“The Satan Bug” (1965) has an intriguing concept, the world could possibly end if a germ warfare agent known as the Satan Bug were to be accidentally exposed to an unknowing public. Well, in the desert, there exists a germ warfare lab and it appears that a vial of the Doomsday Drink is missing. Ah…..Espionage is afoot. This is all well and good but I must say that trying to follow all the clandestine activity and all the bodies involved in the nefarious deeds and double crosses (TODAY’S HEADLINES, ANYBODY?) was a bit migraine inducing. What I find very alarming and interesting in this spy potboiler is the scenery in which it takes place. The desert has never looked so inhospitable, arid and beautiful. I found this cool video which was assembled to show the cool Mojave Desert and Palm Springs locations.
Tag Archives: doomsday
COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT – WIDESCREEN TRAILER
This is a riveting tale of a brilliant scientist’s creation of a super computer that can assist with the automation and running of America’s military defense systems. Things go horribly awry when the computer, Colossus, combines “minds” with a Russian super computer equivalent, Guardian. The two machines decide that their superior intellect and control of their respective nations’ defense systems make them perfectly suited to usurp their inferior human creators. The emotionless computer trust then begins to tighten its grip of control over humanity with some indelicate displays of might, namely dropping nukes on some US and Russian sites. Things get worse after that. Lead actor Eric Braeden’s performance as Forbin runs from the gamut from proud, “paternal” figure overseeing Colossus’ early achievements to a grief stricken, broken man unable to control his creation which no longer listens to him or his pleadings to stop the enslavement of humanity by thinking machines. A precursor to the Terminator series, Colossus originated as a speculative fiction book written by DF Jones.
END OF THE WORLD PART 3 – THE DAY AFTER
Tensions between America and the Eastern Bloc escalate into a devastating nuclear exchange. We see the bleak results unleashed on one of our large cities and its populace.
There is an extended sequence in this made for television movie, “The Day After”, detailing a very harrowing nuclear missile attack on Kansas City, USA. It is an interesting collage of actual documentary footage detailing the effects on structures and the landscape by the detonation of atomic weapons, sound effects, and newly created film effects of buildings and bodies vaporizing in the flash heat fires which accompany nuclear blasts. Awful.
END OF THE WORLD PART 2 – THE ROAD
Pretty harrowing moviefare as a man and his son wander a wasteland attempting to survive a post apocalyptic North American landscape. The cause of the cataclysm is never fully divulged. We do know that most plant and animal life has been wiped out and resources such as food and water are in short supply. Based on Cormac McCarthy’s book of the same name.