PreCommentary:
If time ended, why are we so clearly in past tense and still
measuring the ending of the time in days? The video box claims
that "Their lives became a living hell." So will yours
when you watch: THE DAY TIME ENDED!
Notes: 80
minutes (but you can't know this because TIME ENDED).
Grant: Jim Davis
Ana: Dorothy Malone
Richard: Chris Mitchum
Beth: Marcy Lafferty
Jenny: Natasha Ryan
Steve: Scott Kolden
Gas Station Attendant: Roberto Contreras
Executive Producer: Charles Band
Story: Steve Neill
Screenplay: Wayne Schmidt, J. Larry Carroll,
David Schmoeller
Produced: Wayne Schmidt, Steve Neill, Paul
Gentry
Directed: John "Bud" (not mine)
Cardos.
Summary:
Nothing happens.
Okay, dammit, first we hear blab about the
relativity of time and the myth of sequentiality. Then we see
lights from space. Grandpa Grant (sometimes called what sounds
like Fred) and his son or son-in-law (sometimes Richard, sometimes
Steve) meet Grandma Ana (always called something else), son's
wife (or Fred's daughter) Beth, grandkid Jenny, and some other
kid, a younger son (?) at the airport and motor out to the barren
wasteland where they have their new solar-powered home away from
it all. Jenny gets a pony and it wanders into a glowing green
pyramid while the others discover the livingroom is wrecked.
They blame bikers and cook steaks. Constant weird phenomena are
never explained (and never will be, sucker): lights turn themselves
on, water turns itself on, a mirror is inexplicably fixed, green
smoke brings a tiny alien who jumps around, UFOs fly through the
sky, the car starts itself when they decide to run away. Jenny
keeps disappearing and returning and Grandpa totes his comforting
handgun, saying upon one of her reappearances, "God, I could
have shot her." Should have, at least started
with her.
Sonny tries to get back to the ranch, but we
can't care because he can't do anything anyway. A bad thing enters
the house--a floating machine--which catches Gramps' bullet mid-air
and burns through a bedroom door. Dinosaur-like beasts fight
outside and Gramps pitchforks one in the head a bit. Aircraft
appear all over and we get more ELO shows. Jenny dissolves in
the wind trying to run to Grandpa, and Mom runs towards her and
disappears. Gramps announces that this is all a "time/space
warp" and that regarding Jenny and Beth, "the vortex
took them." God bless you, vortex.
The two old people and that extra boy ride
horses while their house disappears. They seem to see several
suns. A pyramid appears, Beth emerges and acts like a Moonie:
"Everything is going to be fine." She waxes vague and
vacuous about the galaxy being turned upsidedown for a while (and
this is all the explanation we ever get!). Jenny appears on the
road, as does Dad and a horse. They all see a space city and
express how neato-sweet it is. Gramps turns to Grams and speculates
that this was "all meant to be." (WHAT WAS???) "This
is our new way of life."
Commentary:
Keep all copies of this crappy movie away from me before I break
city ordinances. There is no plot, nothing to try to keep track
of, just endless witnessings of pointless light spectacles and
a half-assed attempt to suggest that our feeble minds can't comprehend
the tremendous evolutionary advancement of something. This film
has nothing to do with "time" except to keep you thinking,
every aching minute of this seven-hour brain-cancer, how much
older you're growing and getting nothing done.
Is that extra kid adopted so he and Jenny can
breed more vile humans? How are the space city beings going to
feel about this batch's disgusting steak-guzzling?
There is no excuse for this movie.