The Day The World Ended was the 4th in the Creature Features series that was on Cinemax back in 2001. They were films that used the titles of old AIP films and wrote a new story. They were produced by Lou Arkoff, Colleen Camp and Stan Winston. Lou is the son of original AIP owner Samuel Z Arkoff. Colleen is an actress who started acting in 1973 and is still acting. Stan was a special effects guy who had his own shop. He worked on the Terminator series, the Jurassic Park series, Predator 2, Edward Sissorhands and many more. Sadly he died a few years after this movie. The original 1955 Day The World Ended was a post-apocalypse film and this story is about a kid with psychic abilities. It's written by Max Enscoe and Annie deYoung, with Terence Gross directing.
Nastassja Kinski is a school psychologist who comes to a small town to work. Randy Quaid is the town doctor and the kid next to him is his son, played by Bobby Edner, who's got psychic powers. Harry Groener is the sheriff. You might remember him as Mayor Wilkins on Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Something happened before the movie starts that caused Bobby's mother to die and he's got some issues about that. People seem to know he's got some sort of powers. Bobby has a vided imagination, fueled by his interest in Science Fiction, and he believes he's the son of an alien. He thinks his father will come back to pick him up sometime. Nastassja brings out the truth and it turns out that his dad isn't an alien. Bobby just creates a physical monster, based on a monster in a movie he'd seen, that kills off all the people who were mean to him and his mom years ago. We find out why they all needed to die and there's a bit of a happy ending.
There's plenty of monster action and some drama. The acting is fairly good, I usually like to see Randy Quaid. There's a nice bit from Stephen Toblowsky, but he's a favorite of mine, always nice to see him working. It's not a great movie, it scores a 4.4 on the IMDb but I think it's a bit better than that. I'd give it a 5, maybe a 6 on a better day. It's got a good fun side, not too sorry I saw it, but I wouldn't bother buying one, unless I found it for a couple of bucks. I might not get back to it so why bother. There's a nice enough commentary by Producer Stan Winston and co-producer Shane Mahan.
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