Where Have All the People Gone (1974)

I love this movie so much

Powerful

good back-story, and good acting

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

It started out a normal day just like any other day when very large solar flares emitted from the sun and killed almost every person and animal on earth. The human survivors seem to have a special gene that kept them alive while the surviving animals have gone mad. The story centers around one man, Steven Anders, and his son and daughter that was with him that day. The family are on the search for any survivors while trying to head back home to see if Steven's wife (and the kid's mother) has survived this incident.This is a movie worth watching if you enjoy the post-apocalyptic types. Good cast and a very interesting story makes this film worth a watch.8/10

Another TV movie that has stayed with me ever since I first saw it, aged about 12, resurfaced recently, prompting this review.Peter Graves, complete with gray hair – I bet he was born with it that color - plays Steve Anders who, as the movie starts, is on vacation with his family in some unspecified California mountains. His daughter (a young Kathleen Quinlan) and son stay with him, along with Clancy (Noble Willingham), a friend, digging for fossils in a cave, while his wife leaves them to return to LA. Not long after, the sun brightens dramatically for a few seconds, which phenomenon is followed by an earthquake.In short order, Clancy, who was the only one of the four on the surface when the sun flared up and told the others about it, falls ill. The family thinks it is radiation poisoning and he dies as they try to get him back to civilization. When they themselves get there, they find towns that are empty, apart from clothes full of a strange powder, mad dogs, and a very few survivors who tell of a disease that wiped out most of humanity within hours.There isn't actually much more to it than that, but I found the story oddly absorbing and the whole treatment pleasingly creepy.Peter Graves turns in a solid performance and the two kids aren't too nauseating, though a little shrill at times. It was also fun to see Noble Willingham, whom I otherwise only know from "The Royale", a better-than-average episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation", in something else.Camera work and effects are fine considering when the film was made, the music is adequate, and it doesn't go on too long. All in all, then, well worth seeing.Rating: 7/10.

Where Have All the People Gone is a great movie. The idea is great. It was executed great. I thought it was great how the father always looked on the bright side and protected his children from whatever foe they faced. It almost felt real except one problem. Did a deadly virus kill everyone except the people that were immune? If so what is the point of the solar flares? If the solar flares some how killed everyone how could the surviving characters be immune to the sun? Who knows? Did the solar flare cause the virus somehow? Who knows? Haha i don't care this movie hooked me in from the start. Its very entertaining watching the apocalypse unfold in such a way.

Wow! A lot of people have the same story as me... seeing this movie as a child and not remembering the name, yet remembering parts of the movie all these years. I even went so far once to put a section on my website of movie summaries of films I saw as a child and didn't have the names to. Nobody ever came up with this one. Then I got home today and it was on TV, but I'd missed the first 40 minutes. When my brother and mom gave me a synopsis so far, I quizzed them on scenes I remembered from when I was 8 and they confirmed it was the same movie. So now I have the name and can get it on DVD. Awesome! Now... does anyone remember the one with the snakes on the submarine?!