The Day Time Ended (1979)

Aliens visit the solar-powered house of a middle-class family, and the house is suddenly sucked into a time warp that transports it back to prehistoric times.

Director:

John 'Bud' Cardos

Writers:

Wayne Schmidt (screenplay), J. Larry Carroll (screenplay by)

Stars:

Jim Davis, Christopher Mitchum, Dorothy Malone

1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Jim Davis	...	Grant
Christopher Mitchum	...	Richard (as Chris Mitchum)
Dorothy Malone	...	Ana
Marcy Lafferty	...	Beth
Natasha Ryan	...	Jenny
Scott C. Kolden	...	Steve (as Scott Kolden)
Roberto Contreras	...	Gas station attendant (as Roberto Contréras)

Storyline

Aliens visit the solar-powered house of a middle-class family, and the house is suddenly sucked into a time warp that takes it back to prehistoric times.

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Plot Keywords:

time warp | alien | stop motion | claymation | monster | 

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Taglines:

THEIR LIVES BECAME A LIVING HELL

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Genres:

Adventure | Horror | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

1980 (UK)

Also Known As:

Earth's Final Fury

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Charles Band Productions, Vortex Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

79 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Metrocolor) (uncredited)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Final film of Jim Davis.

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Goofs

At various times, the "Vacuum Cleaner of Doom" is partially transparent, revealing items behind it.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Grant Williams: [narrating] Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Can anyone hear me? I don't know where I am. I don't know where I am in time. I don't know what century I'm in. There's a message that must get through if anyone can hear me. When I was out among you, I always believed, as you do, that time exists in a sequential pattern - one day following another; one year after another; each century following the previous one... but it's not like that at all. I can tell you that now, because I know, ...

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Alternate Versions

A version shown on the UK television channel Movies4Men2 is missing nearly all of the Dinosaur/Alien Monster fight sequence! The First monster appears as it should, it then cuts to the father and son running into the stables, when it cuts back to the monster it is dead with another different monster stood over it which has appeared from nowhere. From this point the film continues as normal.

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Connections

Referenced in Ban the Sadist Videos! (2005)

User Reviews

Totally Plot-free movie!

Have I been watching the same movie as some of the other reviewers here?

The first thing to realise before you sit down to watch this tedious plonker is that it is going to be a totally fruitless and unrewarding experience. The movie is plot free. Don't get me wrong - things happen - but nothing any of the characters do or say affects anything that happens throughout the whole movie. They just bob along, buffeted by a series of unexplained events that are totally outwith their control and they are powerless to change.

Basically what happens is this: after an interminably long montage of starscapes with a pontificating, portentous voice-over - always a dead giveaway that you are about to watch a REALLY bad SF movie - an all-American family move into their new home in the desert. Strange things start to happen, giant UFOs buzz the house, giant dinosaur things appear in the yard and try and eat each other, tiny UFOs invade the house (curiously these appear to have the ability to fly through windows without breaking them but have to use lasers to get through bedroom doors), tiny green people appear and tell the tiny UFOs to go away (bad UFO!). The house is mysteriously hurled into the future. Mom and little girl wander off and are lost in a swirling vortex of bad SFX. Rest of family are hurled even further into the future (?) get on their horses and ride off for no particular reason. Almost immediately they meet Mom, who hasn't died or been eaten by dinosaur things or learned to act, who says "it's all OK!". The end.

Seriously. That's it. Nothing is resolved. Nothing explained. No characters develop. Nothing.

Oh! I forgot the other "plotline". After dropping his family off at their new house, Dad has to go into the city to work. Dad decides to come home. Dad crashes car and finds horse. Dad rides home and witnesses firework display and vanishing house. Dad reacts to his entire family disappearing in front of his eyes with the same slack-jawed sonumbulistic non-acting with which he has shambled through the rest of the movie.

I assumed from the fact that Jim Brown gets to say "My God!" about 27 bejillion times through the course of the film and his "maybe it was meant to be... this is where we will make our new lives" speech at the end that in the end this was some sort of Christian allegory - and a bloody poor one at that.

Students of bad acting - and as a bad actor myself I watch out for this stuff - will enjoy Dorothy Malone's "awe" at the end. She looks like a fish having an orgasm. And since when has anyone in real life taken two steps forward to admire something in the distance? It happens all the time in bad movies. Think about the last time you saw a beautiful sunset. Did you take a step forward? "Oh look, the horizon is 20 miles away, the Sun is 93 million miles away I'll take a step forward to get a closer view." Cobblers!

This is a bad film. Most of it is boring. None of it makes any sense.