Doomsday Machine (1972)

I wanted to but couldn't!

A Disappointing Continuation

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Since Casey Kasem died recently, I've been on a binge to watch as much of his movies I could find on the internet. I watched this one on the Internet Archive. Casey is the mission control officer talking to the astronauts which consists of three men and three women. Oh, and the only other familiar face in this low-budget flick to me was Mike Farrell, pre-TV "M*A*S*H", as a reporter at a press conference. Not much action, except for a near-rape, and the dialogue is mostly exposition and some cheezy screaming among the women. One of them has my favorite line about "stud poker"! Overall, this was pretty boring, so much so I keep checking the timer on the screen to find out how much was left! Still, I loved seeing the late Kasem doing his thing on screen as well as stock footage of a rocket lifting off and a disaster from possibly another movie so for that, Doomsday Machine is at the least worth a look.

I feel like half of this movie wasn't made. You know, the half where stuff actually happens? It's not that I'm against the occasional non-ending. Although I do agree with the sentiment that since the end of The Sopranos, it's been wholly overused, and is a terrible cop out. However, in certain applications, it can be acceptable. At any rate, this movie came out long before then.Doomsday Machine's non-ending fails so badly because it forgot to have anything else! It has a beginning and middle in the sense that in the time-space continuum, it must. But for the majority of the film, almost nothing of any real importance happens. I've seen more happen in a half-hour sitcom than I did in this movie. They announce the threat in about the time it takes you to read this sentence, then nothing, they make sexist jokes, then nothing, they launch them in to space, more nothing, more sexism, one "action" scene, more nothing, then finally the biggest nothing of all: the end. There isn't a single scene in this movie that's worthwhile. They even spend EIGHT minutes of screen time showing two astronauts fixing a computer. And they don't even show what they're doing! No joke, you're practically looking at a still frame for eight minutes. That's how little was going on. Consider the short run time, the already very little that took place, then consider that they included an eight minute scene of LITERALLY nothing to that. This was a final draft? It looks more like half of a rough cut.The one "action" scene in this movie was not only wholly inaccurate, it also wasn't any good. And the fact that they didn't actually attempt to make another scene or two that was at least on that level just proves that this movie is one big NOTHING. Seriously, all it would have taken to get a little more credibility was to have one or two other "dramatic action" sequences take place, and they failed at that. We got one scene that sucked.I'm not even going to complain about the sexism. For one, this movie is clearly camp. Two, I would look at it as more speaking as the attitudes of the time. I can accept that. But regardless of it's campiness, low budget, etc., it doesn't excuse the fact that this movie is 83 minutes of nothing. Sure, no one expected it to be great. But we did expect it to be more than nothing.If it was going to be a movie which could not be taken seriously, it could have at least went to one or two extremes. Either gratuitous mindless action, gratuitous mindless raunchiness, or both. But you get the smallest taste of either. Seriously, if you're the biggest camp fan in the world, you'll still not like this. It barely qualifies as being a movie.

"An upcoming space mission to Venus becomes even more vital after a startling secret is revealed. Foreign agents have revealed a secret plot by the Chinese where they have manufactured the ultimate weapon, capable of destroying everything on the surface of the planet. The mission to our sister planet now becomes a fight for the survival of the human race, as the crew must try to save the Earth from destruction," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.Apparently, the "Red" Chinese are preparing to attack the NATO Allies, with nuclear weaponry. So, a 1975 manned (and womanned) space mission to the planet Venus takes on added meaning; if the Earth is destroyed in a nuclear war, the only human survivors may be those people traveling to Venus. These men and women learn they will be playing "Adam" and "Eve" -- except for Henry Wilcoxon (as Dr. Perry), who is portrayed as too old for sex, at age 61 (when this was filmed).There are very few redeeming qualities in "The Doomsday Machine". You will get to see Ruta Lee (as Marion) slap Bobby Van (as Danny) once. You could watch to see how performers like Grant Williams (as Kurt Mason) and Mala Powers (as Georgianna Bronski) handle their unenviable assignment. You might want to admire James Craig (as Haines)'s admirable physique, during his shirtless scene. Or, you could observe how space flight affects ladies' hairstyles. Casey Kasem and Mike Farrell have cameos.

Pieced together in 1972, THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE (although most prints exclude THE at the beginning of the title) is the worst movie I have ever viewed. If you looked only at the cast and crew however, that would come as somewhat of a surprise. Grant Williams, Lee Sholem, James Craig and many other members of the production were very reliable in their better years, which brings me to the conclusion that many needed (or accepted) their roles in this modest film "for the money".This would account for the bad acting and careless execution of a story that had been seen so many times before even when the film was began in 1967. This involves, with a Commie-apocalypse twist worked in, what happens when a crew of astronauts discover their mission to Venus was actually an attempt to advance the human race beyond an impending nuclear apocalypse (which is unbelievable even with the most infinite amount of suspension of disbelief). And so for the next hour the audience is bludgeoned with droning melodrama and incongruous stock footage until a conclusion that will shock you with its utter stupidity and inexplicable nature. What makes the film somewhat of a guilty pleasure is to see how it scrapes the bottom of the barrel in terms of production values, offers no provocative politics and little human conflict in a situation that requires huge amounts and frames all of its action in a static manner. This film shows the viewer explicitly everything that can go wrong in making a movie, and provides the some of the most laughable dialogue and scenes one may ever see.Grouped most accurately with other tiny-budget commercial independents of the 70s like CRY BLOOD, APACHE and THE REVENGE OF DR.X, the film wastes the talents of its once-great principals and the time of anyone who sees it--I can't even see many of those who love terrible cinema enjoying this--and makes one wince in sheer boredom that there must be something interesting in the film.For all of the 80-odd minutes spent watching this one, there really isn't. See it at your own risk.