I'm pretty sure I saw this film as a small child, when weekly sci-fi programs had my rapt attention. But admittedly, I was too young to fully grasp the horror on display.
Director Val Guest’s 1961 entry is, from this now-59-year-old’s POV, a *fucking banger* of a film. An almost constant stream of banter, often between newspaper reporters and editors working through their latest stories, as a global nightmare unfolds. In fact, it's a great example of journalism cinema. At once urgent and uncertain, the film lays down an unexpectedly thrilling and engaging foundation for all that follows in just a matter of minutes. And with it, an undercurrent of truly horrific proportions. When the ultimate truth comes to the surface, an editor's office filled with newspapermen stare drop-jawed as a worse-becomes-worst development is announced, and the film attains that level of brilliance that few science-fiction films have.
I'm not fully familiar with Guest's work...I've only seen five of his films (well, 4 1/4 if you count CASINO ROYALE appropriately). But if this one is any indication, I have, perhaps, been missing out.
A masterpiece. Log it, five stars, Letterboxd.
(I viewed the film as part of January's influx of great programs on The Criterion Channel. I highly recommend seeking it out.)
