''The Earth Dies Screaming'' is a 1964 British

science-fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel univers ...

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...

directed by

Terence Fisher Terence Fisher (23 February 1904 – 18 June 1980) was a British film director best known for his work for Hammer Films. He was the first to bring gothic horror alive in full colour, and the sexual overtones and explicit horror in his films, ...

, written by

Harry Spalding Harry Spalding (1913-2008) was an American writer best known for the films he wrote for Robert L. Lippert and director Maury Dexter. He later worked for the Walt Disney Company. He sometimes wrote under the name "Henry Cross". Select Credits * ' ...

, and starring

Willard Parker Willard Parker (born Worster Van Eps; February 5, 1912 – December 4, 1996) was an American film and television actor. He was a leading man under contract to Columbia Pictures in the 1940s and starred in the TV series '' Tales of the Texas Ran ...

Virginia Field Virginia Field (born Margaret Cynthia Field; 4 November 1917 – 2 January 1992) was a British-born film actress. Early years An only child, born in London, her father was Sir John Field. He was the judge of Leicester County Court Circuit. H ...

, and

Dennis Price Dennistoun Franklyn John Rose Price (23 June 1915 – 6 October 1973) was an English actor, best remembered for his role as Louis Mazzini in the film '' Kind Hearts and Coronets'' (1949) and for his portrayal of the omnicompetent valet Jeeve ...

.John Hamilton, ''The British Independent Horror Film 1951-70'' Hemlock Books 2013 p 129-132

Plot

Human bodies are scattered around an English village, apparently dead in a sudden cataclysm. A small group of survivors gathers in the local hotel bar, led by an American jet test pilot, Jeff Nolan. Apparently, a mysterious gas attack has killed off most of the Earth's population. Figures in space suits appear in the streets; Vi Courtland thinks they have come to rescue them, but they turn and kill her with their touch. Several of these bulletproof killers stalk the streets. A very pregnant Lorna Brenard and her moody husband, Mel, arrive by car. Mel says they broke into a fallout shelter the previous night to sleep. The group goes to a local Territorial Army drill hall to look for weapons. They arm themselves and struggle for survival against the invaders in what is the first step in an alien invasion. Vi reanimates as a zombie with white eyes. Quinn Taggart shoots and kills her. Quinn knocks out Jeff and heads north with Peggy Hatton in a sports car. She unsuccessfully tries to run off when he stops for petrol. She then insists he get her a coat, as she's cold, and escapes to a house when he enters a store to find her one. She is trapped in the house pursued by invaders and zombies, and hides in a wardrobe. After the zombie pursuing her abandons the search, Peggy runs outside and is saved by Jeff, who has been looking for her. He runs down a space-suited creature with his

Land Rover Land Rover is a British brand of predominantly four-wheel drive, off-road capable vehicles, owned by multinational car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), since 2008 a subsidiary of India's Tata Motors. JLR currently builds Land Rovers ...

, revealing it is a robot when it explodes. They go back to the drill hall, where young Lorna Brenard is about to give birth to a daughter. Meanwhile, Ed Otis cannot face the new reality and is drinking anything alcoholic he can find. Jeff and Mel Brenard use a

shortwave Shortwave radio is radio transmission using shortwave (SW) radio frequencies. There is no official definition of the band, but the range always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (100 to 10 me ...

radio and triangulation to work out where the aliens are transmitting their control signals to the robots. They locate the transmitter tower and are about to blow it up when robots start to appear. Quinn returns to the drill hall as a zombie, accompanied by two robots. One of the robots approaches Peggy, but when the tower is destroyed, all the robots collapse. Otis shoots Quinn, saving Peggy, Lorna, and the baby. The survivors commandeer a

Pan Am Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States ...

Boeing 707 The Boeing 707 is an American, long-range, narrow-body airliner, the first jetliner developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype first flown in 1954, the initial first flew on December 20, ...

and fly south in search of other survivors.

Production

said someone said the title "as a joke" and "somehow it kind of stuck", and he always hated the title. The film was shot in

black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

Shepperton Studios Shepperton Studios is a film studio located in Shepperton, Surrey, England, with a history dating back to 1931. It is now part of the Pinewood Studios Group. During its early existence, the studio was branded as Sound City (not to be confused w ...

in Surrey.

Location filming In geography, location or place are used to denote a region (point, line, or area) on Earth's surface or elsewhere. The term ''location'' generally implies a higher degree of certainty than ''place'', the latter often indicating an entity with an ...

was done at the village of

Shere Shere is a village in the Guildford district of Surrey, England east south-east of Guildford and west of Dorking, centrally bypassed by the A25. It is a small still partly agricultural village chiefly set in the wooded 'Vale of Holmesdale' b ...

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

. It was one of several 1960s British

s to be scored by the ''

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

'' composer

Elisabeth Lutyens Agnes Elisabeth Lutyens, CBE (9 July 190614 April 1983) was an English composer. Early life and education Elisabeth Lutyens was born in London on 9 July 1906. She was one of the five children of Lady Emily Bulwer-Lytton (1874–1964), a me ...

, whose father,

Edwin Lutyens Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens ( ; 29 March 1869 – 1 January 1944) was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memori ...

, designed Manor House Lodge in Shere, a small property that features prominently at several points in the film. A collection of location stills and corresponding contemporary photographs is hosted at reelstreets.com.

Cast

as Jeff Nolan *

as Peggy Hatton *

as Quinn Taggart *

Thorley Walters Thorley Swinstead Walters (12 May 1913 – 6 July 1991) was an English character actor. He is probably best remembered for his comedy film roles such as in ''Two-Way Stretch'' and '' Carlton-Browne of the FO''. Early life Walters was born in Tei ...

as Edgar (Ed) Otis *

Vanda Godsell Vanda Godsell (17 November 1922 – 2 April 1990) was an English actress. Hal Erickson writes in Allmovie, "Vanda Godsell specialised in playing disheveled housewives, busybody landladies and blowsy domestics." She appeared as Mrs Weaver in ...

as Violet (Vi) Courtland *

David Spenser David Spenser (''né'' De Saram; 12 March 1934 – 20 July 2013) John Tydemanbr>David Spenser obituary ''The Guardian'', 1 August 2013. Retrieved 1 August 2013 was a British actor, director, producer and writer. Spenser played the title role ...

as Mel Brenard *

Anna Palk Anna Palk (23 October 1941 – 1 July 1990) was an English actress. Palk was born in Looe, Cornwall, England and educated at Rise Hall Convent in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and trained as an actress at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in Lo ...

as Lorna Brenard

Reviews

Wheeler Winston Dixon Wheeler Winston Dixon (born March 12, 1950) is an American filmmaker and scholar. He is an expert on film history, theory and criticism.Bill Goodykoontz, December 23, 2012, USA TodayDefining Tarantino Accessed Aug. 25, 2013, Quote = "...long, invo ...

wrote about the film's use of silence: Writing in ''The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia'', academic

Peter Dendle Peter Dendle is a professor of English at Penn State Mont Alto, teaching classes on folklore, 20th and 21st century representations of the Middle Ages, Old and Middle English (language and literature), and the monstrous (in film, folklore, and s ...

cited the film as "an obvious precursor to ''

Night of the Living Dead ''Night of the Living Dead'' is a 1968 American independent horror film directed, photographed, and edited by George A. Romero, with a screenplay by John Russo and Romero, and starring Duane Jones and Judith O'Dea. The story follows seven peop ...

''."

In popular culture

''The Earth Dies Screaming'' was used in 1983 as the inspiration and title for an

Atari 2600 The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocessor- ...

video game released by Fox Video Games, a division of 20th Century Fox. The game is set in space, and involves shooting down satellites and fighter ships. British band

UB40 UB40 are an English reggae and pop band, formed in December 1978 in Birmingham, England. The band has had more than 50 singles in the UK Singles Chart, and has also achieved considerable international success. They have been nominated for the ...

released a single, "

The Earth Dies Screaming ''The Earth Dies Screaming'' is a 1964 British science-fiction horror film directed by Terence Fisher, written by Harry Spalding, and starring Willard Parker, Virginia Field, and Dennis Price.John Hamilton, ''The British Independent Horror Fi ...

" (catalogue: Graduate GRAD 10), in 1980, which spent 12 weeks in the UK chart, peaking at number 10. The first track on

Tom Waits Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American musician, composer, songwriter, and actor. His lyrics often focus on the underbelly of society and are delivered in his trademark deep, gravelly voice. He worked primarily in jazz during ...

' 1992 album ''

Bone Machine ''Bone Machine'' is the eleventh studio album by American singer and musician Tom Waits, released by Island Records on September 8, 1992. It won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album and features guest appearances by David Hidalgo, Le ...

'' is entitled "Earth Died Screaming".

Home Media

The film was released on Region 1 DVD on 11 September 2007, and on Region 2 DVD on 29 August 2011.

References

External links

''The Earth Dies Screaming'' at IMDBReview of film
at

Trailers from Hell ''Trailers from Hell'' (branded as ''Trailers from Hell!'') is a web series in which filmmakers discuss and promote individual movies through commenting on their trailers. While the series emphasizes horror, science fiction, fantasy, cult, and expl ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Earth Dies Screaming, The 1964 films 1960s science fiction films British science fiction films British zombie films British horror films British science fiction horror films Films directed by Terence Fisher Films scored by Elisabeth Lutyens 20th Century Fox films Lippert Pictures films Alien invasions in films 1960s English-language films 1960s British films