While hardly a household name, writer/director John Hayes certainly had an oddly fascinating career spanning several decades. His first claim to fame was writing the Oscar-nominated short film The Kiss by future TV director Everett Chambers. Throughout the 60s and 70s, Hayes became known for directing various low-budget drive-in exploitation films of varying genres. His movies included titles like The Farmer’s Other Daughter, The Cut-Throats, Garden of the Dead, and Jailbait Babysitter. Around this time, Charles Band started getting into film production and even dabbled in directing movies. His first film was Last Foxtrot in Burbank, followed by Crash!, which Hayes worked on as a sound mixer. Through his connections with producer Irwin Yablans, Band got Hayes to direct a sci-fi film capitalizing on the disaster craze. With a small budget and some fading genre actors, John Hayes’ End of the World hit theaters in August 1977.
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Synopsis
NASA Professor Andrew Boran (Kirk Scott) starts noticing strange radio signals coming from space that carry a foreboding message. Andrew soon learns that the transmissions are coming from Earth, so he and his wife Sylvia (Sue Lyon) investigate. It turns out that the signals are a warning about a series of natural disasters about to hit Earth. During their investigation, Andrew and Sylvia find themselves kidnapped by aliens disguised as a priest and some nuns. The leader Zindar, disguised as Father Pergado (Christopher Lee), explains that Earth has become a hotbed of diseases. They plan on destroying the planet through a series of natural disasters and force Andrew to steal a Variance Crystal. To do this, Andrew must infiltrate the very same lab he works for and betray humanity to save his wife. Will our heroes survive, and will the aliens bring about the end of the world?
Review
Despite his reverence, the late Sir Christopher Lee is no stranger to starring in movies he later came to regret. For example, he apologized to director Joe Dante for starring in The Howling II, the sequel to Dante’s werewolf classic. I mention this because Lee famously called End of the World one of the worst movies he ever starred in. Honestly, having just seen the film, it’s not hard to see why Lee would prefer people not to remember it. Even by 1970s Charles Band standards, this is an absolute mess of half-baked ideas, flat direction, and dull execution. Acting-wise, everyone seems to be either bored or confused as to what exactly is supposed to be happening. Sue Lyon, who was pretty good in Crash!, comes off demure and somewhat bland here. It doesn’t help that Kirk Scott, as her husband, acts as stiff as a board.
That said, even if he did not want to be there, Christopher Lee seems to be at least trying. He is always the consummate professional, and he delivers his lines with eloquence and grace that’s too good for this movie. Unfortunately, Lee disappears for much of the runtime until roughly halfway through despite his prominent billing. The rest of the film is padded out with boring dialogue scenes, endless driving scenes, and many walking scenes. John Hayes’ direction feels flat, not helped by many outdoor scenes being so darkly lit that you can’t see. Every so often, there’s an explosion, but don’t expect the same level of explosiveness as Laserblast. Ultimately, this movie commits the biggest sin in cinema: it’s boring, which is honestly worse than just being terrible. Overall, unless you’re a die-hard Christopher Lee fan, End of the World is best left forgotten.
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