Yay! Apocalypse movies for Tyson, since he asked... I'm going to randomly add titles to this thread as I get drunker and drunker tonight and repeatedly ignore the mountain of stuff I have to do. But he said nothing campy...hmmm...
First up, since the discussion started in the
I Am Legend thread, we'll do the previous two movies based off of the novel.
Charlton Heston's
The Omega Man:
70's trash from Heston's sci-fi freakout era (
Planet of the Apes also qualifies as apocalypse, of course, and I encourage you to watch the first three movies, if you have not done so --
Planet of, Beneath the Planet of, and Escape From the). The Omega Man basically takes I Am Legend and...changes everything except the guy's name. Heston is a gun-crazy maniac and last man on earth facing down a bunch of plague mutants led by the great Anthony Zerbe. Right down to the blood-soaked Jesus ending, you walk away thinking -- I want to be the Omega Man! Nacho's gin rating: Four stars. THERE ARE NO PHONES RINGING!!!!
The original is Vincent Price in the dreadful
Last Man on Earth, which is somewhat loyal to I Am Legend on a budget of what appears to be 32 cents. Worth watching for the completist, worth ignoring for everyone else. Two stars.
Red Dawn -- WOLVERINES! Cubans invade podunkville in the 1980's. It should be outdated shit, but it's more like tales from modern day Baghdad. Four stars.
Def-Con 4 -- campy 80's garbage. Two stars. It barely makes sense. The script was written by my retarded cousin. I love it!
Night of the Comet -- Recently re-released. This is a must see four star movie. Two dumb valley girls, like, totally survive a comet-related apocalypse. Along the way, they win video games, race cars, and battle Geoffrey Lewis and Mary Woronov. Yikes.
Maximum Overdrive. Stephen King. Trucks take over the world. WE MADE YOU!!! WE MAAAADE YOOOOUUUUU!!! *ratatatatatatata* Four stars, do not miss.
Panic in Year Zero! 1962. It's the atomic freakout movie. Three stars. Black and white, but not trash. More down to earth and real human reaction type shit than you'd see in
The Day After or anything of that ilk. The huge drawback -- the soundtrack is totally fucked up. You've got the brutality of man scored with happy goofball go-go music. Almost destroys what is a stellar movie.
Threads -- If you can find it, you must watch it. The British version of The Day After. There is no fucking hope. We're talking keep you awake at night four stars.
Day of the Triffids -- the 1981 BBC serial is infinitely more superior than the movie...and the book. Great last line: "Amazing what honey will do."
And we've got
28 Days Later, of course,
I assume you're well-versed in the zombie set -- the Dawns Days and Nights.
On The Beach gets two stars, with an almost three stars for the new version. It's a brilliant story -- the original has "Waltzing Matilda" almost constantly sung in the background, changing throughout as the situation worsens into a sad dirge. Quite brilliant. The remake had a bunch of money and used it well -- with a wonderful scene in a post-apocalypse Alaska town. Both movies are really about the relationships our main characters are having during the last six months of the human race. Therefore it's less apocalypse and looooong character study. Depends on the mood.
The much-maligned
Logan's Run has campy cult all over it from start to finish and earns three stars from me. Michael York is a prancing moron, Jennifer Agutter can't ever keep her clothes on, and there's plenty in it that keeps you going. Highlights are, of course, Box ("Fish! Plankton! Proteins from the sea!") and the ruined DC cityscape, having reverted to swampland. "There's nobody here but me.... Me and my cats!!!"
There's the
Mad Max trilogy. All of them perfect in their own way. And another great final line (for the trilogy): "He's nothing but a raggedy-man." Yep, Tina, that's what we thought when the third movie was announced...
They Live. Motherfucking watch this now. A big, fat, grouping of four stars. "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... And I'm all out of bubblegum."
Hell Comes to Frogtown. Oh, okay. Campy, right? Wrong! Rowdy Roddy Piper is the last fertile man on Earth and he must rescue the last surviving fertile women from the mutant frog people and then have sex with them.
Oh, it is campy. Yet it makes every Friday night perfect.
The Postman -- that's right, I hope you're sitting down. I love it. Except for the ending. You want to stop this movie before they flashforward. It's a fucking scar. The movie gets four stars.... And loses two of them because of the last ten minutes!
The book -- a must read.
Twelve Monkeys -- Yeah, I have no idea either. Just enjoy it. Three stars.
We get the new War of the Worlds, which was a fun take on the story and a bit more apocalyptic than the original (the mass hysteria/evacuation/downfall). However, the original 1960 Time Machine is the best of the best. Which three books would you take?
Oh, and you want to
Get this book.<img src="
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A Boy and His Dog. The classics of the classics. Yet I just give it two stars because it's a little thick. But not as thick as
Zardoz, which is where I fell in love with Beethoven. Tits, a native Sean Connery, and total surrealism.
