While I lay dreaming of you...
September 26, 2008 4:36 PM   Subscribe

The Earth Dies Screaming [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7]

(IMDB listing) As the film opens, people all over Britain are mysteriously collapsing, apparently dead: Trains careen off their rails; cars crash into walls; commuters drop to the ground where they stand.

One blogger's opinion...

Directed by Terence Fisher
Score by Elisabeth Lutyens
UB40
Tom Waits/28 Weeks Later mashup
posted by KokuRyu (20 comments total) 25 users marked this as a favorite
 
I actually just shuddered/jiggled/twitched for a moment after clicking the second link. Thank you so much, this is awesome.
posted by Science! at 4:39 PM on September 26, 2008


The Waits song was on the soundtrack to 12 Monkeys. Here.
posted by boo_radley at 4:47 PM on September 26, 2008


You can buy the movie rather than watch pirate postings on YouTube.
posted by Sidhedevil at 5:50 PM on September 26, 2008 [2 favorites]


You can buy the movie rather than watch pirate postings on YouTube.


Stone Kokuryu!
posted by Atreides at 7:03 PM on September 26, 2008


Wow that was... um, flawed. Not without its redeeming elements to be sure, but man that was an amateurish script.

I'm giving them "we have no budget to actually show anything interesting." I mean I've seen Dr. Who. But no budget doesn't mean you have to write whole scenes that serve no purpose.

Like

"Look, look, I'm pumping gas! Stay in the car! I'm done now!"

or

"Jeff, Jeff, nothing's happening here, when will you be back?"
"I don't know. Over and out."
"Hmm, well that conversation accomplished nothing. It frightens me."

And the bad guys keep just walking right up to kill someone and then inexplicably changing their minds and wandering off. Like, "What are the odds the person I'm chasing is hiding in this closet I'm standing right next to? She has to be here somewhere, and it wouldn't take a second to look. But nah, she's not in there. Wonder if there's any biscuits downstairs."

Good marketing for Land Rover though. Taggart takes the MG - dead. You want to crush alien space robots, you want a Land Rover. Good solid piece of kit there.
posted by Naberius at 7:17 PM on September 26, 2008 [1 favorite]


You can buy the movie rather than watch pirate postings on YouTube

Your righteous indignation has been duly noted. It's perhaps worth mentioning, though, that both the directors of this film are now deceased, and it's highly unlikely that the money you give to 20th Century Fox Home Video will be going to their next of kin, any of the actors appearing in the film, or any of their children. The guy who held the boom mic stand, likewise, will not be receiving any further compensation from the corporate fathers of Fox for his efforts on this particular film. I'd say this is one of those situations where one wouldn't necessarily need to feel too guilty about watching it on YouTube.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:40 PM on September 26, 2008 [5 favorites]


Easy to say now, flapjax, but just you wait until we have to spend $700B to bailout the second-string sci-fi movie industry.
posted by maxwelton at 8:33 PM on September 26, 2008 [1 favorite]


I think one of the most bizarre things about this post is the bit in the YouTube (more info) blurb where the uploader states, "I managed to tape this onto a disc."

Must I mourn those good old days when one would tape things onto tape?
posted by Sys Rq at 8:38 PM on September 26, 2008


Trivia
The Earth Dies Screaming was used in 1983 as the inspiration (and title) for an obscure Atari 2600 video game. The game is set in space, and has you shooting down satellites and fighter ships.


I had that obscure Atari 2600 video game. The player's point of view was from inside a fighter with the earth below. Things just went faster and faster until the alien fighter ships invariably killed you. There was no screaming, I don't think the technology was up to it. The best thing about the game was the name.
posted by longsleeves at 8:48 PM on September 26, 2008


Oh, man, do I love me a good disaster/apocalypse/alien invasion movie. Thanks so much for posting this - I'd never heard of this one before!!!
posted by ninazer0 at 8:48 PM on September 26, 2008


Must I mourn those good old days when one would tape things onto tape?

I know people who tape things with their cell phones.
posted by longsleeves at 8:55 PM on September 26, 2008


I know people whose cell phones are held together with tape.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:42 PM on September 26, 2008


I know people who have cell phones taped all over their head.
posted by dancestoblue at 10:06 PM on September 26, 2008


You gotta stop hanging out with performance artists, dancestoblue.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 10:09 PM on September 26, 2008


Why the hell would I click on a link that read "the Earth dies screaming?" Really...why? Aren't we all depressed enough right now?
posted by The Light Fantastic at 2:50 AM on September 27, 2008


I saw this movie on TV when I was a child.

It scared the living be-jesus out of me.

I have goose-bumps now just thinking of it.


Thank you (I think) for this trip down memory/horror lane...
posted by Mephisto at 5:19 AM on September 27, 2008


Your righteous indignation has been duly noted

I don't see where you got any "righteous indignation" out of that one sentence. But your whiny, entitled "INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE" argument has been duly noted.

The film is readily available for sale, and you can get it through Netflix. Regardless of the intellectual property issues, it seems to me that watching films on DVD is preferable to watching low-fi transfers on YouTube in little chunks.
posted by Sidhedevil at 7:53 AM on September 27, 2008 [1 favorite]


Not bad for 300 pounds. Corny, drags a bit because there's no budget to allow anything actually to happen on film.

Agree that it's a copyvio and probably breaks someone's guidelines, if not MF's, then Fox's and Youtube's. Glad it was posted anyway.
posted by ikkyu2 at 12:33 PM on September 27, 2008


But your whiny, entitled "INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE" argument has been duly noted.

Reusing the "duly noted" bit is a little weak, but you're to be forgiven for that (after all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery) but "whiny" is, simply, an inappropriate descriptor for my comment above. You may disagree with what I've said (for example, perhaps you think the boom-mic guy is going to be further compensated by the good people at Fox) but the tone of my comment was in no way "whiny".
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:58 PM on September 27, 2008 [2 favorites]


it seems to me that watching films on DVD is preferable to watching low-fi transfers on YouTube in little chunks

the guys who invented (and then sold) YouTube have about 1.65 billion reasons to find this statement very odd.
posted by matteo at 1:58 AM on September 29, 2008


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