Scars_Remain I haven't seen the original version of "The Day the World Ended," but I hear this is a completely different story and everything. This movie is a pretty average made for TV flick that plays out like a Disney channel original movie, and then there are cuss words thrown in to remind you that what you're watching is actually rated R. It was fairly enjoyable.Some of the acting is OK but most of the performances are pretty bad. The story is alright, and it had an unexpected twist which was a nice surprise, but nothing too special. The effects were great, I really liked the look of the alien. That's pretty much the gist of this one.What we have here is an average Sci-Fi film with not much going for it other than some cool special effects. It's pretty good for a rainy day.

Coventry The day the WORLD ended? Gee, isn't that a little too melodramatic? Since when do some mildly ominous events in a small town of hillbillies affect the existence of the entire world? Or maybe this is all just because this film is part of a series of TV-remakes of cheap & nearly forgotten Sci-Fi films, dating back to the 1950's. Roger Corman directed the original version of "The Day the World Ended" and it featured an entirely different storyline. The lame and overly child-friendly plot of this version revolves on a young boy who firmly believes that his real father is an alien. You'd believe him too, if you look at his childhood pictures. The school psychiatrist Dr. Stillman (portrayed by Nastassja Kinski who's not ageing very well, I must say) wishes to save him from the social isolation brought on by his father, but then there really does land a slimy alien in town! This is the first of the HBO's remakes I watched, but I'm already going to pass on the rest of them. It has absolutely nothing to offer, except for an adequate cast that deliver below-average acting performances. The rest is just pathetic. The script "borrows" ideas from several other movies, there's absolutely no suspense and the make-up & creature effects are downright laughable. The alien monster is identical to the one in Corman's original (as some kind of homage) but the old creature looked a lot more petrifying. This is simply a sad excuse for a horror film, exclusively intended for younger audiences that refuse to watch black & white cinema.

manuel-pestalozzi There are definitely too many references to other movies and story traditions in this flick. It starts like Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (the heroine driving a New Beetle – yech!), it continues with dark humor like a novel by Kafka (heroine with a badly defined mission comes to a strange place and meets a bunch of strangely hostile stereotype comic book characters of uncertain authority), then there's a whiff of Twin Peaks (hints of sexual abuse of minors and general depravity in the backwoods), then in comes E.T. (minor bonds with extraterrestrial), then it turns out that minor's mother was regarded by the populace as a kind of a witch and was treated accordingly. On top of that, there is a clear reference to a 50ies horror B-movie. (Hence the confusing title which has nothing to do with the story told here).The references in themselves are not really bad or a rip-off. However, it would have been more fun, had they tied all that stuff together in a more coherent, rigid and orderly fashion. The pairing of psychology and the supernatural clearly does not work here. I didn't manage to find out what story the movie wants to tell and I suspect its makers could never really make up their mind. This is a pity, as the cast is quite good. I hope Nastassja Kinski still has a long career ahead of her. Not only for her looks, but also because she really is a versatile actress who in my opinion still didn't get her share of good movie parts. Randy Quaid and Bobby Edner are equally convincing in their roles, within the apparent limits of the script. The same goes for the rest of the characters who are parodies or stereotypes.

Andreas Niedermayer Bobby Edner did a great job in here. I loved the way he projected his character's emotional confusion and how he dealt with his apparent alien heritage. How stirring is the scene when the alien monster approaches him by leaving a path of destruction and death behind it and young Bobby shyly whispers "Dad?" towards the creature? That's awesome. Despite a rather fine cast, the entire movie was an apparent cheap production and - to be very honest - the alien was a real shame. That's what happens to low-budget productions trying to create something beyond their financial capacity. The characters were shallow most of the time and the story did not develop in a too sophisticated manner. However, I liked the movie as a whole due to a) Bobby Edner, who just aced a very difficult and emotionally ambiguous role and b) the story, which had its good basic approaches nicely delivered and was interesting to follow. I'll award it with a 7 due to my personal preferences, though it normally is not to be rated above a solid 6.