Actually Got Better Over The Years

I recall renting this back in the 80s and being appalled, just watched it again for the first time in at least 20 years and found it to be surprisingly watchable. The opening scenes on the satellite were very well handled and Maury Chaykin is a riot as Vinnie -- "Just get in your rocket ship and fly away" had me laughing. Maybe I've just learned how to better appreciate B grade trash filmmaking. Or maybe five years of the war on terror with interesting examples of social order breaking down (Katrina, anyone?) has made some of the imagery in the film a bit less unlikely, if that makes sense.

It certainly isn't a great film, and not even sublimely bad along the lines of genuine trash masterpieces like GALAXY OF TERROR or KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS. I think people who dish it out to the movie are just turned off by the prospects that it suggests should the world come to an end. The Gideon King character is hard to stomach and pretty implausible, but it seemed to me that the rest of it was more or less on the mark. For the amount of money that they spent on the movie it could have been a lot worse, and wasn't as crummy as I remember it being. It may lack the imagination & wit of A BOY AND HIS DOG but not everybody gets to be Harlan Ellison or L.Q. Jones.