Thursday, April 21, 2016

Gaseous, Robotic Zombies

While blowing some time scoping out old British movies, I came across The Earth Dies Screaming whose synopsis goes like this.
After a mysterious gas attack which kills off most of the Earth's population, a few survivors gather at a country inn to figure out a plan for survival. However, the gas attack is only the first step in an alien invasion, in which groups of killer robots stalk the streets, able to kill anyone with the a mere touch of their hands. The group's members find additional weaponry in a nearby drill hall, but the robots continue their campaign of terror, which only increases when their victims rise from the dead as zombies, eager to kill anyone who might try to stop them.
So we've got poison gas followed by killer robots followed by zombies? Please. Why not add some triffids and a handful of sharknados to go along with it? I mean, if you're going to go over the top, why stop with only three Armageddon events?

Extra-credit question: OK, you zombie apocalypse survival types, survive that! Leave your plan to cope with the gaseous, robotic zombies or whatever the things are in the comments.

12 comments:

tim eisele said...

Well, I suppose the best reason for stopping at three apocalypses is that this trifecta of terror really ought to be enough to kill everybody. A fourth one would just be stirring the ashes. Not only don't I see a plausible way for this movie to end with any survivors, I don't really see an _implausible_ way, either.

K T Cat said...

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one, Tim. I don't see this as materially different from a zombie apocalypse. Consider this:

Almost everyone dead from poison gas = Almost everyone dead from zombies
Robots = Zombies

Really, all you've got is a zombie apocalypse where some of the zombies can be considered heavy infantry. Give me a blimp and high-powered rifles with plenty of ammo and we're home free!

tim eisele said...

I guess it depends on the nature of the robots. If I were designing a killer robot, I'd make sure that it was able to kill from a distance. If these have anything remotely similar to a gun, then they suddenly are up quite a few notches from a mere zombie. And if they don't have some gunlike weapon, then their builders are idiots.

There's also the mention that this is an alien invasion. Which implies that they got to Earth somehow. Which further suggests that the aliens have some sort of flying vehicles . . .

K T Cat said...

Here's the trailer for the film. The robots look like they've got to touch you to kill you.

tim eisele said...

Well, that's sad. They need to recruit some Cybermen - they might not be any faster, but they've got guns and death rays.

K T Cat said...

You could make a pretty funny horror comedy movie where both sides have death rays and resurrection rays. It would be like playing freeze tag where some people cause you to turn into a statue when they tag you and others can unfreeze you. It would be frantic and pointless at the same time. A laugh riot!

K T Cat said...

By the way, from the trailer it looks like we should demand a refund. "The Earth Dies Screaming?" Bah! There's almost no screaming at all! In fact, if you divided screams by deaths, I think you'd get a number pretty close to zero. Outside of that puffy, middle-aged woman, I didn't see anyone screaming at all. "The Earth Dies Quietly Slumped Over" would be a more accurate title.

tom said...

There was one quality scream there, but she didn't die.

And come on, give the brits credit for predicting our zombie fetish 50 years early...

IlĂ­on said...

Also, this movie's gas cloud that killed off most of the humans at least made sense, unlike the eventual revelation of who (and why) killed of all the humans in Black Dawn

Mostly Nothing said...

I can't even comprehend how you would go down the path of looking at old 60s British B horror movies.

It's baffling.

K T Cat said...

I had found a site with a list of foreign films by country and year and was sorting through them looking for medieval costumers I hadn't seen. When I came across The Earth Dies Screaming, the title alone was worth the investigation.

tim eisele said...

You know, I might actually watch a movie titled "The Earth Dies Quietly Slumped Over" with the two sides duking it out with death/resurrection rays. Could be fun. You should write up the screenplay!