Pretty Good

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

That Christopher Lee wanted to put Hammer Films behind him after two decades of solid service is perhaps understandable given that, as he is reported to have claimed, the quality of parts being offered to him within that stable had steadily deteriorated over the last few years. However, considering that what awaited him outside its boundaries was generally more of the same – only cheaper still and mostly downright exploitative – the choice may not have been a wise one! As it happened, the famed British company was actually on its last legs and, indeed, their last horror outing (before the recent, rather low-key revival) would prove to be the maligned TO THE DEVIL…A DAUGHTER (1976), co-starring Lee in the role of an evil priest.That alone should have spelled disaster for the movie under review as Lee was again called upon to don the habit – in the promising first scene of technological mayhem in a small-town café – not to mention play a dual role, to no evident benefit, this time as the leader of a small alien community (his cohorts, hiding with him inside the safety of a convent, under the guise of nuns!) bent on destroying Earth before its 'excesses' throw the entire Universe in chaos!! That is basically it for this truly lame sci-fi effort – seldom has the impending apocalypse been depicted so dully, uneventfully and unimaginatively! To add insult to injury, the producers managed to recruit a serviceable cast – Sue Lyon (far removed from her signature role in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA {1962}) and old-timers Dean Jagger, Lew Ayres and Macdonald Carey – but then forgot to give them anything at all worthwhile to do. For instance, the leading lady simply tags along (throwing an occasional, and most unconvincing, hysterical fit) with hero Kirk Scott – whose help is somehow sought by the enemy in getting back home (is that not a tired concept, one which I have always found ludicrous to begin with!) – on his mission to thwart Lee's plans, but she could just as well have stayed home for all the good she does him or his cause! The script, too, does not even attempt to explain itself: coded messages from outer space precede natural disasters occurring here on Earth (are they meant as fair warning before complete annihilation, or just a gratuitous display of the latest – albeit by-now cumbersome – computer machinery?); Lee is confronted with the callous murder of seven innocent people to achieve his aims, and he can only (straight-facedly, mind you) reason thus: "We had no choice – there was a malfunction in the negative velocity!" … come again?! However, what really sinks this is the climax: the protagonists not only never bother to alert the proper authorities about the imminent threat to our planet – but they even turn traitors and, by escaping through a convenient time-warp, join their opponents' ranks (truly a case of "if you cannot beat them…")!

The Earth is destined to be no more thanks to Father Pergado and a bunch of Nuns. Christopher Lee (who has since said that he was duped in to appearing in this by his producers who told him loads of great actors were involved) is Father Pergado and gets to do his usual serious and scary routine. The cast are not too bad, though most have now retired from acting. The film has terrible sound effects (mainly created from pressing keys on an old computer it seems) and it ridiculously pondering at times - showing a scene of the sky, for instance, for what feels like hours at a time. Despite this the story is pretty humorous in a world-is-doomed sort of way and the production is adequate. Interestingly one scene features Albert Band and wife Jackie; Meda Band; Writer Frank Ray Perilli and Charles Band's assistant Bennah Burton. Despite its plodding nature I genuinely wanted to see how it all worked out and thus quite liked it.

I love B science fiction/Horror movies & Christopher Lee is a legend but this was so bad it was actually funny! Acting is bad, soundtrack is bad, extra's bad, sound effects bad, special effects bad & it's very boring! Especially for 1977. Check it out if you want to waste almost 2 hours of your life or just for laughs if you are a die hard movie fan etc. On the good side, the TV screens at the end of the movie with every part of the planet going to hell being destroyed by floods, storms, earthquakes etc & viewed on these screens looked pretty eerie and I thought this was a nice idea for shock value for this scene & freaked me out as a kid visually but it was filmed poorly. Also the movie poster is a creative Idea. I can understand why Christopher Lee did not like being in this movie. I think they can redo this movie as a remake better this time around in this era of movie's in our lifetime. I would like to remake this and maybe use Christopher Lee again! God bless him he is still alive!

I saw this movie in the theater when I was a kid and always remember it as my first experience with getting ripped off by a horrible movie with a good commercial. The commercial was great, but it I found out later that it had every explosion or 'special effect' in the entire movie (about 4) and even some that weren't in the movie. There was some sort of plot relating to the aliens but the aliens were never actually shown in the movie as far as I remember. It was clearly a case of someone making a buck off a cheap movie designed to scam people. I guess my world of innocence ended that day, when I found out there were bad people out there who make bad bad movies.