The Day Time Ended - 1979

This movie is awesome.  Do you ever wanna have one of those bad movie parties?  Cause I want to have these things all the time.  The Day Time Ended is a huge, fun, epic, so bad it's good, so weird it's good, so WTF it's WTFF?!  That's What The Fucking Fuck, btw.  This is probably the perfect film to play at this bad movie party.  It does have a following of its own, as well.

It starts innocently enough.  There is a family living out in the middle of the desert (?)  It's two old parents, their 30's daughter and teenager son, and then their grand daughter Jenny.  I have to break here and say that wherever they filmed, whatever house this is, is just incredibly awesome.  The architecture is minimalist yet very futuristic, it's easy, it flows well with the surrounding area, it's a great little house.  I would love to know more about it.  It's a truly amazing setting.

Grand daughter Jenny is the first to notice a weird green light that is coming from a strange, pyramid shaped thing that randomly appears behind the barn.  When she goes to tell her parents, it disappears - or actually, shrinks really small, as she later finds, and she pockets it.  Then all sorts of weird things start to happen in the house.  Green lights are coming out of nowhere, a broken mirror fixes itself, and all the while Jenny is the only one that knows why.

This movie gets really weird really fast at this point.  Turns out there seem to be dueling alien forces coming to the Earth, and this house in the desert just so happens to be their battleground.  The green light comes from the good aliens, who we see soon enough as little claymation dudes that look like the guys from Laserblast.  And the other aliens, oh man.

First taking the form of a strange, floating gun type thing, the other aliens soon make their appearance.  The floating gun is a really cool part of this movie, as it is a truly great moment, it's done amazingly well and for just a prop, it really kicks ass.  This thing is a fucking unstoppable, terrifying weapon.  The family tries shooting it, blocking it with doors, throwing things at it, it sort of just freezes the bullet, cuts through the door, disintgrates the thrown objects, it is truly badass.

Then both aliens take the form of huge hulking monsters.  The claymation monsters start to fight in the middle of the backyard of this family's home!  It's awesome, and the family is freaked the fuck out understandably.  The family still does not know one of them is good (the one without the long face) and they stab a pitchfork into its head!  Pretty soon though the monsters disappear and we're back to weird lights in the sky, bizarre color storms, and strange goings on...

It's great.  It's like Terror, there is always something neat happening.  The end is a bit of a "what...?" moment, at first, and it's truly unexpected.  I think if this movie was made nowadays it would be a hit instant cult classic.  It's got everything you want, weird cool effects, good acting, a strange but understandable storyline, and bizarre, lovable cheesiness.  I highly recommend this film, for an intro piece as well.  If you wanna see bad movies and don't know where to start, here is a good place.

Directed by John "Bud" Cardos who also directed MST3K hit Outlaw of Gor, and this does look similar to that.  Both set in deserts, both surprising in how high budget they look.  Did he just know how to stretch a dollar, or did people actually pay to see this shit?  Who knows.  Another thing is that its a bit "controversial" about this film's rating.  It's funny, back when these movies were being made they didn't necessarily care as much it seems.  Nowadays this movie would either go for the hard R with nudity and probably drug use, or it would go for the G PG with kiddy themes and stupid crap like that.  This movie is G, G in the idea that it has no nudity, swearing, blood, anything like that.  But I would not let a kid see this.  Its too fucking weird!  And its a bit freaky, scary even.  The floating gun actually kinda freaked me out.  It's ominous, its like Mike Myers from Halloween, it seems like it can do anything, and like it just wants to kill you.

I personally think its just fine the way it is.  I would not change one thing about this movie.  5 stars, A+, go see it now