The Earth Dies Screaming: Zombies, Robots, and Fear

Not to be confused with the band, the Tom Waits song, the UB40 song, or the Atari 2600 game of the same name.

The concept of fear has changed over time, and it’s interesting to watch old horror sci-fi flicks to see what people feared at the time the movie was made. Monster movies from the 1930s draw heavily on old-world superstitions, which gave way to radiation fears that inspired movies such as Godzilla. Radiation fears gave way to invasion fears, which lead back to monster fears for a time during the 1980s, with movies such as Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Fear of being kidnapped and held at the mercy of a madman seemingly led to torture porn movies like Hostel, begging the question: have fears like music become more stratified? In the post-Cold War era, is there such a thing as a universal fear? Perhaps fear itself has become something unique to all of us, and horror fans will find the movies that speak to their specific fears, whether those fears include being chased by a man with a bag on his head or the fear of being turned into a human walrus.

They have come for your daughters.

In the 1964 British film The Earth Dies Screaming, society is still in the grip of invasion fears (which isn’t surprising, given that the movie was released less than ten years after the seminal Invasion of the Body Snatchers). While the overarching theme was a fear of being invaded by beings from space (in this case alien robots, who control an army of undead human slaves), I couldn’t help but notice other fears peeking through in some of the quieter scenes. There’s a great scene when one of the survivors rushes into the living room carrying fistfuls of money. During his monologue, he bemoans how the previous week money was all he cared about, and now it’s completely worthless. He goes to throw the money in the fireplace…and is stopped by another survivor, who looks around rather guiltily when he realizes what it is he’s doing. The scene reminded me of the post-apocalyptic parts of Douglas Coupeland’s book Girlfriend in a Coma. In that book, Coupeland accurately describes the rituals he thought humans would go through if some cataclysmic event befell the earth. For a while, Coupeland argued people would still do things like wash their dishes, take off their shoes before entering the house, or bury their dead, even though such things were no longer necessary. (There’s another scene in The Earth Dies Screaming where a character covers a dead body with a sheet. Given that the streets are littered with dead bodies, it seems like a futile effort, but he does it nonetheless). I have to tell myself to ignore anachronisms when watching older movies, and just enjoy the story for what it is. This means trying not to notice outdated technology (radio) or gender stereotyping (women cowering in fear while the mens have all the guns). As far as the story went; however, The Earth Dies Screaming zipped by a little too quickly for my taste. It has a running time just over an hour, which is great if you want something quick to watch that won’t take up too much of your time, but that brief run time comes at the expense of plot. The movie makes some giant logic leaps and has a few plot holes that a longer running time might have been able to sort out. Then again, maybe fear of not knowing everything is my own private fear. I wonder if there’s a movie for that…

tl;drs

Blank is a blanker version of blank: The Earth Dies Screaming is the B-movie stepchild of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Screen credits over/under: Under: there’s a single writer here.

Recommended if you like: B movies, short running times.

Better than I expected: Decent cinematography and a nice opening scene.

Worse than I hoped: Whether I missed it, or the modern/crappy sound editing obscured it, I didn’t catch any kind of signal. In a movie called This Signal, this seems like an important overlooked detail.

The Earth Dies Screaming would work better as a(n): I’d like to watch another movie featuring both robots and zombies. Good thing Dolph Lundgren has got me covered..

Verdict: If you like B-grade British sci fi, give this a shot. For something meatier, consider No Blade of Grass.