Bezenby Warning: Spoiler, if 'spoiler' means that warning you that the ending of the film makes no sense spoils anything.This loopy, cheese-ball pile of gumpf involves the Chinese having a Doomsday device (discovered by a girl throwing a cat at a dog for real) and then us cutting to NASA, where a planned tripped to Venus is slightly altered to include three females. Why? No one is told just yet, but our seven astronauts head out into space, guided by Casey bloody Kasem, and shortly afterwards the Earth explodes in a craptastic display of bad effects.Our seven 'heroes' are all shocked and stuff by this, and it becomes evident that the good old US of A had the foresight to have a mixed sex crew head for Venus and restart the human race. Let it slide that Venus has 2000 mph winds and a sulphuric acid atmosphere (they probably didn't know that when the film was made), and marvel instead at the interior of this ship, which is rainbow coloured inside for no reason whatsoever. Also try and ignore that various ships that are meant to present the one ship these people are in (or else you'll have a fit trying to figure it out).Our crew involve three young guys (one a complete mental case), three 'young' women, and an old guy. Turns out that the Earth exploding has put a dampener on their plans to get to Venus as the radiation will render them sterile by the time they get there, so they'll have to lose four crew and a lot of baggage before they get there or else face having duff knackers! Luckily the mental case manages to kill himself and a girl in a botched sexual assault that involves an airlock and hilarious 'floating around' effects.This is where the film suddenly decides the viewer is not worth actually giving a satisfying ending, as two of the crew end up stranded in space, find a Soviet module, and turn into completely different actors doing nothing but pressing buttons for ten minutes while nothing happens. Wait till you get a load of the non-ending! I'm not sure if telling you that the folks on Venus basically tell them to bolt and fire them into space will ruin the film for you or not, so I won't tell.Hilariously, truly bad film so full of cheese it could be a stuffed crust pizza, with some endurance test sequences, awful effects, and general shabbiness. I kind of liked it, in a way.

horrorflicklover I feel like half of this movie wasn't made. You know, the half where stuff actually happens? It's not that I'm against the occasional non-ending. Although I do agree with the sentiment that since the end of The Sopranos, it's been wholly overused, and is a terrible cop out. However, in certain applications, it can be acceptable. At any rate, this movie came out long before then.Doomsday Machine's non-ending fails so badly because it forgot to have anything else! It has a beginning and middle in the sense that in the time-space continuum, it must. But for the majority of the film, almost nothing of any real importance happens. I've seen more happen in a half-hour sitcom than I did in this movie. They announce the threat in about the time it takes you to read this sentence, then nothing, they make sexist jokes, then nothing, they launch them in to space, more nothing, more sexism, one "action" scene, more nothing, then finally the biggest nothing of all: the end. There isn't a single scene in this movie that's worthwhile. They even spend EIGHT minutes of screen time showing two astronauts fixing a computer. And they don't even show what they're doing! No joke, you're practically looking at a still frame for eight minutes. That's how little was going on. Consider the short run time, the already very little that took place, then consider that they included an eight minute scene of LITERALLY nothing to that. This was a final draft? It looks more like half of a rough cut.The one "action" scene in this movie was not only wholly inaccurate, it also wasn't any good. And the fact that they didn't actually attempt to make another scene or two that was at least on that level just proves that this movie is one big NOTHING. Seriously, all it would have taken to get a little more credibility was to have one or two other "dramatic action" sequences take place, and they failed at that. We got one scene that sucked.I'm not even going to complain about the sexism. For one, this movie is clearly camp. Two, I would look at it as more speaking as the attitudes of the time. I can accept that. But regardless of it's campiness, low budget, etc., it doesn't excuse the fact that this movie is 83 minutes of nothing. Sure, no one expected it to be great. But we did expect it to be more than nothing.If it was going to be a movie which could not be taken seriously, it could have at least went to one or two extremes. Either gratuitous mindless action, gratuitous mindless raunchiness, or both. But you get the smallest taste of either. Seriously, if you're the biggest camp fan in the world, you'll still not like this. It barely qualifies as being a movie.

MartinHafer Considering that most of the film was made in 1967 and then sat on a shelf for nearly a decade before it was completed, you certainly can't expect much from "Doomsday Machine". What's worse is that none of the original actors were used in the new footage--making the final product rather incomprehensible.When the Americans realize that the Chinese are about to deploy a doomsday device (thus killing EVERYONE), they quickly scramble to add women to the already scheduled flight to Venus--in the hopes that this crew can continue the human race. No matter that their space suits consists of silver motorcycle helmets AND the actual atmosphere of the planet will both crush them all to death AND it's deadly poisonous AND hotter than the temperature of most ovens! Sounds like the Garden of Eden, huh?! Most of the rest of the film consists of the folks on the ship over-emoting--yelling and trying to get noticed by the camera. It also consisted of the crew of men becoming VERY horny--and fights broke out among the crew over who would have the privilege of inseminating these three space gals. Ultimately, a disembodied voice tells the humans to get lost, as they destroyed the Earth and Venus wants no part of them...and the movie ends! All in all, a very dull movie that is, at times, unintentionally funny--BUT DULL. Not exactly among the worst films made...but close.As far as the special effects go, they were state of the art in 1960. However, by 1976 they were VERY outdated and the film looks downright cheap.By the way, look carefully for tiny roles by Mike Farrell and Casey Kasem.UPDATE: I saw this film AGAIN and so I thought I'd review it again. Here goes:I give "Doomsday Machine" a score of 1 as it's an incredibly dumb mess. A thoroughly bad film, by the end it completely gives up on trying to make any sense at all. I have no idea what the story is behind this film, but the project comes off like 4 or 5 different films all sloppily pieced together. The film begins as an espionage film—with some Chinese folks breaking into a top secret (and easy to break into) government base. They learn by looking at some silly props in a cage that it's some sort of doomsday machine—though how they know this is completely baffling. Next, a US space mission to Venus is quickly altered. No, they haven't called it off because it's impossible to land there due to the planet's crushing and toxic atmosphere (real facts can't get in the way of this film!). It is to substitute a few hot ladies for some of the crew. This is in case the doomsday machine is used, they might be able to send horny men and women into space to continue the species. This isn't a terrible idea for a film. HOWEVER, the execution is so terrible you have to see it for yourself. First, the astronaut outfits and ship look as if they are from a 1950s hokey sci-fi film---even though this movie was completed(?) near the time "Star Wars" debuted. Next, during their trip through space, you randomly see clips from earlier sci-fi films—some of which are Japanese! You also see models of the Earth that look like they came from the 50s as well. As far as the acting goes, it's just bad—and you know that if Bobby Van gets top billing you are in for trouble. But the most awful aspect is the ending. The last 15 minutes or so were obviously tacked on later and is 100% INCOMPREHENSIBLE. They put space helmets on two people who are NOT from the film to hide that they aren't and they pretend to be Van and his new girlfriend—though their voices aren't even close and their space costumes are different!! Then, a disembodied voice gives a long-winded speech and the film abruptly ends!! You just have to see it to understand what a terrible mess it all is—so bad I can't see how this film was ever released anywhere!

madpigmadpig I't's unfortunate that the destruction of earth is the only thing that can get rid of Casey Kasem. Aside from that, why did all the actors in the first few minutes of the film look like low budget 70's porn stars? If only they had killed off the two garbage characters early in the story, or just not had them in the first place, I can see a potentially good movie there. Instead they spent most of the movie on emotional dross, produced largely by the whiny nut case and her would- be rapist. The instant those two died the movie improved immensely; the characters started acting normal, an engrossing plot began to form, and just as it was about to get really interesting one of the ships disappeared and the movie ended!! What kind of filmmaker would do such a thing? It's so cruel; to torture the audience so long, give them the hope of being entertained, and then snatch it viciously from them! How depraved.