CINE POST-APOCALYPSE: 10 LESSER KNOWN END OF THE WORLD MOVIES

As a film reviewer, I have to be open to all kinds of genre's. But one of my favourite sub genres of film has to be the Post Apocalypse genre. There are various kinds of films in this category from Zombie Apocalypse, post nuclear holocaust, viral apocalypse and economic collapse to name but a few so I’ve devised a list of my 10 favourite films in this category. Click read more to find out my favourites. These films may be lesser known by regular film watchers, well with the exception of one on the list. Please check them out after the jump. 

THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (1964)

The Last Man On Earth is the first screen adaptation of Richard Matheson's classic novel I Am Legend that was followed by The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston in 1971 and I Am Legend in 2007 starring Will Smith but this 1964 effort from Italian director Ubaldo Ragona and an uncredited Sidney Salkow (Twice Told Tales) is the closest to the source novel and the best adaptation. This could be due to a screenplay written by Matheson himself under the pseudonym Logan Swanson. The film stars horror veteran Vincent Price as Robert Morgan (originally Robert Neville in the book and second and third filmed versions), the lone survivor of a plague that has killed 90% of the population and turned the remaining 10% into Vampire Zombies. Morgan spends his days hunting down the sleeping Zompires and disposing of them with stakes to the chest and by night has to live with the Zompires who constantly attack his home in an effort to kill him. The film is very well made and has some scenes of eerie isolation as Morgan drives through a deserted city searching for the zompires. Once he's killed them, he dumps their bodies into a giant burning pit of bodies. Vincent Price, a top actor in anyone's book, is very good as Robert Morgan, he gives a heart felt performance as the sole survivor who longs for his wife and the world he once knew, I think it's my favourite Price performance. It's also noted that this film is closer to the ending of the book than the other two films. I highly recommend this film.

PANIC IN YEAR ZERO (1962)

The first time I saw Panic In Year Zero it blew me away, in fact it's the B side of the same disc that has Last Man On Earth on. Why did it blow me away? Well, we have to remember that this was made in 1962 while the Cold War was in full swing and the threat of Nuclear annihilation was a very real threat, so when this film comes along, made for a small budget by AIP and directed by it's star, Ray Milland, and shows not only the effects of Nuclear war but the breakdown of society in the hours after the initial attack, you actually realise that this film was way ahead of it time. We had chaos on the roads, teen gangs roaming the highways attacking and robbing people, small towns putting up roadblocks to prevent marauders ransacking their homes and the imprisonment of females for the men to 'help themselves to', this is an incredibly bleak film for the era, but the bleakness is sort uplifted by the jazz rock soundtrack that sits very uneasy with in the themes and visuals that the film is trying to convey, this is it's only downfall. At the head of the family is Ray Milland, a staunch man who throughout the film is trying to make his family see that he's doing everything he can to help their survival, The utterly brilliant Jean Hagen (Lina Lamont in Singing In The Rain) is Milland's wife and seems to be more worried about her mother than the rest of her family and then there’s Frankie Avalon as the Son who becomes a man during the course of the film. AIP made a lot of these low-budget 'holocaust movies' that included The Day The World Ended but for once this atomic horror film doesn't include a man in a monster suit but shows that the monster is actually humanity when everything goes to shit. Panic In Year Zero is an incredible film from 1962 and would make a great double feature with the exceptionally dark 1951 Arch Obler film Five.

TESTAMENT (1983)

Originally shot as TV movie, Testament impressed Paramount execs so much that they decided to release the film into cinemas. The film presents a 'what if' scenario, What if the U.S was involved In an all out nuclear war and what would happen in the aftermath. The film doesn't have marauding gangs of bikers, looters, rapists or mutants but does have a bleak look at what happens to one family in the days/weeks following the devastating attack. It presents everything in a powerful, realistic manner that looks at the effects of fall out, from the first few days where everyone is walking around dazed and confused to the radiation sickness that finally attaches it's self to these innocent people. There are some harrowing moments that make you think about what you would do in a situation like this such as a scene where Kevin Costner's character is walking along a pavement carrying a wooden draw after the death of his baby who has died of radiation poisoning to the main character played by Jane Alexander, buying her kids one by one. It's a truly upsetting film that doesn't let up, doesn't have a happy ending and generally leaves you cold for days as the film doesn't leave your mind. At the centre of the film is an incredible performance from Jane Alexander who was nominated for best actress at the 1984 Oscars but lost out to Shirley McClaine for Terms Of Endearment. Out of three TV movies made in the early 80s that deals with the aftermath of a nuclear war, being Threads and The Day After, this is the better of the three. Unfortunately Testament is out of print at the moment but if you do come across this film, get it, it's absolutely brilliant.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968)

The Original zombie apocalypse film, the granddaddy of the genre, George A.Romero's classic film Night Of The Dead is not only I very highly regarded apocalypse film but is also one of the most influential horror films of all time. It follows a group of people holed up in a farmhouse as the dead return to life and start eating the flesh of the living. It's a siege movie, a horror movie and political allegory all rolled into one. Shot for a very small budget by Romero and co-written by John A.Russo (Flesheater/Midnight), NOTLD proved you don't have to have huge piles of money and a studio to make an effective horror film. Shot in black and white on 35 millimetre film stock, the film was the first film to depict violent grizzly murder on screen and paved way for horror cinema as we know it today. Many films were influenced by this film, John Carpenter said that his film, Assault On Precinct 13 was mash-up of this and Rio Bravo, 28 Days Later owes a debt and even South Park references this film. Romero would go on to make 5 more zombie film including the best zombie film ever made, Dawn OF The Dead. As for the themes that run through the film, the theme's of racism, they didn't exist while writing the script and filming it, over the years people have noticed and commented on it black man/white woman relationship as being pretty bloody evident but Romero has stated many times that there was no intended look at racism and that Duane Jones was only cast as Ben because he was the best actor. If you haven't seen it then check it out ASAP.

THE POSTMAN (1997)

OK, now let me just get this out there, I am a big fan of The Postman, I know it's widely regarded as a rubbish film, a vanity project for Kevin Costner, but nobody can deny that it's wonderfully shot and epic in it scope, it's an ambitious film based on a book that people outside of the sci-fi genre may never have heard of. The film follows a wanderer in post WW3 America in 2013, who is captured by an army led by the evil General Bethlehem, he's forced to join the army but escapes, finding shelter in an old postal van where he finds the decayed body of an old postman and a bag full of letters. He decides to don the uniform of the dead post man in an effort to find shelter and food but unwittingly finds that his Survival con had also brought a sense of hope to the small pockets of civilization left. He starts to get followers who start up a new postal service under the nose of Bethlehem who is not pleased, the new postal service becomes more of an army as the film continues and almost erupts into a full blown civil war towards the end. I absolutely love The Postman but a lot of people regard it at trash. Now I can't say that I've actually read the book by David Brinn, so I am unable to say whether the film sticks to the source material but as an epic post apocalyptic action adventure, for me The Postman is one of the best and would make a great double bill with Costner's other PA movie, Waterworld which I am leaving out of this list (even though it's still a pretty good film).

THE QUIET EARTH (1985)

The Quiet Earth was a film I accidentally happened to come across, it was available on a budget release DVD with a rather bland cover but after reading about it in a film guide and that the review gave it three stars out of 5, I thought hey lets give it a go and it blew my mind. The film follows a scientist named Zac Hobson who wakes up one morning to find he's the only man on earth, it turns out that a government project that he was working on may be responsible for the disappearance of the worlds population. In the following days, Zac loses his mind and becomes insane due to the loneliness to a point where he addresses a garden full of cardboard cut outs, from a balcony and proclaims that he is god. Zac eventually becomes content with this loneliness when he comes across a female survivor named Joanna and the two start a relationship, that is until the arrival of hulking Maori Api arrives on the scene and a love triangle forms. Watching The Quiet Earth, you see how influential this film is on modern science fiction/horror. You take a film like 28 Days Later, when the character Jim wakes up naked on a hospital bed, it's almost directly taken from this film. The film's main star, Bruno Lawrence who also co-wrote the film give a magnificent performance in the role of Zac and for a film with only three people he's ably supported by Alison Routledge as Joanna and Pete Smith as Api and the film contains some genuinely bleak photography juxtaposed with some genuinely beautiful photography especially the final shot. It's not a film for the casual viewer as this is at points almost hard sci-fi and not the kind of film you'd find the general public going out of their way to see. For me, a connoisseur of forgotten genre films, this was the find of the year and I’ve seen it at least 10 times now and every time it still blows me away. It's hugely underrated and I hope this mini review will persuade you to check this fantastic film out.

THE STAND (1994)

The Stand is not a movie but a 6hr mini series based to Stephen King's epic novel about a plague that eradicates a large percentage of the worlds population, the remaining survivors take sides in a war between good led by the elderly mother Abigail and the bad, led by the evil Randall Flag. The mini series was directed by Mick Garris and adapted for the screen by King himself. The U.S military has developed a bacteria that has accidentally been released inside a government facility, killing everyone inside, a guard for the housing compound on the surface is told to lock the gates but gets his family flees the scene,carrying the bacteria. He makes his way to a small town gas station where we meet Stu Redmond played brilliantly by Gary Sinise, and his friends. The intercept the fleeing car when it crashes into the petrol pumps at the gas station. Everyone except Stu gets infected and as the virus spreads across the globe, a handful of people immune to it start having visions of either a good or bad person. The people who have visions of mother Abigail include a deaf mute, a man child, a kind young woman named Fran, an old man and his dog and a musician named Larry who all eventually meet and discover the reason why the survived, to make a last ditch stand against the Evil Randall Flagg who has taken over Las Vegas and rules over the scum that he calls his followers. The Stand is very very ambitious for a TV production and the first half centres mainly on the world succumbing to the virus, the military taking over and nobody being told what is going on where as the second half is more about a journey taken to destroy evil and save mankind. There are some very bleak parts to it such as seeing a convoy of military vehicles making their way into small towns carrying armed soldiers kitted out in gas masks and the military trying to contain the virus as the media which in one scene featuring a cameo from Kathy Bates as radio DJ shows the extent the military will go to silence the media. For a TV production it's huge, bigger than most but unfortunately it does look quite dated especially when you consider the recent post apocalyptic TV shows coming from the U.S such as Falling Skies, Jericho and the brilliant Walking Dead, but for a mini series to have the scope to pull this off, you need have some respect. I absolutely love it and I’ve seen it countless times and if you feel you want to see it, seek it out, you wont be disappointed.

DOOMSDAY (2008)

What do you get if you mix 28 Days Later, Escape From New York, Mad Max and Medieval movies?....DOOMSDAY, the most ambitious film to date from writer/director Neil Marshall, a film that's brimming with Post-apocalyptic awesomeness even if it is all a little bit silly. 30 years previously a virus broke out in Scotland and the government decided to rebuild Hadrian's wall to keep the infected out of the rest of the U.K. Now the virus has resurfaced in London and scientists have discovered life signs in Scotland after believing that everyone was dead. The film follows a group of soldiers led by Rhona Mitra's robo eyed badass, a cross between Snake Plisskin and Ellen Ripley as they re-enter the Scotland to search for survivors and to find a cure, but what awaits them beyond the wall is chaos incarnate as they come face to face with marauding cannibal apocapunks and a group who have devolved back to medieval ways. The best thing about Doomsday is that director Marshall has thrown everything including the kitchen sink into the film. We get Aliens like commando units sent in in these huge armoured vehicles armed with assault rifles, we get scary cannibalistic punks who drive Mad Max Style cars and motorbikes, a decaying, overgrown Glasgow, Malcolm McDowell being awesome, an underground storage facility straight of Romero's Day Of The Dead, brilliant Neil Marshall dialogue and some pretty spot on action sequences but even though all those elements are cool, the film does seem at times like a bit of a mess but, and there is a but, Doomsday is a whole lot of violent action Fun. It uses the post-apocalyptic setting well and there's a nifty finale that have great car chase in it. It's a beer movie plain and simple and one of the most enjoyable slices of apocalyptic action since the 1980s.

STAKE LAND (2011)

Stake Land took everyone by surprise when it came out, It could have been just another low-budget post-apocalyptic action film but it turned out to be a well made, well plotted and visually brilliant post-apocalyptic horror film with a dramatic centre and a look at religious fundamentalism in lawless world. The film was directed and co-written by Jim Mickle who previously directed the NY based horror film Mulberry Street starring Stake Land actor Nick Damici who was also the co-writer of both this and their previous film which was retitled as Zombie Virus On Mulberry Street here in the U.K upon it's DVD release even though there are no zombies in it. This time around the setting is a not too distant future where a vampire virus has wiped out most of man kind and left the United States in ruin. The film follows a young man who after his parents are savagely attacked and killed, is saved by a man known only as Mister. Mister is a wandering Vamp Slayer, not of the buffy kind but of the Blade kind, sort of a mash up of Blade and Mad Max, they wander the land trying to survive as Mister teaches the kid how to kill vamps. On their Journey the save a nun from being raped and murdered by duo of waster scum-bags and the three find themselves taken in by a religious group who use Vampires to attack the survivors who won't join their cult. The film is beautifully shot and it mad me think about Costner's The Postman, obviously there are no Vamps in that film but the look and style brought that film to mind. It's also brilliantly acted especially by Nick Damici who plays Mister, a world weary vamp slayer who needs to pass his trade on. There's also great support from Connor Paolo as the kid, Dannielle Harris (Hatchet 2/Last Boy Scout) gives good as a pregnant girl they rescue and oddly enough Kelly McGillis off of Top Gun plays the rescued nun. It's a fantastic film that should be held up with apocalyptic films such as The Road and Book OF Eli. Highly recommended.

STEEL DAWN (1987)

A minor if almost forgotten Patrick Swayze film, Steel Dawn is what you get when you cross Mad Max style surroundings, Spaghetti western plotting and 80s martial arts movies. Swayze stars as Nomad a former master guard of a post holocaust government, After the collapse of said Government, Nomad wanders the waste land, a drifter, a....well nomad. He comes across a farm run by Kasha, played by Swayze's real life wife Lise Niemi who lives with her son Jux and their foreman, the hulking Tark played by the legend Brion James. Kasha's farm is constantly attacked by local land Baron and wasteland gangster Damnil (Anthony Zerbe). Nomad teams up with Tark to become the 'peacekeepers' of the local town, Meridian and aim to stop Damnil. The film was directed by Lance Hool who had previously helmed the Chuck Norris action film Missing In Action 2 and he brings his action chops to this film. It's a well made film with a terrific final battle between Nomad and an assassin named Sho and the wind rider bikes are pretty cool but the best thing about the film is that for this type of action film, it's more slow burn that wham bang, Swayze plays Nomad as though it's actually Dalton from Road House now wandering the deserted land that was once the United States. There are sand mutants, samurai masters, underground reservoirs, desert landscapes, a wandering dog and so many other elements that makes this film all the more awesome. It would be cool if more people knew about this film as it's another great film on the list of a great actor who is no longer with us. I highly recommend this if you can find it.  

There are alot of post-apocalyptic films that i've not mentioned such as Damnation Ally, the obvious Mad Max trilogy, Cherry 2000, Solar Babies and Book Of Eli just to name a few but this list is a look at some maybe lesser known films with the exclusion of Doomsday and Night OF The Living dead. Hope you enjoyed the list....