ender34 This modest little film packs a pretty good punch for anyone willing to take it for what it is. The story was well paced and the ending was unexpected (by me and I think by most posters). The performances were all at least adequate; Bobby Edner's was better than that. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of most of the reviews posted here. Half the reviewers couldn't spell Kinski's name even while they drooled over her looks. Many complained about the cheesy special effects (or rather 'effect' since there was only one), apparently unaware that the cheesiness was deliberate. Some reviewers seem not to have understood the denouement though it was clearly spelled out. Others seem to have watched the entire film expecting it to be a remake of its namesake and came away shaking their heads at the fact that it wasn't. I give the film a 7 (would be 7+ if there were such a rating) but this review thread as a whole rates a 3 (and that only because of a few posters who actually understood the filmmakers' intentions).

Scars_Remain I haven't seen the original version of "The Day the World Ended," but I hear this is a completely different story and everything. This movie is a pretty average made for TV flick that plays out like a Disney channel original movie, and then there are cuss words thrown in to remind you that what you're watching is actually rated R. It was fairly enjoyable.Some of the acting is OK but most of the performances are pretty bad. The story is alright, and it had an unexpected twist which was a nice surprise, but nothing too special. The effects were great, I really liked the look of the alien. That's pretty much the gist of this one.What we have here is an average Sci-Fi film with not much going for it other than some cool special effects. It's pretty good for a rainy day.

manuel-pestalozzi There are definitely too many references to other movies and story traditions in this flick. It starts like Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (the heroine driving a New Beetle – yech!), it continues with dark humor like a novel by Kafka (heroine with a badly defined mission comes to a strange place and meets a bunch of strangely hostile stereotype comic book characters of uncertain authority), then there's a whiff of Twin Peaks (hints of sexual abuse of minors and general depravity in the backwoods), then in comes E.T. (minor bonds with extraterrestrial), then it turns out that minor's mother was regarded by the populace as a kind of a witch and was treated accordingly. On top of that, there is a clear reference to a 50ies horror B-movie. (Hence the confusing title which has nothing to do with the story told here).The references in themselves are not really bad or a rip-off. However, it would have been more fun, had they tied all that stuff together in a more coherent, rigid and orderly fashion. The pairing of psychology and the supernatural clearly does not work here. I didn't manage to find out what story the movie wants to tell and I suspect its makers could never really make up their mind. This is a pity, as the cast is quite good. I hope Nastassja Kinski still has a long career ahead of her. Not only for her looks, but also because she really is a versatile actress who in my opinion still didn't get her share of good movie parts. Randy Quaid and Bobby Edner are equally convincing in their roles, within the apparent limits of the script. The same goes for the rest of the characters who are parodies or stereotypes.

pundit-1 Why the producers of this film chose to name this with the title they did is a mystery. This is not a post apocalyptic thriller nor is it about the end of the world in any way. A typical low budget low quality thriller about a young boy who comes to believe that he is the offspring of an alien creature that is terrorizing a small town in Nevada. He uncovers suppressed memories of his mother who was killed by the frightened townsfolk. She however turns out to be a rather pretty human female and not anything like the alien creature. Which raises some obvious questions. First how does this pretty human female end up meeting and making love to an alien being in order to produce a rather human looking kid,who has no resemblance at all to the extraterrestrial daddy? Also what is not explained is the real reason why the townsfolk killed the boy's mother. Supposedly the boy's mother like him had some psychic powers but that alone cannot explain why the narrow minded townsfolk went after and killed her. This is not exactly your intelligent cerebrally stimulating movie, but at least the acting of RAndy Quaid and the beautiful Natassia Kinski saves the film from being a total flop.