This decent sci-fi / invasion flick stars token American "name" Willard Parker as Jeff Nolan, a test pilot working in England who discovers that most humans (that he can see, anyway) have been decimated by an alien force (likely a gas attack, as he surmises). He runs into a few other survivors, and they must dodge the robotic characters that are silently stalking around the streets of an eerily quiet country village.
Canadian born writer Harry Spalding ("The Watcher in the Woods", "Chosen Survivors") concocted this minor, yet diverting little movie. Film director Terence Fisher, known primarily for his work with the famed Hammer Studios, derives an enjoyable amount of tension from the set-up, even though the automatons don't come across as particularly threatening. (For one thing, they move quite slowly.) The storytelling and the filmmaking are very much to the point - "The Earth Dies Screaming" has no filler and clocks in at barely over an hour long. Some of its tension comes from the fact that one of the humans is an antsy, selfish twit well played by Dennis Price.
The whole cast is good. Parker is an efficient, no-nonsense hero, the kind of guy whom you'd be inclined to follow in crisis situations such as this. Virginia Field, Thorley Walters, Vanda Godsell, David Spenser, and Anna Palk all have appeal as the various people whom he encounters. Poor Walters is kind of a tragic character, when you realize that he has to lose somebody he loves more than once.
Incidentally, the title is not that accurate but, as people have pointed out, "The Earth Dies Screaming" does sound better than "The Earth Dies Sleeping".
Seven out of 10.
Canadian born writer Harry Spalding ("The Watcher in the Woods", "Chosen Survivors") concocted this minor, yet diverting little movie. Film director Terence Fisher, known primarily for his work with the famed Hammer Studios, derives an enjoyable amount of tension from the set-up, even though the automatons don't come across as particularly threatening. (For one thing, they move quite slowly.) The storytelling and the filmmaking are very much to the point - "The Earth Dies Screaming" has no filler and clocks in at barely over an hour long. Some of its tension comes from the fact that one of the humans is an antsy, selfish twit well played by Dennis Price.
The whole cast is good. Parker is an efficient, no-nonsense hero, the kind of guy whom you'd be inclined to follow in crisis situations such as this. Virginia Field, Thorley Walters, Vanda Godsell, David Spenser, and Anna Palk all have appeal as the various people whom he encounters. Poor Walters is kind of a tragic character, when you realize that he has to lose somebody he loves more than once.
Incidentally, the title is not that accurate but, as people have pointed out, "The Earth Dies Screaming" does sound better than "The Earth Dies Sleeping".
Seven out of 10.