Day Time Ended, The |
  • USA • 1979 • 79m •   • Directed by: John 'Bud' Cardos. • Starring: Jim Davis, Christopher Mitchum, Dorothy Malone, Marcy Lafferty, Natasha Ryan, Scott C. Kolden, Roberto Contreras. • Music by: Richard Band.    A family moves into their state-of-the-art solar-powered home in an isolated part of the desert to start a new peaceful life. Meanwhile, far away in deep space, three stars simultaneously explode, sending disruptive, time-bending shock waves through the cosmic void. These waves hit the house and soon some mighty bizarre things begin to happen, including a sudden resurgence of dinosaurs in their backyard, visitations from diminutive aliens, and a robot from outer space.
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Review:
It seems more than half the reviews here point out, almost always negatively, that this film has very little going on in terms of a plot- well the plot IS the plot: a normal American family is thrust into a strange situation when space and time collide at their isolated home in the desert. Honestly with a story like that there is no need to complain about the constant bizarre eventscreatures that pop in and out of the movie and an overall lack of direction- it's literally the whole point. We see this family react, generally with confusion, as bizarre events take place and they try to figure out how to deal with it.
I find movies like this incredibly refreshing in that they don't stick to the iron-fisted algorithm of SET-UP DRAMA RESOLUTION. I get really tired of the hate these kinds of movies receive simply because there isn't a clear beginningmiddleend... movies can be art, people, and life itself does not always comply to the neat little package that is provided in your average Hollywood movie. If anything this movie seems like it was meant in part for children, as we see much of the movie from the perspective of the little girl and then we get a few stop-motion critters- ranging from a friendly little alien to giant alien monsters battling it out. As a kid I didn't get mad that this movie didn't have a clear plot- it just made it all the more weird and interesting, causing me to occasionally think about it through the years (again like The Visitor) wondering "What the H was that?" before finally rediscovering it on one of those 50 movie sci-fi dvd collections.
So basically some family lives at a solar powered home and some stars go supernova or something causing a spacetime warp to happen right on their property. This is sci-fi, not sci-fact, so if you want to complain about things like that not fitting in with what you know then go watch Cinema Sins and leave people with imagination alone! Soon the weirdness begins as various beings show up- some friendly, others bestial, and others whose intentions are unknown... yeah, that's about it. There are nods to Close Encounters, and the overall idea is also similar to the t.v. show Land of the Lost from a few years before (various peoplebeings thrust into one spot through a rip in time and space). And to those who need for everything to be resolved we are told at the end that basically linear time is an illusion and everything is OK! Yay, could you even ask for a happier ending? Complete with a pretty cool visual of a "city of light" in the distance.
Charles Band is a producer here, and to those who know the name you kind of know what to expect here- low budget, plenty of visual effects, and an overall corny feeling. He produced Laser Blast just a couple years before this (yet another "always on t.v. in the early 80's" type of film). I can certainly see how a modern film goer might find this movie unwatchable, but for me it's a fond slice of the old days when a movie could be weird nonsense and still get constant play on the tube for a bored kid to wonder at!
Review by piggyeternal from the Internet Movie Database.
Movie Database