The Earth Dies Screaming in '60s Horror and Sci-Fi Forum

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The Earth Dies Screaming

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capmonte		#81	[-]
Apr 27 09 5:54 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Alias the Scarecrow wrote: They almost look like a primitive form of Cyberman from Doctor Who, two years early. Funny how we Who fans see Whoish things in everything; I've often thought the same thing. They look they could be cousins to the Hartnell/Tenth Planet Cybes. "The important question is not, are there aliens on other worlds? No. The important question is, do they have ray guns?"
capmonte		#82	[-]
Apr 27 09 5:55 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Buzz Dixon wrote: Alan Ginsberg once observed that "three friends do not make a generation." 3 robot suits do not make an invasion. (Oddly enough, TARGET EARTH stages a much more convincing invasion with only *one* robot suit -- and that ain't sayin' much!). I've been showing my gf classic Doctor Who, since she is a huge fan of the new series, and we've noted quite frequently how 3 Daleks, Cybermen, Zygons, etc. make an army in the good ole'days. "The important question is not, are there aliens on other worlds? No. The important question is, do they have ray guns?"
bipolarber		#83	[-]
Jul 15 09 3:34 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Once again, Netflix to the rescue! I was rather taken with the fact that, despite it's obviously tiny, tiny budget (It IS a Lippert film after all!) they managed to create some pretty taught suspense with the zombies and robots closing in. The scene of Pat hiding in the cupbard while the zombie is slowly searching the house was really quite effective, as was the scene of Vi coming back and slowly decending the shadowy staircase. I have to admit, the "villian" in this film, (the character who always seems to be waving his pistol around, and kidnapping the one non-pregnant woman in the cast who is not dead...) had a great come uppance when he returned to the drill hall as a zombie. This film was made in '65, which puts it a couple of years ahead of Night of the Living Dead, where Johnny pulled the same trick. But yes, the film DOES remind me of an early Doctor Who episode... sort of a cross between Dalek Invasion of Earth, or one of the early cyberman episodes... I really kept expecting the TARDIS to materialize, and Patrick Troughton come bumbling into the scene playing his recorder.... "[The audiance] will populate the darkness with more horrors than all the horror writers in Hollywood could think of. If you make the screen dark enough, the mind's eye will read anything into it you want! We're great ones for the dark patches." -VAL LEWTON
bipolarber		#84	[-]
Jul 15 09 3:35 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	multi-post (removed) Last Edited By: bipolarber Jul 15 09 3:37 PM. Edited 1 times.
bipolarber		#85	[-]
Jul 15 09 3:35 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	multi post. (removed) Last Edited By: bipolarber Jul 15 09 3:37 PM. Edited 1 times.
Buzz Dixon		#86	[-]
Jul 15 09 11:29 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	They really, really tried to stretch their budget, but three robot costumes do not an invasion make. www.SnokieStories.com www.BuzzDixon.com http://twitter.com/snokiestories
bipolarber		#87	[-]
Jul 17 09 1:45 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	True, Buzz. But back then, their only other option would have been locked off camera shots and split screens to multiply the number of suits... or for a night scene, they might have gotten away with a set of photo standees, as they so famously did on Dr Who's "Dalek Invasion of Earth" serial. But even full size standees would have cost a good bit of cash... and the split screens in those days could be really obvious, unless done by someone who really knew what they were doing... "[The audiance] will populate the darkness with more horrors than all the horror writers in Hollywood could think of. If you make the screen dark enough, the mind's eye will read anything into it you want! We're great ones for the dark patches." -VAL LEWTON
Buzz Dixon		#88	[-]
Jul 18 09 1:24 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Oddly enough, TARGET: EARTH makes a far more convincing invasion with far less. Convincing insofar as the story focuses on people trapped behind alien lines after an invasion has started so they are not only hiding and deliberately avoiding contact with the robots, but there would be only a few rearguard units left behind. www.SnokieStories.com www.BuzzDixon.com http://twitter.com/snokiestories
bipolarber		#89	[-]
Jul 20 09 11:50 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Agreed. Compare this to Target Earth, which had only one clanky robot meandering around, and I think the menace of this movie is made far more palpable. So, this makes two movies I know of where we are dealing with an empty city under attack by robots... (I suppose we could stretch the definition and include Dr. Who's Dalek Invasion of Earth... are there any others? How many movies with this sort of plotline do we need, before we can call it a subgenre? "[The audiance] will populate the darkness with more horrors than all the horror writers in Hollywood could think of. If you make the screen dark enough, the mind's eye will read anything into it you want! We're great ones for the dark patches." -VAL LEWTON
Buzz Dixon		#90	[-]
Jul 20 09 1:22 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	As I said, TARGET: EARTH achieves more with less because the invasion is not supposed to be ongoing, it has already happened and the characters we're following are basically trapped behind enemy lines. The paucity of invaders makes them even more mysterious and frightening in context; the streets are virtually empty except for the occasional stray shadow, whereas in EARTH DIES SCREAMING the invaders are everywhere but there are never more than three of 'em in a single shot (and, seriously, didn't anybody think of staging these scenes in such a way as to multiply the apparent number? Roger Corman could've stage the invasion of Normandy with just three soldiers). www.SnokieStories.com www.BuzzDixon.com http://twitter.com/snokiestories
ryanbrennan		#91	[-]
Jul 21 09 12:11 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Yes, there are a lot of cheap, but effective, tricks they could have used. Maybe the shooting schedule precluded having the time to prepare some of these techniques or was too rushed for anyone to think of them. The movie ends rather abruptly, to me, just as it seems to get going. Perhaps there were some production problems.
skelton knaggs		#92	[-]
Jul 9 10 11:28 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Look at all the pretty colors... "You can't smell any reefer, can you"?
Gil Ray		#93	[-]
Jul 10 10 1:51 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Love it. Gil
opticalguy	Just a Thought	#94	[-]
Feb 18 11 11:40 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I was looking at the Monster Movie Music blog (http://monstermoviemusic.blogspot.com) and I ran across an entry for the 1963 British comedy The Mouse on the Moon which is a sequel to the film (as is the book of the same title a sequel) The Mouse That Roared. I noticed the spacesuits worn by the astronauts from the Duchy of Grand Fenwick look suspiciously like the robots from The Earth Dies Screaming. There is a quilted vest and backpack added as well as a robot head but I think this is what they were using for their three-robot invasion force. Bernard Cribbens wearing the The Mouse on the Moon spacesuit and the The Earth Dies Screaming robot/alien invader. More shots of the The Mouse on the Moon spacesuit and the The Earth Dies Screaming robot/alien invader. opticalguy1954@yahoo.com (Spencer Gill)
horrorfilmx		#95	[-]
Feb 19 11 10:22 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	opticalguy wrote: I noticed the spacesuits worn by the astronauts from the Duchy of Grand Fenwick look suspiciously like the robots from The Earth Dies Screaming. The Grand Fenwick space program probably had tight budget and had to rent their space suits from the same costume company.
Alias the Scarecrow		#96	[-]
Sep 19 11 5:33 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	That final picture of the alien lying in the street all crumpled looks so much like one of the Cybermen from THE TENTH PLANET in Doctor Who that it's almost uncanny. I would hazard a guess that when the Cybermen were being designed for this first story, someone on the production team recalled these alien invaders from EARTH. It's too close to be a coincidence.
professor liebstrum		#97	[-]
Oct 13 11 1:23 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Just found out that EDS had a region 2 release in August '11 Russ
professor liebstrum		#98	[-]
Oct 13 11 2:51 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	it's on youtube too.
skull island escapee		#99	[-]
Oct 14 11 3:29 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	As a direct result of reading this thread, I watched the youtube screening, which is available as one long [well, 62 min!] clip. I had known the title of this movie since the 70s, but I never had the opportunity to see it until last night. This is one of the greatest 'downbeat' movie-titles ever, if the events are rather modestly-mounted. Still fairly chilling, eerie and effective, though, with added value in the sights of 60s artefacts, like the cars which I recall from way back when. Well worth a look, I've no regrets. EDIT: I thought the opening shots were striking; we see a real steam train, then a close up to what seems to be model work of the train wheels and pistons.....this is followed by impressive model work [in longshot] of a train about to derail, and THIS is followed with what seems to be a FULL-SCALE train crash, seen from up ahead! [the giveaway it's real size is the authentic-looking steam, which can't be miniaturized, at least not in 1964]. Any buffs out there know if this impressive sequence was created soley for 'DIES SCREAMING', or was it a montage culled from an earlier movie? 'the horror..............THE HORROR!' Cartoon-strip blog here [updated regularly]: http://zoomertoonsrabsmith.blogspot.com/ Last Edited By: skull island escapee Oct 14 11 10:51 AM. Edited 1 times.
professor liebstrum		#100	[-]
Oct 14 11 5:23 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Watched the Youtube tonight. Check it out. I too like 60s films with English location footage, old cars etc. A good solid film on a small budget with some atmospheric scenes, yes, the train wreck is impressive. Russ

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