If you look at it as Oboler's Dreyer film, it's a much more appreciable experience. I love the stark shots of characters' faces against the white sky, and feel the movie as a whole conveys the weight and onerousness of the situation more nearly than other endoftheworld dramas I've seen. And though it plays as maybe too full of its own purpose, the reduction of some of the characters to 'types' feels right, too, as all of civilization is being boiled back down to its archetypes, or starting points. Funny that this same film KILLED every Saturday night it came on when I was a kid, though.