The Earth Dies Screaming
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Earth Dies Screaming is a 1965 British science fiction film directed by Terence Fisher. It stars Willard Parker, Virginia Field, Dennis Price, Vanda Godsell, Thorley Walters, David Spenser and Anna Palk.
Contents |
[edit] Production
The film was shot in black and white at Shepperton Studios in London. Location filming was done at the village of Shere in Surrey. It was one of several 1960s British horror films to be scored by the avant-garde Elisabeth Lutyens.
[edit] Plot summary
As the film opens, people all over Britain are mysteriously collapsing, apparently dead: Trains career off their rails; cars crash into walls; commuters drop to the ground where they stand.
Later, a test pilot (Parker) seeks cover in a village pub, having survived the "attack". Gradually six other survivors congregate in the pub, all puzzled by the deaths, and initially at a loss why they are the few still alive. It transpires they were all cut off from outside air at the time of the deaths: The pilot was flying; a young couple were hiding in an air-raid shelter; another woman was sick in hospital inside an oxygen tent. They conclude it must have been a gas attack from a foreign enemy.
However, when military help appears to arrive, it is soon clear that all is not as it seems. The spacesuit-clad visitors they assume have come to help them are in fact alien visitors, and the survivors must be quick to defeat them and save themselves.
[edit] 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.[1]