Post-Apocalypse Movies

[GNC]

I think the post-apocalypse movie genre is going to make a comeback with the economic crisis really hitting the public in the coming years, trust me, it'll be like the eighties again.

So what do you think are the best post-apocalyptic films?

 

[James_H]

I dunno, but I once went to a screening of Mad Max II where some guy (probably famous) gave a neat little talk before the film about the difference between 'American' and 'British' style post-apocalyptic fiction. Apparently, in the British style, there is a focus on the details of how society is rebuilt, and in the American style, there's loads of guns. Not true of course (Day of the Dead is very much about society and stuff) but funny.

 

[GNC]

Many a true word spoken in jest, though. I see the British sci-fi action pic Doomsday as the harbinger of the next series of movie apocalypses, so maybe there's been a mix up in styles since. Mad Max 2 was Australian of course, and very influential.

 

[James_H]

Has anyone ever read Riddley Walker? (slightly O/T, as it's a book rather than a film, but whatevs).

 

[Peripart]

So what do you think are the best post-apocalyptic films?

Well, Waterworld and The Postman were both absolutely fantastic... if only I could remember who the genius behind them was, I'd give him a name-check!

Seriously, the original Planet of the Apes must be up there, surely?

 

[Dandelo_]

Threads.

Possibly the most depressing yet accurate portrayal of a nuclear attack on Britain.

Watching it once is enough.

I visited Hack Green Nuclear Bunker in Nantwich a few weeks ago. It was a brilliant day out and I highly recommend it. Really worth the trip if you're into that sort of thing. Each room is kitted out like it would have been when in operation.

Walking into the sick bay was horrific. As was the fallout room.

http://www.hackgreen.co.uk/

 

[river_styx]

Some people might laugh at this but I think the Van Damme movie Cyborg is a pretty good depiction of society feasting upon its own rotten corpse. Considering it started off life as a sequel to Masters of the Universe I think they did pretty well.

Of course the crown belongs to Mad Max II as being the most realistic but my heart will always belong to Romero's Dawn of the Dead.

 

[Timble2]

Has anyone ever read Riddley Walker? (slightly O/T, as it's a book rather than a film, but whatevs).

Yes, I've read quite a bit of Russel Hoban's stuff. I like the mutated language that it's written and you're never entirely sure what happened to get the world to that state.

 

[GNC]

Seriously, the original Planet of the Apes must be up there, surely?

Yeah, definitely, although you could argue that the true apocalypse doesn't happen till the end of the first sequel!

Cheston was quite the man of the seventies to go to for massive disasters (in films)...

 

[onlyadownstat]

Yeah, Cyborg is pretty good, it's one of my guilty pleasures.

I don't think A Boy and his Dog gets enough credit. It's witty and stylish in a low budget way. The story isn't very "epic" - it's quite simple and self-contained but it's told well.

Of course, Mad Max 2 has to be the best post-apocalytic movie. It's just faultless. Good story, great costumes and visuals, high speed chases, explosions and a young Mel Gibson. What's not to love? It's definitely in my top 5 greatest films of all time, sometimes number 1 depending on my mood.

 

[misterwibble]

Loads, especially from the early 70's, such a happy time.
Silent Running, Soylent Green, The Omega Man, The Ultimate Warrior.

More recently we have When The Wind Blows, 28 Days/Weeks Later, Children of Men(based on a PD James novel with a plot ripped off from Brian Aldiss) and The Road is due for release this year.


All happy cheery feel-good stuff.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

... Children of Men(based on a PD James novel with a plot ripped off from Brian Aldiss) ...

Greybeard (1964)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mysciencefictionlife/A16383053

It's one of Michael Moorcock's favourite science fiction novels.

 

[CarlosTheDJ]

Not a movie, but the Playstation 3 game Fallout 3 dumps you into a pretty bleak post-apocalyptic wasteland around what used to be Washington DC.

 

[rynner2]

Quiet Earth

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089869/plotsummary

"A man wakes up to find himself literally alone in the world, and goes about trying to find other survivors, as well as to find out what happened. He suspects that a government research project he was involved in had something to do with the disappearance of everyone. Eventually he finds several other people, and once they begin to trust each other they try to figure out why they were left on earth."

 

[Timble2]

There's The Bedsitting Room based on a play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus, which is a very British apocalypse, absurdist, surreal with a streak of whimsy.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX3ltFkrngY

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

I have to admit, 'Mad Max II', did blow me away, the first time I saw it, in the cinema.

But, nobody's mentioned, Damnation Alley (1977), yet!

What a classic!

 

[river_styx]

Flesh eating cockroaches and Hannibal Smith and Stringfellow Hawk driving around in an armoured truck. What's not to love about Damnation Alley?

Other favourites include Night of the Comet and Day of the Triffids. I do seem to be drawn to films which mention what time of day the events happen.

 

[James_H]

Does anyone have any clues as to why the Apocalyptic/Post-apocalyptic genre is so popular? It's something I find really fascinating - ever since the book of Daniel, people have been into depictions of the end of the world, but why? Is there some kind of religious need which needs to be fulfilled by thinking that the world's always teetering on the edge of collapse?

 

[river_styx]

I guess it's the human condition to imagine what might be. We're always chasing the what if, why, how, when and where of things. Plus we're pretty much obsessed with our mortality, which, for a mostly social animal like we are is always going to take into account the group collective.

 

[ramonmercado]

I don't think A Boy and his Dog gets enough credit. It's witty and stylish in a low budget way. The story isn't very "epic" - it's quite simple and self-contained but it's told well.

Maybe it was spun out too much. It was based on a novella by Harlan Ellison which is excellent. Outer Limits might have been the right length for A Boy and his Dog remake with a suitable budget.

 

[GNC]

There's The Bedsitting Room based on a play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus, which is a very British apocalypse, absurdist, surreal with a streak of whimsy.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX3ltFkrngY

Out on DVD soon, too, so you don't have to watch it in YouTube squash-o-vision. I saw it on late night TV about a million years ago and was suitably intrigued. Very strange, though. Liked the BBC in it.

 

[GNC]

I don't think A Boy and his Dog gets enough credit. It's witty and stylish in a low budget way. The story isn't very "epic" - it's quite simple and self-contained but it's told well.

Maybe it was spun out too much. It was based on a novella by Harlan Ellison which is excellent. Outer Limits might have been the right length for A Boy and his Dog remake with a suitable budget.

Ellison was very pleased with the adaptation and I can understand that, especially when you consider Disney wanted to make it with a literally talking dog. You can see why it's a cult movie and not considered an all time classic, but I like what they did with it. Jason Robards is great, too.

 

[stu neville]

There's The Bedsitting Room based on a play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus,

... I saw it on late night TV about a million years ago and was suitably intrigued. Very strange, though. Liked the BBC in it.

OT, but if you liked that, have you ever seen One Way Pendulum? Eric Sykes building a replica courtroom in his lounge to re-enact trials, and Jonathon Miller teaching I-Speak-Your-Weight Machines to sing chorally. Bizarre and fascinating and funny.

Back on topic, I did rather like both Omega Man and I Am Legend.

 

[GNC]

There's The Bedsitting Room based on a play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus,

... I saw it on late night TV about a million years ago and was suitably intrigued. Very strange, though. Liked the BBC in it.

OT, but if you liked that, have you ever seen One Way Pendulum? Eric Sykes building a replica courtroom in his lounge to re-enact trials, and Jonathon Miller teaching I-Speak-Your-Weight Machines to sing chorally. Bizarre and fascinating and funny.

No, I haven't, sounds like my kind of thing though.

Back on topic, I did rather like both Omega Man and I Am Legend.

Don't forget Vincent Price in The Last Man on Earth!

 

[misterwibble]

Not a movie, but the Playstation 3 game Fallout 3 dumps you into a pretty bleak post-apocalyptic wasteland around what used to be Washington DC.

That game is fun. I drove home from work listening to Obama's inauguration speech, watched it on the news then spent the evening lurking around the Mall of America which is war zone in the game with three factions all desperately trying to kill each other. Marvellous fun.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Not a movie, but the Playstation 3 game Fallout 3 dumps you into a pretty bleak post-apocalyptic wasteland around what used to be Washington DC.

That game is fun. I drove home from work listening to Obama's inauguration speech, watched it on the news then spent the evening lurking around the Mall of America which is war zone in the game with three factions all desperately trying to kill each other. Marvellous fun.

Charlie Brooker, sort of raved about the game, for a while. His columns in the Guardian seemed to sink into the Slough of Despond, whilst he was playing it, though.

My son wants a copy.


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Has anyone seen the early, British, offering to the Post-Apocalypse movie genre, 'No Blade of Grass' (1970)? A British movie, directed by Cornel Wilde.

Based on the 1956, novel of the same name, by John Christopher and very much in the cosy, middle class, British, End Of the World, mould.

An early eco-disaster story, about how one small group, from Southern England, attempt to reach sanctuary on a potato farm, up North, after all the World's grass strains start to die out, due to a virus infection.

Interesting, both shocking, in a late Sixties - early Seventies, sex'n'violence, sort of way and yet very traditional, 'stiff upper lip', at the same time.


--- --- --- --- ---


I've just discovered a website devoted to 'End of the World' cultural product!

http://www.empty-world.com/index.html

Any of that jog your memory, or rings any bells?

 

[Peripart]

Has anyone seen the early, British, offering to the Post-Apocalypse movie genre, 'No Blade of Grass' (1970)? A British movie, directed by Cornel Wilde.

Based on the 1956, novel of the same name, by John Christopher and very much in the cosy, middle class, British, End Of the World, mould.

An early eco-disaster story, about how one small group, from Southern England, attempt to reach sanctuary on a potato farm, up North, after all the World's grass strains start to die out, due to a virus infection.

Interesting, both shocking, in a late Sixties - early Seventies, sex'n'violence, sort of way and yet very traditional, 'stiff upper lip', at the same time.

When I saw you'd written "the novel of the same name", I was about to pull you up on your daft mistake, until I followed your link! Very strange... I have a copy of the book, but it's called "The Death Of Grass" - not a great difference, but odd that it should have two titles, all the same.

I'll probably get home and find that it's changed names back to "No More Blade Of Grass" - I'm always finding myself switching between alternate realities like that, and it's not half as much fun as it sounds.

 

[Dr_Baltar]

The Death of Grass in UK, No Blade of Grass in US. You're not going mad

 

[Blinko_Glick]

I love PA movies - there's a fascinating romantic yearning to be a survivor, maybe the last person left alive.

Over the past 3 years i've been having dreams with the same PA theme.

I'm sure there's a deep psychological reason for my love of the genre & my dreams, but i'm too scared to delve too deeply.

Personally I think the population will perish due to viral pandemic at some point, and since i get anything that comes around easily, I'll probably be one of the first to go. Not very romantic really, but ironic.

 

[gyrtrash]

I've had a soft-spot for PA tales for as long as I can remember. I remember watching 'Threads' when it first aired on TV with some mates and we all found it very disturbing. I always felt that there seemed to be a constant vague threat of imminent nuclear annihilation when I was growing up in the early '80s !

I read 'The Death of Grass' when I was 12 and loved it :?
John Christopher's 'Tripods' trilogy was another PA favourite of mine back then too... I recently ordered the two series that the BBC made of the books, as a bit of a nostalgic treat!