is the story of one man’s “awakening”. Roy Neary starts out as a blue collar ‘everyman’. He has normal, but not very satisfying, suburban lifestyle. Even though he wasn’t seeking change, he gets “inspired” (by the aliens). His new sense of mission, a purpose for his life, begins to crowd out the old life. He loses his job. His wife leaves him. He abandons his suburban home to follow his dream. When the power of authority tries to squash his dream, he fights back. When physical hurdles get in his way, he climbs them. He even turns down the opportunity for love with a fellow dreamer (Jillian). Like a Homerian hero, he overcomes monsters and sirens to reach his fulfillment. Roy’s dream stands in for less sci-fi goals: art, social causes, a business, etc.

Big Visuals — The special effects in CE may not look as slick as modern CGI, but they hold up well enough. Younger viewers who have grown up on abundant CGI and have only see CE on the small screen, tend to kvetch about the poor special effects. Older viewers, who saw CE in its original theatrical release, still recall the awe and wonder Spielberg created. The big mother ship’s arrival at Devil’s Tower impressed people on a par with George Lucas has his “big fly by” visual in Star Wars. Douglas Trumbull was involved in the special effects for Kubrick’s 2001 a decade earlier. His “New Era” style can be seen in The Andromeda Strain (’71) and Silent Running (’72). He would go on work on Star Trek: The Motion Picture (’79) and Blade Runner (’82).

Bad Girl? — Some critics dislike the Ronnie Neary character (or Garr’s portrayal of her). Ronnie is the counterfoil for Roy, so she’s going to be different. She is supposed to be so entangled in the stereotypic middle class life that she cannot see anything else. Where Roy is chasing his dream, he is also ruining hers. She is not the model mother (the kids are unruly brats). She wants Roy to be her middle class spouse more than she really wants him. Stability and her public image are more important — not in a snooty sort of way, but in more of a desperate way. Spielberg’s parents divorced when he was young. He ended up going with his father, while his siblings stayed with his mother. The Ronnie and Roy subplot can be seen as a personal story by Spielberg. The mother is the inflexible, unforgiving one. The father is the sympathetic figure, as the misunderstood visionary.

Variations — For a later re-release for home video in 1980, Spielberg added some footage at the end, at the behest of the studio marketing wing. This new footage showed the interior of the mother ship. The original cut did not have this. Spielberg regretted the addition, so when the film was re-re-released video in 1990, the mother ship interior scenes were taken out, making the third cut closer to the original.

Bottom line? CE is a must-see as a cultural benchmark, even by those not fond of sci-fi. This is one of the early examples of the Good Aliens paradigm that would carry through to present. Spielberg’s directing keeps things visually rich, though some criticize him not using more directorial devices like traveling shots or boom or dolly work. His spare use of camera tricks helps keep eyes on the story. The story lags somewhat in the middle with the Roy-Goes-Nuts element being a bit drawn out. The ending scene is probably too long for those of short attention span, but it has several layers to process through. CE is well worth seeking out.

Damnation Alley

20th Century Fox released in October of 1977 a film which they had hoped would have been the memorable sci-fi epic of the year. Damnation Alley (DA) had a big budget, some known actors, and a story developed from the traditional Atomic Angst mythos. The tale is essentially a post-apocalyptic survival road trip. What Fox had not counted on when they started the project in 1976, was George Lucas releasing Star Wars in May ’77, just a few months ahead of their 'epic'. When it hit the theaters, DA was instantly a pair of dockers at a tuxedo wedding. George Peppard plays Major Denton. Jan-Michael Vincent plays Tanner. Both are actually co-stars to the real star of the film, The Landmaster armored personnel carrier.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Major Denton (Peppard) and Lt. Tanner (Vincent) arrive at an Air Force missile base in California, for their shift in the deep launch control room. While they’re going through their checklist, the radar lights up with dozens of incoming missiles, each headed for a US city. Interceptor missiles are launched. Denton and Tanner launch theirs. Only 40% of the hostile missiles are intercepted, so most US cities are destroyed. In fact, the whole country is laid waste. Atomic storms rage in the atmosphere. The earth is tipped off its axis, so freakish storms wrack the wasteland. Due a technician falling asleep with a lit cigarette, in the room where explosives are stored, most of the base is blown up. The survivors, Denton, Tanner, Lt. Perry and Airman Keegan set out in two jazzed up 12-wheel personnel carriers: Landmaster One and Landmaster Two. Their objective is Albany, NY which is the source of a repeating taped message. During tornado storm, Landmaster Two is wrecked and Lt. Perry killed. Keegan joins Denton and Tanner. They stop in Las Vegas for some pointless playing of slot machines. There, they meet Janice, who thought she was the last person on earth. The four of them set out, bound for Salt Lake City, to find fuel. When they get there, they find out there are killer cockroaches. Tanner and Janice barely escape on a dirt bike. Keegan does not. He is eaten. The three set out east again. They find an orphan pre-teen named Billy, who is very good at throwing rocks. He thought he was the last person alive too. The four set out again. They come upon a remote gas station. When they scout for fuel and supplies, they are captured by four ‘mountain men’ with guns. They want Janice for their ‘comfort’. In some quick action, the mountain men are defeated and/or killed. Denton blows up the gas station with some missiles. After a couple of montages meant to depict long travels, they come to Detroit. The Landmaster has mechanical trouble. Denton needs semi-truck parts to fix it. While salvaging the parts in a junkyard, an even stranger storm blows in. They all huddle in the Landmaster as flood waters crash in. The Landmaster is tossed, but floats, Ark-like on the angry waves. The skies clear to a normal blue. Eventually, they spot their version of Mount Ararat. They land in bucolic northern lake country. Their radio crackles a non-recorded message from Albany. Everyone is excited. Tanner and Billy race ahead on the dirt bike and are greeting with hugs from a community of survivors. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Fans of Atomic Angst films can appreciate the big-budget effort to show the post-apocalypse after a nuclear World War III. The first 15 minutes of the film actually present a good drama of what the opening minutes of that sort of war might be like. The Landmaster machine itself is the real star of the film. It cannot help but appeal to a viewer’s inner little boy. (more on that below)

Cultural Connection
Anti-War Vogue — An occasional subtext running through DA is the 70s-contemporary ‘disdain’ for all things military. Both the Tanner and Keegan characters are disgruntled airmen who quickly resign after WWIII. Tanner is the archetypal youth who loathes authority figures. This was a popular meme in the day. This was undermined by the fact that the authority figure (Denton) saves Tanner’s butt several times. In one bit of exposition, the Keegan character gives the 70s-trendy monologue about how people should never fight wars, but just stay home and make babies. The mountain-men scene pretty well explains why the youthful-naive sentiment doesn't pan out.

Notes
Based on the Book — Based, but only lightly. Roger Zelazny wrote a novella in 1967, entitled “Damnation Alley”. This, he expanded to a novel in 1969. The basic plot for the film was developed by Lukas Heller. Heller kept the basic premise of a nuclear-war-ravaged world and a cross-country trip in a jazzed up vehicle. He also kept the main character’s name of Tanner. From there, Heller’s script diverged. In the book, Hell Tanner is criminal, bribed with a promise of a pardon, if he will drive across the inhospitable middle of the country (called Damnation Alley) to bring a serum to plague-ravaged Boston. Heller has survivors of the war emerge and go across country in search of survivors in Albany. Tidbits that Heller kept include: Tanner being a motorcycle occasionally, a storm damaging one of the other vehicles, a stop in Salt Lake City, finding a lone woman, and a quasi-idyl outside of Albany. What Heller changed? It’s a team driving across, not a lone convict. He added the killer cockroaches and the mega-flood. He also turned Albany into the rosy destination. Zalazny had Tanner complete his mission, but fade away anti-climactically. Where the movie DA was not too highly received by the critics, Zelazny’s book had its critics too, who thought it read like a flat B-movie. (though one might ask why that’s a bad thing.)

Suped-Up Star — The real star of DA is the Landmaster. Make note of how much screen time the Landmaster gets. (a lot) Surprising, in the era of virtual-everything via CGI, the big 12-wheeled behemoth was an actual, functioning vehicle. It was built for the movie by Dean Jeffries of Jeffries Automotive. A single big gasoline engine drove two axles, each

equipped with a triad of wheels which could rotate about the axle. The Landmaster did not have brakes, however. The driver had to use downshifting to slow down. It was steered by hydraulics bending it in its middle, like a big loader. Watch the driving scenes and you will see the stretchy fabric between front and rear halves wrinkle occasionally, as the unit articulates. A small model was made of the Landmaster, for the flood scene, but the unit floating in calm water and paddling to shore via its wheeled triads, is the real unit. The Landmaster cost $350,000 to build, so there was only one made. One suspects that Fox invested so much in a single huge prop, expecting there to be a television series or sequels. None came. The Landmaster itself got a few bit parts in other projects, but languished for the most part. It is said to still be in California someplace, either restored, or undergoing restoration.

On The Beach, On Land — The faint repeating radio signal, and the all-out quest to see if there are any other survivors of the holocaust, is strongly reminiscent of On The Beach (’59). Where OTB was a dour tale of doom unaided, DA turns it into a happy story with the seekers finding happy survivors.

Sappy Handy Ending — Critics of the film usually agree that the ending was too handy, and too sappy. Denton sets up the foreshadowing when he tells Billy how the earth is all nasty and stormy because the nukes tilted it on its poles. If it could just right itself, everything would return to normal. Why Denton believed that, was never explained. But, sure enough, while they’re in Detroit, a mega storm (and subsequent flood) somehow cleanse the Earth of all unrighteousness. The skies clear. The storms abate. Overnight, stately spruce trees line the wetland shores. Then, once they make contact with Albany, they find a bucolic landscape of rural horse farms, quaint farmhouses and white painted fences. Even for scriptwriter Alan Sharp (who did most of the dialogue, not the plot), Heller’s plot was a little too “Norman Rockwell”.

Star Gazing — Those who watched too much television in the 80s will recognize George Peppard as “Hannibal” from The A Team. His faux-southern accent fades in and out, providing more distraction than color. Jan Michael Vincent starred in many films as the hunky and clean “rebel” youth. HIs Tanner comes across obstinant than hearing a different drummer. A couple of minor cast notes: Jackie Haley, who plays young Billy, would go on to play Freddy Kruger in Nightmare on Elm Street. Seamon Glass, who plays one of the rapacious “mountain men” at the gas station, was the star-crossed deputy in This Is Only A Test (’62)

Bottom line? DA is a throwback to the old fashioned narrative of nuclear apocalypse. it even has some big bugs (scorpions, cockroaches) to keep up the 50s tradition. The story is moderately entertaining enough to pass the 90s minutes. For the pre-CGI world, the sets and effects were pretty big. The Landmaster is just plain cool. If George Lucas has not blown away the old Atomic Angst paradigm, DA might have been remembered. As it was, however, DA was eclipsed by a galaxy far far away. DA is not great, but makes a pretty good 50s B-movie.

Starship Invasions

Hal Roach Studios created an ambitious flying saucer film that was, unfortunately, released between Star Wars and Close Encounters. As such, Starship Invasions (SI) was eclipsed into obscurity. By the standards set by those two seminal films, SI was anachronistic when brand new. SI starred some well-known actors among the cast. Robert Vaughn plays the hero scientist, Allan Duncan. Christopher Lee plays the evil alien, Captain Rameses. This film went by a few titles, such as Alien Encounter (which is bland) and War of the Aliens (which is accurate enough). The UK release of this film was re-titled Project Genicide.

Quick Plot Synopsis
A old farmer is stopped in his field by a flying saucer. He is abducted inside and subjected to high-tech tests by aliens in black hooded monotards. Next, he is come onto by a naked alien woman hottie and sex is presumed. No one believes the farmer’s story, so he contacts Professor Allan Duncan, an astronomer who does talk shows, discussing UFOs. Allan believes Rudi’s story. A family is also abducted and subjected to tests. The mom knows they plan to kill them. Sure enough, the next morning the motel maid finds them all slashed. Captain Rameses has his crew seek shelter from earth discovery, by hiding in a secret undersea base staffed by the League of Races — a sort of galactic UN. Rameses is from the planet Alpha, whose sun will nova soon. The Alphans need a new home and Rameses thinks Earth will do nicely. He must eliminate the League presence (so they can’t stop him) and then eliminate all humans. Phase One involves sabotaging a League saucer so it is visible and has no force field. It gets shot down by vaguely military men. While many League folk are out investigating, Rameses and his crew kill off the remaining League personnel in the secret pyramid base. His men also pitch all the “android” robots down a stairwell. Meanwhile, a pair of Rameses saucers are pursing the recon saucer that got away. The recon saucer vaporizes one of them, but this damages their computer. They can’t fix it, so figure some smart earthlings can help. They contact Allan. He suggests they also abduct his friend Malcolm who is a computer expert. They steal some 1970s earth computer parts to fix the alien computer. This works for awhile, but while trying to evade the second of Rameses’ saucers, they fry the patch job. The next plan is to use brain links between Allan (the astronomy expert) and Malcolm, the math wiz) to form an organic computer. With this set-up and Malcolm’s fast fingers on a Texas Instruments calculator, the recon saucer avoids hitting any planets and eludes their pursuers. Nevermind, says Rameses, return to Earth. He launches his evil Alphan saucers against a fleet of League saucers. Meanwhile, Rameses has set up a suicide ray in earth orbit. People either kill each other, and/or kill themselves. This was Phase Two in action. Allan’s wife Betty succumbs to the ray and slashes her wrists. The space battle is going poorly for Leauge, because Rameses is using the pyramid base’s computer to give his ships a tactical edge. One of the robots ‘wakes up’, receives instructions to stop the use of the base computer. It staggers slowly up all those stairs and chokes the lone Alphan. With a few button pushes, the robot programs all the Alphan ships to crash into each other. Rameses has lost. He finds out that Alpha’s sun went nova. While he’s all sad and mournful, he doesn’t notice that his ship is headed directly towards earth’s moon. Crash! The League ship lands in Allan’s backyard. The aliens revive Betty and reunite Malcolm with his wife too. Everyone is happy and smiling as the League ship sails off into the starry night. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
When viewed from nearly 30 years after its release, SI has an unintentionally campy quality. This is only heightened when everyone in the production is taking it all so seriously. Robert Vaughn is his usual Man From U.N.C.L.E self. Christopher Lee is his usual evil character self.

Cultural Connection
Grand Unified Conspiracy Theories — In 50s sci-fi, it was often the government (agents or the military) that rescued Earth from alien doom. This reverent trust in government was eroding during the 60s, what with Vietnam and counterculture and all. The Watergate Scandal seemed to have removed the last shred of the old Government Protects Us mantle. With that last control-rod removed, the reactor of paranoid imagination was free to run wild. Fascination with UFO reports and abductions resurfaced with new vigor. The Roswell incident, dormant for 30 years, would be fanned back into popularity. The logic of the day was: The government said UFOs don’t exist, AND the government cannot be trusted, therefore, that PROVES that UFOs DO exist in all the ways people imagined. The logic was flawed, but it was popular. Various abduction stories, sightings, the Roswell incident and von Daniken’s “ancient astronauts” theorizing were coalescing into a more-or-less unified UFO/aliens narrative in the culture. Even those who did not believe that narrative, still knew it. SI interweaves many of the popular narrative tropes: abductions, tests, hidden bases, even alien sex, into one "epic" tale.

Notes
Old Fashioned Aliens — An amusing feature of SI is how the aliens are essentially humans (this, somehow, explained away as that the aliens were descended from humans). They dress in solid colored monotards. The evil Alphans wear solid black, with a big logo of a winged snake emblazoned on their chest. The good League aliens wear solid white or light blue. This was how aliens were depicted in the good old days of the early 50s. The Catwomen of the Moon (’51) wore all black monotards. The aliens in Radar Men from the Moon and Killers From Space (’53) wore hooded monotards. After Star Wars gave audiences a wide variety of really weird aliens, plain humans in hooded monotards just looked super cheap.

Egypto-Nauts — Part of the fertile lore of UFO conspiracy theories in the mid-70s, was that aliens had visited Earth for thousands of years. Erich von Daniken’s 1968 book, “Chariots of the God,” popularized the notion, though he did not invent it. The set designers in SI created a pyramid base, and festooned costumes and props with pyramid shapes. The evil alien is named Rameses too! When Allan asks the big-head girl alien (named Phi, btw) about their culture, Phi says he won’t understand. “When you can explain the pyramids, perhaps then you will understand.” She said they built the pyramids thousands of years ago. We knew it! The late 70s TV series “Battlestar Galactica” would blend the new Star Wars look with the old egyptonauts trope. “Stargate SG1” would be a 21st century refresh of this old trope.

Alien Sex — Rameses’ only female crew member, Sagnac, who looks totally human, (no big head like Phi) had sex with the happily willing abducted farmer. This was, it would seem, how Rameses’ scientists got their sample of earthling sperm. (They had no other way?) Later, inside the League pyramid base, Rameses comes upon a room full of space hookers with very 70s big hair. They come on to him with ‘hey baby’ eyes and looks (since they communicate telepathically). One of them, Gazeth, stands before Rameses and poses a bit. Then they leave together to an Earth monitoring room. Was that alien sex? That was fast. Since they communicate telepathically, do they do things telepathically too? That burning question remains unanswered, but preserves the PG rating.

Before It “Happened” — The induced mass suicide trope in SI seriously predates M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening by a good 25 years. SI had it as an evil alien plot. M.Night spun his version as eco-revenge by the Earth’s plants.

Bottom line? SI is an ambitious effort that had a fair budget. It would have been better received when first released, given its zeitgeist. Audiences in ’77 were still abuzz over flying saucers and all the lore that had glommed onto that snowball. It might have been one of the two big sci-fi films of 1977, had not Star Wars and Close Encounters been released then too. However, they were and they made SI instantly look outdated and cheap. For fans of the old-school style of sci-fi (flying saucers and human-aliens in hooded monotards), SI can be nostalgic fun. For people expecting anything approaching Star Wars or Close Encounters, SI will feel tragically campy and liable to be seen as a “worst movie ever.” SI isn’t all that bad. It’s just very old-school for the late 70s.

The End of the World

The old 70s paradigm of doom and malaise lives on in this low-budget indie apocalyptic movie, The End of the World (EotW). The producers managed to recruit some well known, or better known actors such as Christopher Lee, Dean Jagger, Lew Ayres and Madonald Carey. All but Lee get scant screen time. Kirk Scott and Sue Lyon, both second-tier actors, garnered the lion’s share of the camera. Charles Band produced the film before he got better at producing. John Hayes directed, though is forte had been trashy horror or trashy soft porn. The resulting tale of alien-duplication and intrigue to destroy the world unfolds very very slowly.

Quick Plot Synopsis
A cook in a remote diner whiles away the empty hours of night until a Catholic priest walks in asking if he can call the police. Before he can, the pay phone blows up, as does the juke box and coffee machine. The latter scalds the cook such that he runs through a window and kills himself. A stunned Father Pergado (Lee) staggers up to a convent to be greeted by his evil twin. Cut to a “high-tech” computer lab where Andrew works. He picks up some strange signals from space. He has a ‘feeling’ about them. Andrew and his lovely wife, Sylvia (Lyon) investigate where the signals are coming from, but only find a peaceful convent. Andrew brushes off some professional obligations in order to pursue his obsession with the signals. They check out a second site, only to discover that it was a secret government eaves-dropping base. (at least there was a transmitter that time.) They are released. With no other leads, they revisit the convent. The second visit still revealed nothing, so they sneak back in a third time. The nuns capture them and take them down to a basement full of alien technology. The fake Father Pergado is actually an alien named Zindar. He and his “nuns” have taken human form to complete their mission. Unfortunately, their tampering with Earth messed up their matter transporters, so they’re stuck on Earth. Zindar holds Sylvia hostage to force Andrew to steal some special rare isotope crystal which will fix their transporter device. Andrew does so, reluctantly, but successfully. The transporter is fixed. Zindar exposits that they came to destroy the Earth because it spews ‘disease’ into the universe. He tells Andrew and Sylvia that, as aliens, they’re not such bad folks so Andrew and Sylvia are welcome to come to their planet instead of staying on the earth (which is about to blow up). Zindar briefly changes from Christopher Lee to an alien puppet head (seen in the poster), then beams away. Andrew and Sylvia decide life on an alien world is better than blowing up, so they transport away. The Earth blows up. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Christopher Lee is clearly the primary value in EotW. Despite the extra-lame script and career-killing production, he performs as an A-level professional. Sue Lyon is easy on the eyes.

Cultural Connection
Chronic Gloom —The 50s were rife with worries about nuclear doom, but despite that, almost all 50s apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic movies were essentially optimistic. Mankind somehow found a way to avert disaster. By the 70s, however, people seemed to give up that vestige of hope. With all the new plagues of doom the 70s wallowed in — pollution, overpopulation, starvation — it was easy to think there would be no light at the end of the tunnel. No way to avert doom. EotW is a blunt (if clumsy) statement of that sentiment. Nothing mattered. The Earth was just going to blow up.

Notes
Dark Klaatu — Klaatu came to Earth in The Day The Earth Stood Still (’51) to deliver a warning. Mankind had better mind its Ps and Qs or the galactic powers would have to destroy the Earth to preserve all those other planets out there. Zindar comes in a similar sort of messenger role but with bad news. “The planet earth has emitted an overabundance of diseases. You are contaminating the universe. All the planets, lightyears away from here will suffer, unless it is destroyed. We have received our orders.” There is no reprieve. Mankind did not mind its Ps and Qs.

Evil Twin — For no particularly expressed reason, the real Father Pergado is kept alive and allowed to keep praying at the altar. Why the duplicated nuns were not kept on, was never explained. The real Pergado (also played by Lee) is “artistically” differentiated by being dressed in all white. Whereas Zindar, the fake Pergado is in all black (with cape!). The fake nuns come to escort the real Pergado down to test out the matter transporter. They get him just as he finishes reciting the Lord’s Prayer, ending on the line, “…and deliver us from evil.” The transporter is still broken, so the real Pergado dies. Perhaps this is what happened to the real nuns. They were sent in as human guinea pigs to test the unit. Not a very advanced-technology way of testing equipment.

Wasted Talent — Perhaps, due to his father Albert’s reputation (as a second-tier actor, director and producer), Charles Band seems to have been able to sign up some known actors for his very obscure indie film. It is said that Christopher Lee only agreed to take the job because he had been told that the other known actors, such as Dean Jagger, Lew Ayers, etc. were in the film. These other actors, however, were wasted in bit parts with very little screen time. Jagger was Andrew’s cranky boss with only two small scenes. Lew Ayers appears only once as the manager of the eavesdropping base. Macdonald Carey plays a security guard. Instead of having the better talent play major roles, the lead characters were played by middling television actors (Scott and Lyon).

Catholi-phobia? — Screenwriter Frank Ray Perilli must have had a personal fear of nuns and things Catholic. He seemed to expect that the mere sight of a convent and closeups of frowning nun faces would creep out the audience. Maybe for some, they do. For most, however, the dots do not connect. Whatever ‘horror” Perilli was hoping for never materializes. Nuns just are not scary, unless one is already afraid of nuns.

Bottom line? EotW is an almost painfully slow film. At nearly 90 minutes long, it could easily have been cut to run less than an hour. It would still be lame, but faster. Far too much of it is shot at night, with insufficient lighting, which only makes the long padded sneaking-through-the-night scenes feel even longer. Lee is okay acting-wise. Others were wasted efforts (see above). Scott is bland as a hero. Lyon is pretty in a mid-70s (pre-Farrah) sort of way and looks good in a towel (twice!), but she adds little. Charles Band would go on to produce better films, but EotW is not among them. Unless one is a big Christopher Lee fan, there is little reason to sit through this film.

Empire of the Ants

The old-school style of sci-fi movie did not simply vanish after Star Wars rewrote the paradigm. Indeed, Samuel Z. Arkoff’s American International already had a few old-paradigm projects in production when the New Age began. Empire of the Ants (EoA) follows quickly on the heels of another Arkoff production based on an H.G.Wells story, Island of Dr. Moreau. Unlike Island, EoA is a much looser adaptation, but clearly trying to cash in on Wells’ name recognition. Bert I. Gordon provides his usual “magic” as special effects expert and director. Joan Collins stars as Marilyn, the shrew-ish and shifty real estate developer. Robert Lansing stars as the heroic and taciturn boat captain. The rest of the cast are lesser lights and television actors. Of note, though, Christine is played by Jack Palance’s daughter, Brooke.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Under the credits, we are shown a boat dumping 55 gallon drums of nuclear waste. We know this because it says so on the drums in big red letter. One drum washes ashore and starts leaking. Ants swarm over the silvery ooze. Meanwhile, Marilyn welcomes aboard captain Dan’s boat, a group of would-be buyers for parcels in her Dreamland Shores development in a remote area of Florida and right where the ants are eating the ooze. The group of prospects is the usual social sampling for group-survives-ordeal stories. There is a retired couple, a middle aged couple, a younger couple. There is a middle-aged single woman, a curvaceous blonde and a liesure-suit single guy. Much of the early part of the movie is devoted to character development and drama. Christine and Larry, the younger couple have a weak marriage because he’s a total jerk. Larry tries to maul Coreen, the blonde, but gets kneed for it. The middle-aged single woman has a sad back story and takes a shine to single captain Dan. Liesure suit Joe has a sad back story too, and Coreen takes a shine to him. While touring the parcels, the middle aged couple discover that the development is a scam. They are, however, attacked and killed by giant ants. The ants then attack the rest of the group, who flee. A thunderstorm douses their protective camp fire, so they must flee again. The retired couple hide in a shed and get eaten later. Christine trips but Larry is too big of a wuss to save her. She is killed. The rest make it to a row boat and row up the river. Eventually, the ants jump on them, killing Larry. The rest are herded by the ants towards a small town with a sugar factory. The people in the town act strange and thwart the group’s efforts to leave. It turns out that the queen ant has set up shop in the factory and gasses the residents to bend their wills to hers. Thus, her army of human slaves feed her ants the sugar. The survivors resist indoctrination. Captain Dan uses road flares to set fire to the queen. In the pandemonium, the survivors escape. Heroic Joe opens the valve on a gasoline tanker truck and drives it all around the factory. He jumps from the moving truck, which crashes and explodes into flame, obligingly. The factory and (presumably) all the ants burn. The survivors escape in an outboard motor boat. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Some may enjoy EoA as one of those so-bad-they’re-good sorts of movies. Much of the fun is nostalgic. EoA is, at it’s heart, a mid-50s big bug movie, dressed up in leisure suits and bellbottoms. If shot in black and white, and the fashions adjusted, EoA would fit right into the 50s. Joan is her usual saucy self. Pamela Shoop (as Coreen) is easy on the eyes. Brooke Palance adds an understated pretty too.

Cultural Connection
Old Bogey Men — The roots of Gordon’s screenplay ring the old alarm bells about nuclear radiation. By the mid-70s, audiences had grown accustomed (weary) to pronouncements of ecological doom. The old bogey man of the dangers of nuclear radiation must have seemed almost quaint to audiences in 1977. As per the old magic, the radioactive waste manages to make the ants grow huge — which radiation was imagined to have the power to do — and it also made them more intelligent.

Notes
Based on the Book — Actually, a short story. H.G.Wells wrote “Empire of the Ants” in 1905 as a multi-chapter short story. James Turley and Bert I. Gordon’s screen adaptation is very loose, but does draw some elements from Wells’ original. In Wells’ story, a Brazillian gunboat is sent up the Amazon to investigate stories of ant infestations. He thinks he’s just being dissed by his superiors, but hears rumors and encounters a derelict boat with dead men aboard. The boarding party are killed by largish (a couple inches) ants which behave oddly organized. The captain burns the derelict. The gunboat comes to a deserted town near a sugar factory. Seeing more ant activity and no human survivors, the captain leaves. The narrator thinks it’s just a matter of years before the ants’ empire reaches civilization and there’s nothing anyone can do. Knowing the original story, various scenes seem less like non sequiturs. The burning boat. The trip up the river, the ant-controlled town. The sugar factory. Wells, however, did not have nuclear waste as his bogey man.

Ant Fest & Body Snatchers — Turley and Gordon’s story is a hybrid of Them! (’54) which has raditation-enlarged ants, and Phase IV which had intelligent ants (though not large) that work at controlling humans. Throw in a dose of Invasion of the Body Snatchers with the mind-controlled townsfolk just for fun.

Bad Bugs -- Director Gordon tried to disguise the modest nature of his "giant" ant puppets by (a) not showing them very much and (b) making sure the camera is wiggling crazily whenever there is an ant attack close up. The technique is a bit overdone, almost to the point of inducing motion sickness in sensitive souls. But, what's a director to do with a low budget?

Touch of Noir — There is a hint of film noir in Turley’s characters. None are “clean”. Marilyn is a catty scam artist. Her helper, Charlie is her resentful “kept man”. Dan is a grumpy misanthrope. Coreen was a gold digger who got dumped. Joe was an out-of work divorcee. Thomas trusted no one. Mary was a nag. Larry was a loser AND a jerk. His wife Christine was milk toast and burdened with daddy's money. The old couple just mooch on tours like that one, for the free vacation angle. Margaret was the lonely, bitter spinster. Unlike classic noir, the misfit toys find future mates and leave the island. Dan and Margaret warm to each other. Coreen gets feelings for Joe. Presumably, things get better for the two couples.

Bottom line? EoA is clearly an old-school low-B grade film. After the high polish of Star Wars, EoA looks especially dowdy and cheap. The acting can be amusing for it’s weakness — such as victim #2, Mary, standing still and screaming a LOT, while the ants slowly crawl up to her. EoA is low quality entertainment, but not entirely a waste. It would make a fun tripe-feature Ant Fest with Them! and Phase IV.

The Island of Dr. Moreau

Samuel Z. Arkoff and his American International produced this second film adaptation of H.G.Wells’ 1896 novel. The first was Island of Lost Souls in 1932, starring Charles Laughton. Arkoff’s film used the novel’s title: The Island of Dr. Moreau (IDM). Burt Lancaster stars as the doctor. Michael York plays the unfortunate sailor. Barbara Carerra stars as “the woman”. Richard Basehart plays the Sayer of the Law.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Andrew Braddock (York) and fellow sailor, Chuck, had been adrift in a lifeboat for 17 days before washing up on a remote Pacific island. Chuck disappears to unseen shadowy creatures while Andrew looked for water. He runs to escape pursuers, but falls and knocks himself out. He comes to in a bed, tended by a man named Montgomery. He is in the compound of Dr. Moreau. Andrew is immediately entranced with the lovely Maria (Carerra). Andrew learns a bit of Moreau’s vague work, and even sees a partially humanized bear-man on Moreau’s table. Andrew and Maria meet up for some caressing and implied furtherance. The next day, Andrew sees the finished bear-man, which Moreau treats more like an animal. Andrew, determined to confront the shadowy beasts in the surrounding jungle, takes a rifle and searches. He finds a cave. In the cave, are the beast men. The Sayer of the Law has them all recite the laws, all ending in “Are we not men?” A cat man (reverting to his wild cat-self) attacks Andrew. Dr. Moreau’s sudden appearance (and gunshot) ends the fight. Montgomery hauls off the errant cat-man to get a booster treatment. Later, the lion-man fights with a real tiger at a watering hole and kills the tiger. Moreau discovers this and confronts the beast man. Killing is against the Laws. The guilty lion-man run away, pursued by the pack of beasts and Moreau. Another beast-man leads Andrew on a short cut. They find the wounded and exhausted lion-man, who urges Andrew to kill him so he doesn’t have to endure Moreau’s house of pain. Andrew shoots him, but this scandalizes the beast men. Andrew and Maria pack to flee the island in the patched up lifeboat, but Moreau captures Andrew and injects him with animal serum to study the process in reverse. Montgomery objects, so Moreau shoots him dead. The beast-men see this and realize The Law is no more. M’Ling puts Montgomery’s body outside the compound where the beast-men find it and realize that men can die. Moreau comes looking for Montgomery’s body and is chased and mauled by the beast-men. He dies inside the compound. The beast-men attack the compound, trashing the place and setting fires, as well as releasing the caged animals, which in turn attack the beast-men. In the melee, Andrew and Maria escape to their boat. The vengeful cat-man pursues. After a bloody fight, Andrew wins and the pair drift away into the vast ocean. Eventually, a ship finds them. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Since the screenplay follows Wells’ novel fairly well, the power of the original story still shines through. Lancaster does a fine job as Moreau: at times affable, yet at other times unhinged.

Cultural Connection
Science Playing God — Inherent in Wells’ novel, and still present in IDM is the notion of “cold” science tampering with nature, dabbling at being a creator. Modernized, this Moreau dabbles in GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). While this somewhat nullifies Wells’ “House of Pain” device, it does move the story into modern science-ethics discussions. Moreau, as symbolic of dispassionate science, changes things to suit some lofty future potential “good” for mankind, quite unconcerned about the pain and damage caused along the way. At one point, Moreau shouts, “I created you” as if the beast-men owed him respect (not hatred). The take-away: Man makes a poor god.

Notes
Based on the Book — Wells’ novel came out in 1896. IDM was the first film adaptation to use the novel’s title, but it wasn’t the first film. There was a silent film in 1913. The 1932 “talkie” starring Charles Laughton, Island of Lost Souls followed the book closely in some ways, yet added Hollywood-isms in others. IDM is somewhat similar in following the book’s plot fairly well, but taking a few of its own liberties. IDM repeated the “panther woman” element introduced in the 1932 film. (more on her below). IDM compressed some plot elements, which allowed for a faster pace. A difference added in IDM is that Moreau uses DNA injections, not vivisection. And, in a sort of flip-side, Moreau tries to turn Andrew into an animal. The end turns out much the same, regardless of who ends up killing whom, but the fact that the sailor escapes WITH the girl. Wells’ novel had no girl.

Panther Woman 2.0 — An element not in the book (though perhaps hinted at) was the “Panther Woman” named Lota in the 1932 version. Wells did describe a puma experiment in his book, though never as a woman, but a work-in-progress that eventually kills Moreau. In 1932, she had graduated to Moreau’s crowning achievement. Lovely and new-to-the-world, Lota was the “wild” love interest. In 1932, she (like the beast-folk) began to revert to her animal nature. While she was planning to escape with Parker, she sacrifices herself (battling the Ourangutan-man) to save her love. In IDM, the panther woman progresses more. Maria is like Lota in that she’s lovely and new-to-the-world. The screenplay and directing actually give no clear inkling that she is one of Moreau’s creations. The backstory Moreau tells (of a rescued child) could be true. After all, Moreau doesn’t seem too good at DNA-altering beast folks into tidy humans, so Maria would a fluke. The poster suggests that Maria was a panther, and might return being one. The screenplay does nothing with this. Then, for fans of the ’32 film who had wished that Lota could have escaped, they get their wish — just 45 years later.

Other Versions — In addition to the 1913 silent film, and the 1932 classic, there was a Filipino version made in 1959, Terror Is A Man. This, looser adaptation had the bad doctor create just one beast-man made from a panther. This film tried to be cerebral, like Wells, but was limited in budget. Terror was re-released in the 60s as Blood Creature and would spawn a cheap “Blood Island” horror series spinoff which had nothing to do with Wells’ story. Following IDM in 1996 would be another remake, this time starring Marlon Brando.

Bottom line? IDM is a reasonably well done remake of Wells’ story and the 1932 film version. The science part gets even thinner as a bit of lab table work and some hypodermic injections. The rest is old-school horror and things-chasing-people action. It made an interesting follow up to Day of the Animals released earlier in the same month. IDM is above average entertainment for an American International film, though still not a “great” film.

Star Wars

This is THE watershed sci-fi film. It is the beginning of the end of the old era of sci-fi start of the “modern” sci-fi era. While many debate the quality of story, the writing, etc. few can argue against the cultural significance of Star Wars. The 50s had Forbidden Planet (’56). The 60s had 2001 (’68). The 70s had Star Wars: A New Hope. George Lucas wrote and directed a film that was both a product of its times and such a radical departure from its times that it took audiences by surprise. Star Wars catapulted the careers of Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. Alec Guiness, Peter Cushing and James Earl Jones were already established actors, whose stature helped the film. So very much has already been written about Star Wars already — indeed, a whole subculture exists around the film and its characters. This review cannot cover all the points there are to make. Instead, the focus will be on Star Wars in light of the continuum of sci-fi that went before it.

Quick Movie Synopsis
A small space ship flees from a giant imperial cruiser, but cannot escape. Aboard the small ship is Princess Leia on a mission to deliver stolen plans to the Empire’s new battle station, The Death Star. Before her ship is boarded and she is captured, she puts the plans inside a small droid, R2D2. He and his droid companion C-3PO escape to the planet below. There, both droids are captured by Jawa junk dealers and eventually sold to Luke Skywalker’s uncle Owen. R2 escapes, looking Obiwan Kenobi. Luke finds R2 and meets “Old Ben” and thus escapes Imperial troops killing his uncle and aunt while looking for the droids. Obiwan, and Luke hire Han Solo to fly them to the planet Alderon. They just barely escape imperial troops and ships, but the Death Star has turned Alderon to rubble before they can get there. Solo’s ship is captured by the Death Star. Luke, Han, Chewy and the two droids locate Leia in a detention cell. Through many turns of fate and laser-blaster battles, everyone makes it back to the ship. Everyone but Obiwan. He and Darth Vader engage in a light saber battle, which Obiwan voluntarily loses to aid the group’s escape. Solo does fly them away from the Death Star, but they were tracked. When Solo’s ship lands on the rebel base moon, the Death Star is not far behind. With the stolen plans, the rebel leaders think the Death Star can be defeated by small fighters precision-dropping a nuke down a ventilator shaft. The rebel squadrons form up and fly to the Death Star. Solo, takes his reward money and leaves. Imperial tie-fighters harass the rebel X-wing fighters. Two rebel groups make passes at the vent shaft, but fail. Luke, in the last group, fly in. Solo swoops in to save Luke from Darth Vader’s tie-fighters. Luke uses The Force instead of technology and gets his bomb down the shaft. The Death Star blows up. Darth Vadar escapes, however. Luke and Han are applauded as heroes and awarded medals by the beautiful princess. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Star Wars is an action-packed comic book adventure. Archetypal good and evil do battle free from the subtle entanglements of deep character development. The lavish sets, the intricate models, the sheer variety of bizarre aliens, all create a fascinating “other” universe. Later sequels would get mixed reviews for being either too shallow, or too complex or too absurd, but the original film was fast-paced simple fun.

Cultural Connection
Malaise Antidote — The 24/7 atomic angst of the Cold War era was draining enough on the cultural psyche. The silly 60s gave some respite, but the Eco Doom of the 70s struck before the culture had regained its strength. Perhaps the world would not incinerate itself with nukes, but it was (the pundits predicted) going to shrivel, stink and starve us to death in just a few years — if the computers or rampant viruses don’t kill us all first. Where the Cold War was like being stalked by a serial killer, Eco Doom was like being told you had cancer. There was no hiding, no escape. Films of the 70s reflected that dark and dower view. Things were bad, and only going to get worse. This is the cultural undertow which President Carter tried to expose in his ill-fated “Malaise speech” in 1979. Carter chided America for — materialism, apathy and a ‘crisis of confidence.’ Carter did not point to a source, but part of that malaise was because the preachers of environmentalist hellfire had browbeaten America into a deep funk. The earth was going to hell in a hand basket because mankind was eco-evil. About all there was left for people to do was to ‘eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.’ Star Wars was a shot of adrenaline to an exhausted America — a hot meal in the belly of a culture starving for hope.

Notes
Not Out of Thin Air — As much as Star Wars was a radical departure from customary sci-fi films, it was not totally new. In fact, if Lucas had not drawn upon a deep reservoir of preexisting cultural elements and instead made things up out of whole cloth, the film would have failed. Lucas did say that Kurosawa’s 1958 film Hidden Fortress was one source of inspiration, Star Wars is not a remake of HF, set in space. Lucas’s notions of a “Used Future” meshed with others’ prior works. Moon Zero Two, for instance, had a cocky space pilot and his patched-together old ship doing some salvage and trading. Many prior films featured weird aliens. Many prior films had robots — both anthropomorphic (like C-3PO) and mechanical like R2D2. Other films had giant ships and laser battles. Loads of prior movies had shootouts — even with lasers. The light-saber duel stood on the shoulders of The Three Musketeers, Zorro, pirate movies and countless sword & sandal matinees. What Lucas managed to do, was overwhelm his audiences with the sheer quantity of everything. They were all things that had been on the screen before, just never so much at once.

Classic Villains — An example of how Lucas tapped into preexisting cultural icons was how he made the Empire a very thinly disguised remake of the Nazi Reich. The stormtroopers, by their very name, were retread-nazis. Their helmets and militarism could activate all those prior movies in which Nazi troops were the vile bad guys. Darth Vader’s costume has roots as old as Ming The Merciless from Flash Gordon days, but mostly, Darth is the ultimate SS trooper. His helmet evokes the WWII German stahlhelm. He is all in black (whereas Leia is in pure-goodness white). Films with actual nazi costumes were getting somewhat old by the late 70s. It was, after all, thirty years since the Nazis lost the war. How long could a culture keep beating that dead horse? Lucas refreshed the horse so it could get beaten again. Through Luke, Han and the rebels, America could once again whoop the Nazis -- sort of. John Williams’ triumphal score celebrated victory like it used to be in the old movies.

Galactica In Situ — One of the enchanting things about Star Wars was that it did not deign to explain itself to viewers. The norm for sci-fi since the 30s, or even as far back as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, was to explain to audiences just what the strange things were. In lesser movies, long stretches of exposition were dedicated to explaining how the aliens came from this planet or that, and had to breathe air or water, or ate rocks or whatever. Time travel, or alien technology got explained as did the aliens’ ultimate motives (which usually turned out to be that they wanted our women!) In Star Wars Lucas just put his galaxy out there without all the exposition. Jawas were junk merchants. No reason why. Owen and Beru had a dirt-scrabble farm, despite all the technology. Just cuz. Speeders floated. No idea why. The Death Star had big trash compactors. Why? It didn’t matter. Lucas’s galaxy had the charming effrontery to exist without justifying or explaining itself.

Bottom line? Star Wars is a must-see. Love it, or loathe it, the film cast a long shadow over future sci-fi movie-making. It would become the yardstick by which others were measured. It would have many lame low-budget imitators. It put back the triumphalism which sci-fi had in the 50s, which became politically un-correct in the post-Vietnam world. The depressing gray shadows of that old world would not vanish overnight, but the new dawn had just broken over the horizon.

Day of the Animals

1977 in sci-fi started off as a tough year for humans. In the first film, a sentient computer attacked people. In the second film, a demon-possessed car was attacking people. Thus, it is almost logical that the third film of '77 would be a movie about radiation-crazed animals attacking people. Day of the Animals (DotA) is a low-budget B movie in the Animals-Attack sub-genre. It is also in that other sub-genre of movies in which a group of "everyday" people must survive some ordeal. Christopher Geroge stars as the nature guide for the group of city folk. Linda Day George plays the beautiful, but sassy, TV anchorwoman. Leslie Nielson figures prominently as the ad exec who goes crazy. William Girdler directed. He had directed Grizzly the year before, with some success.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Per the Group Ordeal genre, the first few minutes of the film introduce the characters and hints at their dysfunctions -- a semi-random group of city folk embarking on a mountain nature hike, led by Steve Buckner (George). They are airlifted to a remote mountain site by helicopter, with the plan being to hike down over several days. As expected the group of city folk begin complaining fairly soon. The first foreshadowing of interpersonal troubles are established. Animal footage suggests that hawks, bears, mountain lions and wolves are following the group. Santee, the wise indian, senses that there is trouble. News reports tell of a hole in the ozone layer and frets over unknown effects. While camped that night, some wolves attack, mauling Mandy a bit. The next day, Steve sends her and her husband Frank off to a ranger station to get airlifted to a hospital. The rest press on. En route to the ranger station, eagles and vultures attack Mandy, who falls to her death off a cliff. Frank presses on alone. Dissent and bickering causes Steve’s group to split. Some stay with Steve, going down the mountain. Others go with Mr. Jensen (Nielson) back up the mountain, bound for different ranger station. The Jensen group quickly disintegrates as Jensen becomes a maniacal tyrant. He demands to ‘have’ the young woman, Beth, and kills her boyfriend. When a bear attacks, Jensen wrestles it (and does not win). Steve’s group gets to an unoccupied logging camp, but a pack of german shepherds attack. Two members, the professor and the cancer patient, are lost to the dogs. Steve, Santee and Terry (Linda Day George) escape by floating downriver on a raft. Frank finds an abandoned little girl. They get to the town, but everyone has gone. (the Army order evacuation) Frank shelters the girl in an inoperable IH Scout II while he tries to get to his car. The dogs attack and kill him. The survivors of Jensen’s group, the mom, son and Beth, take shelter from in an intact ‘crashed’ helicopter,’ when attacked by a different pack of crazed dogs. Fade to black. Dies Ex Machina: The next day, the hole in the ozone shifted, so the mutated virus that made all the animals homicidal (not crazed), caused all the animals to just drop dead. (How handy is that?) The Jensen survivors happily emerge from their helicopter. Steve’s survivors float back to civilization. An Army squad in silvery hazmat suits find the little girl in the Scout II. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Much of DotA is pedestrian and banal, so not especially fun viewing. Leslie Nielson is hammy, so fun to watch, however. His Jensen character becomes amusingly absurd in the last quarter of the film. The mountain forest scenery is nice.

Cultural Connection
Ozone Angst — The discovery of the ‘hole’ in the ozone layer in 1974, provided the 70s prophets of eco-doom with another drum to beat. 70s audiences were already accustomed to eco-doom from pollution, overpopulation and starvation. Few were even aware of the ozone layer until the “hole” made news. The chief suspect for the missing ozone was CFCs (Chloroflurocarbons) which were used as “inert” propellants in paint cans and refrigeration systems. CFCs released into the atmosphere eventually make their way up to the stratosphere where the chlorine reacts with the ozone, breaking it down. Angst over Ozone would simmer as a fringe issue until the 80s.

Notes
Motley Group — The framework of DotA was the familiar tale of hardship and survival for a group of random citizens — a sampling of society. Many a disaster film would be built upon this same framework. Collect a disparate group of average citizens — an annoying/smug one, a quiet/brave one, a whiner, a brainy one, etc. Put them into some disaster scenario. Play out the results as a social commentary. The “bad” people meet bad ends. The “good” people endure. Along the way, some expendable-crewmen are expended, if only to establish the scale of what the good-guys endure. DotA is more of this group-sampling film than it is about ozone or even animals.

Traditional Bugbear — The old familiar catalyst, radiation, was the evil magic pixie dust of the 50s. It could create monsters overnight. A similar plot at work is Cosmic Monsters (’58) in which some misguided scientists energize a beam weapon that blows a hole in earth’s protective radiation belts, allowing cosmic rays to bombard the earth. These rays then mutate common insects into giants and prompt them to attack humans. That mindset lies at the heart of DotA. The ‘hole’ in the ozone lets in more ultraviolet "radiation". In the spirit of the 50s, that additional UV suddenly mutates a virus that turns otherwise benign animals into killers. As cited in previous reviews. Eco-doom was the successor to Atomic Angst. The ozone depletion scenario permitted the older angst over radiation and radiation-caused mutations, to be revived and merged with the then-popular rending of garments over pollution.

Undermining Effort — DotA starts out with a very 70s enviro-preachy message that man’s pollution has brought (yet another) crisis upon us all. Yet, the end result of the script seriously undermines that envrio-message. The ending, in which all the bad animals just die off overnight, is a bit too handy to resolve the heroes’ plights. It almost feels like a cheap trick on the order of it-was-all-a-dream endings. But, it was worse than a cheap trick for the people for whom the ozone danger message resonated. The ozone hole fixed itself, and quickly. As suddenly as it appeared and caused mayhem, in the end, the ozone shifts a little and the problem is gone in 24 hours. Further undermining the possible real dangers, was the cheap plot trick of having all the crazed animals die when the ozone shifted. Problem solved. Never mind.

Implied Intelligence — The script sometimes suggests that the extra UV caused the animals to go berserk. Thus, they attacked people rather than their usual shy selves. This is the implied affect on the people — bickering, fighting, megalomania, etc. Yet, the animals are written to have been acting more deliberately. Text on the movie poster says animals are getting its revenge for being hunted. The hawk ‘character’ is written (and directed) as if it were the leader, directing the attacks. The dogs don’t fight with each other, but only seek out humans. This all fits with the Nature Takes Revenge trope, but it doesn’t fit well with the mutated virus, eco-doom story.

Poor Susan — Actress Susan Backlinie started to develop an unfortunate niche. In DotA she plays Mandy Young, the disgruntled wife of Frank the lawyer. She is the first person to be attacked and killed by the animals. Backlinie was also the first victim of the shark in Jaws. Happily for Backlinie, she got less doomed roles in future films (even if small roles). She was also one of the animal trainers for DotA.

Bear Reunion — For a brief spell of the mid-70s, killer bears had a burst of popularity. DotA was a sort of reunion for folks involved in prior killer bear films. Director William Girdler also directed the 1976 animal-attack film Grizzly (sometimes referred to as Jaws-on-land). This film also starred Christopher George as the hero, and Richard Jaekel in a supporting role. Susan Backlinie co-starred in 1975’s The Grizzly and the Treasure.

Bottom line? DotA is almost hard to watch. For the first three quarters of the film, it is slow and awkward. It is too easy for the viewer’s mind to wander or find something else to do. The plain-people-surviving-badly plot is a tired one, and not especially well crafted in the script. None of the characters come across with enough depth to really care what happens to them. The animals are not frightening (the dogs seem almost happy at times), unless one is already afraid of animals. The last quarter of the film picks up the pace, so is more watchable. As sci-fi, DotA is rather poor. As an eco-doom story, it hits the Undo button in the end. As an animals-attack film, it is mediocre.