The Earth Dies Screaming

Last updated

The Earth Dies Screaming
"The Earth Dies Screaming" (1965).jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Terence Fisher
Written by Harry Spalding (as Henry Cross)
Produced by
Starring
Cinematography Arthur Lavis
Edited by Robert Winter
Music by Elisabeth Lutyens
Production
company
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release date
  • 14 October 1964 (1964-10-14)
Running time
62 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom [1]
LanguageEnglish

The Earth Dies Screaming is a 1964 [1] British science-fiction and horror film directed by Terence Fisher, written by Harry Spalding, and starring Willard Parker, Virginia Field, and Dennis Price. [2] [3]

Contents

Plot

Human bodies are scattered around an English village, apparently dead in a sudden cataclysm. A small group of survivors gathers in the local hotel bar, led by an American jet test pilot, Jeff Nolan. Apparently, a mysterious gas attack has killed off most of the Earth's population. Figures in space suits appear in the streets; Vi Courtland thinks they have come to rescue them, but they turn and kill her with their touch. Several of these bulletproof killers stalk the streets.

Heavily pregnant Lorna Brenard and her moody husband, Mel, arrive by car. Mel says they broke into a fallout shelter the previous night to sleep. The group goes to a local Territorial Army drill hall to look for weapons. They arm themselves and struggle for survival against the invaders in what is the first step in an alien invasion.

Vi reanimates as a zombie with white eyes. Quinn Taggart shoots and kills her. Quinn knocks out Jeff and heads north with Peggy Hatton in a sports car. She unsuccessfully tries to run off when he stops for petrol. She then insists he get her a coat, as she's cold, and escapes to a house when he enters a store to find her one. She is trapped in the house pursued by invaders and zombies, and hides in a wardrobe. After the zombie pursuing her abandons the search, Peggy runs outside and is saved by Jeff, who has been looking for her. He runs down a space-suited creature with his Land Rover, revealing it is a robot when it explodes. They go back to the drill hall, where young Lorna Brenard is about to give birth to a daughter. Meanwhile, Ed Otis cannot face the new reality and is drinking anything alcoholic he can find.

Jeff and Mel Brenard use a shortwave radio and triangulation to work out where the aliens are transmitting their control signals to the robots. They locate the transmitter tower and are about to blow it up when robots start to appear. Quinn returns to the drill hall as a zombie, accompanied by two robots. One of the robots approaches Peggy, but when the tower is destroyed, all the robots collapse. Otis shoots Quinn, saving Peggy, Lorna, and the baby. The survivors commandeer a Pan Am Boeing 707 and fly south in search of other survivors.

Production

Harry Spalding said someone said the title "as a joke" and "somehow it kind of stuck", and he always hated the title. [4]

The film was shot in Shepperton Studios in Surrey. Location filming was done at the village of Shere. It was one of several 1960s British horror films to be scored by the avant-garde composer Elisabeth Lutyens, whose father, Edwin Lutyens, designed Manor House Lodge in Shere, a small property that features prominently at several points in the film.[ citation needed ]

Cast

Reviews

Wheeler Winston Dixon wrote about the film's use of silence:

"... it's remarkable to note that in a 62-minute film, the first five to six minutes have conveyed Fisher’s vision of the end of civilization entirely through a dispassionate series of images ... Much of the film, involving the pursuit of the living by the dead, is done entirely through gesture...

— Wheeler Winston Dixon in 2014. [5]

Writing in The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia, academic Peter Dendle cited the film as "an obvious precursor to Night of the Living Dead ." [6]

The Earth Dies Screaming was used in 1983 as the inspiration and title for an Atari 2600 video game released by Fox Video Games, a division of 20th Century Fox. The game is set in space, and involves shooting down satellites and fighter ships. [7]

British band UB40 released the single "The Earth Dies Screaming" (catalogue: Graduate GRAD 10) in 1980, which spent 12 weeks in the UK chart, peaking at number 10. [8]

The first track on Tom Waits' 1992 album Bone Machine is titled "Earth Died Screaming".

Home Media

The film was released on Region 1 DVD on 11 September 2007 and on Region 2 DVD on 29 August 2011.

Related Research Articles

<i>My Boyfriends Back</i> (film) 1993 film

My Boyfriend's Back is a 1993 American zombie horror comedy film directed by Bob Balaban which tells the story of Johnny Dingle, a teenage boy who returns from the dead as a zombie to meet Missy McCloud, the girl he's in love with, for a date. The film received negative reviews.

<i>Bride of Re-Animator</i> 1991 film by Brian Yuzna

Bride of Re-Animator is a 1990 American comedy horror film produced and directed by Brian Yuzna and written by Yuzna, Rick Fry, and Woody Keith. It is a sequel to the 1985 film Re-Animator and the second entry in the Re-Animator film series. Like its predecessor, it is loosely based on the serialized story "Herbert West–Reanimator" (1921-1922) by H. P. Lovecraft. Unlike its predecessor, it was released direct-to-video.

<i>The Plague of the Zombies</i> 1966 British film

The Plague of the Zombies is a 1966 British horror film directed by John Gilling and starring André Morell, John Carson, Jacqueline Pearce, Brook Williams, and Michael Ripper. The film's imagery influenced many later films in the zombie genre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Moseley</span> American actor (born 1951)

William Moseley is an American actor, primarily known for his performances in horror films. His best-known roles include Chop Top in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986), Otis B. Driftwood in Rob Zombie's Firefly trilogy, Luigi Largo in Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008), and The Magician in Alleluia! The Devil's Carnival (2015). He had a recurring role as camp cook Possum on the HBO TV series Carnivàle (2003–05). He has also released records with guitarist Buckethead in the band Cornbugs, as well as featuring on the guitarist's solo work.

<i>Burial Ground</i> (film) 1981 film

Burial Ground is an Italian grindhouse zombie movie directed by Andrea Bianchi. It is one of several films released under the alternative title of Zombie 3.

<i>The Video Dead</i> 1987 film by Robert Falcon Scott

The Video Dead is a 1987 horror film written and directed by Robert Scott and starring Roxanna Augesen. The screenplay concerns a paranormal television that causes zombies from a never-ending film to enter the real world. The film was released direct-to-video and has been re-released several times since then.

<i>The Screaming Skull</i> 1958 American film by Alex Nicol

The Screaming Skull is a 1958 independently made American black-and-white horror film, produced by John Kneubuhl and directed by Alex Nicol, starring John Hudson, Peggy Webber, Russ Conway, Tony Johnson, and Nicol. The Screaming Skull marked Nicol's directorial debut; he decided to try it because he felt that he was not acting in the roles which he wanted. The film was distributed by American International Pictures as a double feature in different markets with either Earth vs. the Spider or Terror from the Year 5000.

<i>The Boneyard</i> 1991 comedy horror film by James Cummins

The Boneyard is a 1991 American direct-to-video horror film directed by James Cummins and starring Ed Nelson, Deborah Rose, Norman Fell, James Eustermann, and Phyllis Diller.

<i>Dead & Buried</i> 1981 film by Gary Sherman

Dead & Buried is a 1981 American horror film directed by Gary Sherman, starring Melody Anderson, Jack Albertson, and James Farentino. It is Albertson's final live-action film role before his death six months after the film's release. The film focuses on a small town wherein a few tourists are murdered, but their corpses begin to reanimate. With a screenplay written by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett, the film was initially banned as a "video nasty" in the U.K. in the early 1980s, but was later acquitted of obscenity charges and removed from the Director of Public Prosecutions' list.

Severed, titled Severed: Forest of the Dead in the United States, is a 2005 Canadian zombie horror film directed by Carl Bessai and set in a remote logging community following an incident where a genetic experiment goes wrong.

<i>The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake</i> 1959 American film

The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake is a 1959 American black-and-white horror film written by Orville H. Hampton and directed by Edward L. Cahn. It was one of a series of films they made in the late 1950s for producer Robert E. Kent on contract for distribution by United Artists. The film stars Eduard Franz, Valerie French, Grant Richards, and Henry Daniell. Set in the present day, it tells the story of a curse placed on the Drake Family by the witch doctor of the Jivaro, a tribe of indigenous people in Ecuador, following a 19th century massacre led by Capt. Wilfred Drake. Since that time, for three generations, all the Drake men have died at age 60, after which they were decapitated, and their heads shrunken by persons unknown.

<i>Nightmare City</i> Film by Umberto Lenzi

Nightmare City is a 1980 Italian-Spanish science-fiction horror film directed by Umberto Lenzi. It stars Hugo Stiglitz as a TV news reporter who witnesses the collapse of order in a city overrun by irradiated blood-drinking ghouls. Victims rise from the dead to join the host, adding to the chaos.

Days of Darkness is a 2007 American horror film written and directed by Jake Kennedy. Survivors of a zombie apocalypse, including a young couple played by Travis Brorsen and Roshelle Pattison, seek shelter in an abandoned military complex while they attempt to figure out what has caused the outbreak.

<i>Doctor Bloods Coffin</i> 1961 British film

Doctor Blood's Coffin is a 1961 British horror film produced by George Fowler, and directed by Sidney J. Furie. It stars Kieron Moore, Hazel Court, and Ian Hunter. The story is that of young biochemist Dr Peter Blood, who returns to his hometown in Cornwall with the belief that he can selectively restore life by transplanting the living hearts of 'undeserving' people into dead people who 'deserve' to live. The film is significant for being one of the first two zombie films to be shot in colour, the other being the obscure 1961 American film The Dead One, and for its early portrayal of zombies as homicidal rotting cadavers. The movie was released in the UK in January 1961 and in the US in April of that year, where it was on a double bill with another British film, The Snake Woman (1961).

<i>Frozen Scream</i> 1980 American horror film by Frank Roach

Frozen Scream is a 1981 American horror film directed by Frank Roach, produced by Renee Harmon, and starring Harmon, Lynne Kocol and Thomas Gowan. Harmon also co-wrote the story with Doug Ferrin. Its plot follows two scientists whose experiments in unlocking the secrets of immortality result instead in the creation of black-robed zombies who must be preserved at very low temperatures to continue functioning.

<i>Zombies of Mora Tau</i> 1957 film by Edward L. Cahn

Zombies of Mora Tau is a 1957 black-and-white zombie horror film directed by Edward L. Cahn and starring Gregg Palmer, Allison Hayes and Autumn Russel. Distributed by Columbia Pictures, it was produced by Sam Katzman. The screenplay was written by George H. Plympton and Bernard Gordon. Zombies of Mora Tau was released on a double bill with another Katzman-produced film, The Man Who Turned to Stone (1957).

<i>Battle of the Damned</i> 2013 American film

Battle of the Damned is a 2013 American science fiction action horror film written, produced and directed by Christopher Hatton. The film stars Dolph Lundgren, Melanie Zanetti, Matt Doran and David Field. Following a deadly viral outbreak, private soldier Max Gatling (Lundgren) leads a handful of survivors and a team of robots in a fight against an army of the dead.

<i>Die-ner (Get It?)</i> 2009 American film

Die-ner is a 2009 American zombie comedy directed and written by Patrick Horvath. It stars Joshua Grote as a serial killer who must contend with his victims as they rise from the dead during a zombie apocalypse. Liesel Kopp and Parker Quinn play a quarreling couple he takes hostage.

<i>Zombie Undead</i> 2010 British film

Zombie Undead is a 2010 British horror film directed by Rhys Davies and starring Ruth King, Kris Tearse, Rod Duncan, Barry Thomas, Sandra Wildbore, and Christopher J. Herbert. It was written by Kris Tearse. After a terrorist attack in Leicester, survivors take cover from zombies.

References

  1. 1 2 "The Earth Dies Screaming (1964)". British Film Institute . Archived from the original on 25 February 2017. Retrieved 20 September 2016.
  2. ↑ John Hamilton, The British Independent Horror Film 1951-70 Hemlock Books 2013 p 129-132
  3. ↑ "EARTH DIES SCREAMING, The". Monthly Film Bulletin. 32 (372). London: 150. 1 January 1965. ProQuest   1305820393.
  4. ↑ Weaver, Tom (19 February 2003). Double Feature Creature Attack: A Monster Merger of Two More Volumes of Classic Interviews. McFarland. p. 333. ISBN   9780786482153.
  5. ↑ Wheeler Winston Dixon, October 31st, 2014, Film International, “Turn It Off!” – Sound and Silence in 1960s British Gothic Cinema, Retrieved 1 November 2014
  6. ↑ Dendle, Peter (2001). The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia. McFarland & Company. p. 63. ISBN   978-0-7864-9288-6.
  7. ↑ "The Earth Dies Screaming". Moby Games. Archived from the original on 6 March 2019. Retrieved 3 March 2019.
  8. ↑ Rice, Tim; Gambaccini, Paul; Rice, Jonathan (1995). British Hit Singles, 10th edition. Enfield: Guinness Publishing. p. 320. ISBN   0-85112-633-2.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.