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Escape from Planet Earth

1967 List
Tomatometer 2 Reviews 5% Popcornmeter 100+ Ratings

Critics Reviews

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Bill Gibron PopMatters The Doomsday Machine marks a MST3K Season 4 level challenge. At one point, Frank Conniff states exasperatedly that this experience is like 'watching someone else watching Manos: The Hands of Fate'. Rated: 4/5 Jul 3, 2008 Full Review Brian Orndorf BrianOrndorf.com Cinematic Titanic continues to build impressively toward something yet undefined, and Doomsday Machine is an impressive chapter of growth...an experience of sublime bad movie riffing from masters of the genre...the execution is uproarious and near- Rated: A- Jun 29, 2008 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Audience Member The United States is planning the first manned trip to Venus when they discover that China has built a doomsday device. At the very last minute, half of the crew is replaced by women and off they go. When the Earth is destroyed en route, the crew realize they are responsible for repopulating the human race. This film is like a cocktail lounge shot into space, with the crew seated in reclining lounge chairs, lighting straight out of a Mario Bava flick, a rell-to-reel tape deck that plays soft jazz in space, and enough casual sexism to convert the most ardent chauvinist into a proponent of #MeTooInSpace. The bulk of this film was shot in 1967, but the production ran out of money. It was picked up again in 1972, but with different actors and no money to shoot the planned climax on Venus. The ending they tacked on in infuriatingly arbitrary and inept and burns up any goodwill the flick had generated. Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review Audience Member My friends, I cannot keep this a secret any longer. This the latest bad movie I've become obsessed with. This is like if Ed Wood made 2001: A Space Odyssey instead of getting into porno. The whole thing's got a rapey porn scenereo vibe to it... I don't want to give spoilers, but the final 15 minutes may as well be an image of a middle finger to the audience. Casey Kasem is in it. Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 01/12/23 Full Review Audience Member I can see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, as I'm nearing the end of my infamous Mill Creek 50-film 'Nightmare Worlds' pack. This was a really strange viewing experience, and honestly made me wonder if my red wine had been spiked with some hallucinogen by some ne'er-do-well prankster. It had some intriguing ideas, a big one being that the USA and USSR are afraid that China is going to destroy the world, so at the last minute, just before a scheduled space flight to investigate Venus, NASA administrators replace three of the astronauts with female counterparts, and include a mysterious large suitcase. Though it says 1972, you can distinctly feel that it was made years earlier, before the game-changers of '2001: A Space Odyssey' and the manned space flight to the moon completely changed the way sci-fi films were made (unless you're the sad saps behind monstrosities such as 'Star Odyssey', that go on as if any relationship with the way things are in real life is an entirely accidental and unintended coincidence). Most of it was made in 1966, but funding ran out, and it shows. The filmmakers couldn't even afford the intended climax, and that shows--the film simply ends. But for all of that, this bizarre experiment of a forced Adam and Eve scenario in outer space, as a future for Earth, is decent--and it would be two generations later, when in Christopher Nolan's 'Interstellar', that this idea would be fully realized with human decency and artistic integrity. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Audience Member Its not as bad as you'd imagine. Its not good, but its quirky, silly, reasonably tense and on the whole a bit of a laugh. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 01/23/23 Full Review Audience Member This should have a Zero. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review Audience Member one of those cult pix that r sooo bad they're good Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/21/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Escape from Planet Earth

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Cast & Crew

Movie Info

Director
Harry Hope