mark.waltz A truly wretched, amateurish piece of exploitation rubbish, this is a horribly acted "what if" tale of the crisis of being in the middle of nowhere when stone faced police officer Seamon Glass stops a bunch of drivers out in the middle of the night, forcing them to stay put and not telling them why. It eventually cones out that their world is about to face a nuclear invasion, although where they are and who is doing the attacking is never revealed. Assortments of various strange people (is there any other kind who drives at 4 am?) are gathered together, forced to congregate in a steel truck in hopes of not being instantly liquidated. While the thought of such an attack is frightening, this reeks of idiocy, and the actors (especially Glass) are beneath small town community theater talent. There's unnecessary violence towards animals, a drunken female driver, a psycho on the loose (who isn't the cop) and a stray band of looters. This ranks as one of the worst anti-war drama I've seen and has nothing to recommend. Coming from a studio called GPA, if that stands for "Grade Point Average", they would get an "F" and absolutely no diploma.

Uriah43 While on duty in the early morning hours "Deputy Sheriff Dan Colter" (Seamon Glass) gets an order to take his patrol car and block all access to and from the nearby city. Having done that he then stops what few cars that happen to come by and orders everyone to get out of their vehicles and gather around him. He eventually informs them that a nuclear attack appears to be immanent and that they need to unload a semi-truck so that they can use it as an impromptu bomb shelter. While all of this is going on the individuals within the small group become more restless as time passes and certain individual personality traits become more pronounced. For example, one woman named "Cheryl Hudson" (Mary Morlas) is an alcoholic who constantly needs a drink to calm her nerves. Yet another woman by the name of "Karen Barnes" (Carol Kent) suddenly develops an attraction for the truck driver named "Al Weston" (Alan Austin) even though her husband, "Sam Barnes" (Norman Winston) is right there and can't help but notice. And the longer they wait the more dramatic it gets. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie I will just say that this film tended to capture the feeling of many Americans at this time of the Cold War. That said it's quite possible that some viewers who weren't alive during this particular period may not be able to relate to a film of this type. Even so, while it certainly isn't a great movie by any means, I didn't think it was necessarily that bad either and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

wes-connors "A California deputy sheriff sets up a roadblock on a mountain highway leading to a city. He begins to stop motorists to inform them of some terrible news; a missile containing an atomic bomb is headed towards the city. The motorists and the deputy struggle with deciding on either finding shelter inside the back of a truck, for possible survival, or whether to go to the mountaintop to face the impending doom," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.An interesting lower budget doomsday feature, "This Is Not a Test" suffers through flawed, uninteresting characterizations. Moreover, subtleties and symbolism are too far buried in the mix to matter. There is barely a hint that "good" characters "Peter" and "June" could form an "Adam" and "Eve", should the film's promise be fulfilled. The "Discount World" truck, and the other means of transportation may, or may not, mean anything in particular.The more interesting characters' psychoses are underdeveloped: dictatorial cop Seamon Glass (as Dan Colter) really needed some back-story; and alleged rapist/murderer Ron Starr (as Clint)'s back-story is completely wasted. Probably, Mr. Starr's character was falsely accused; and, the script makes no use of the possibility something interesting is being transported in his suitcase. Don't miss Starr's "chicken truck" meltdown scene, if you watch; he makes "Clint" the best role in the movie.

winner55 To understand the importance of this film, and one or two others like it, please remember that at the time this film was made, the US government was still insisting that a simple wooden board could save one from the deadly effects of a nuclear blast. I still remember the drills in grammar school - in 1962 (2 years after this film was made), the drill was to duck under our desks. A year later, it was finally admitted that maybe a concrete wall would be needed, so we were filed out into the hall and sat on the floor with our arms over our heads - the placement of the arms were to weaken the effects of fall-out.This is not a great, or even good, film. It's cheap, it's underdirected, underacted, underlit, underdesigned in every way. And of course there's the unnecessary dash of pure exploitation - drunkenness, lust, bad attitude. And the cop is a hoot by any standards, although let us admit the courage of the writer to make him a complete fool as far as the A-Bomb and his untrustworthy government are concerned.But that, after all, is the real importance of the film. Only four years later, Barry Goldwater ran on the promise that he wouldn't hesitate to use the A-bomb - in Vietnam, Cuba, what the hell, Alabama, if the Civil Rights movement got violent."Nuke 'em, nuke 'em," we still hear the chant, from irresponsible lard-heads who have not the slightest idea how even one or two badly placed bombs would destroy their lives forever - presuming they survived.So, surprisingly - a historically important film, worth a glance.