SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Tender-Flesh I don't hand out 1's and 10's often, and while the production on this film is quite low, with the sound quality for dialogue being the absolute worst, this film is totally compelling and you will be grateful you gave it a chance.The movie is shot as a pseudo documentary, following the life of Pauline, a strangely attractive nurse who must relocate to London in a world where Nazi Germany has more than a foothold in England; Soldiers occupy the nation and many British citizens have become their collaborators. You should read the interesting history behind the making of this film which took something like 6 years to complete, if you can believe it. But wait until after you watch the movie, of course. I'm glad I didn't know much about it before I began watching. Fans of science fiction, dystopian fiction, and Orwell will eat this up and want more.This is a war film like few others in that you don't see much of the war itself, by that I mean the front lines. You see the daily life of citizens in a country where all their normal daily routines have been stamped out and they are recast in the roles of pseudo-Nazis whether they like it or not. What are you waiting for?

richard-harris-1 yes this was a fine example of 'what if'. It certainly makes you think about how it might have been had Hitler succeeded.The book 'How It Happened Here' is due to be re-issued with a revised content and updates.The new book 'How It Happened Here' should be out in August but check availability on amazon or at the publishers website ukapress.comThe DVD for this film is also available now with a great review on dvdtalk.com http://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s100here.htmlIn all, it's a film that hasn't had enough exposure. The concept is frightening and the idea should be bought back into the mind of a new generation. It is horrifying to think how close England came to being ruled by an unspeakable dictator.

alan-morton The film sticks tenaciously in the memory, in a way that slick studio productions often fail to do.Visually, a fair bit of the film is a pastiche of German propaganda newsreels, or borrows from that library of pictures. This augments the feeling of realism and makes it an even bigger shock to see German troops marching through London, or relaxing off-duty, taking in the sights and admiring the women. No studio film would dare to take such an approach. And where did they find so much genuine-looking equipment? No studio film-researcher would ever be that scrupulous about accuracy.The sound-recording is dreadful and it would benefit from one of those clever clean-up jobs that are available these days. But what is said, and how it's said, are unforgettable. The wrong-headed justifications of Fascism that pepper this film sound like real people's words and they're spoken by what clearly are real people, who are taking a little time off from their real jobs to appear in the film. For instance, the fat, middle-aged, bureaucratic bully who voices many of the arguments has to have been in real life a school teacher or a bank manager: he looks and sounds the part in a way that studio actors working from a polished script could never manage.The ending is forced, but only because you feel that the film would be endless without a forced ending. Although a lot of things take place that are genuinely shocking (I won't list them as I'd have to announce spoilers), the point of the film isn't to relate a narrative that has a defined beginning, middle and end. The point is to make you feel that this is all real and make you wonder what your response would have been if the Nazis had started running your country.

insomnia Being a Londoner, and born but a few months after England declared war onGermany, this film has always held a special significance for me. I originally saw it when it opened in London: a mere twelve years after the worst war in living memory, had ended. I saw it for the second time recently at a friend's house. To me, it is still the best film about the occupation of a country by a foreign army. In his book, "How It Happened Here", co-director, Kevin Brownlow explains how he got the idea tomake this film. He just happened to be walking down a London street, at themoment when a car screeched to a halt outside a shop. Four or so heavysetmen piled out of the car. They were dressed, recalls Brownlow, in greyovercoats in a style reminiscent of Russian KGB agents. All were bulky andacted in a furtive manner. It got Brownlow thinking: "what if....."On a budget that can only be described as miniscule, it took Brownlow and his co-director, Andrew Mollo, eight years to complete the film. It's shot in aquasi-documentary style, which makes it even more realistic. Their attention to detail is amazing considering the paucity of funds available - every uniform the actors wore was sewn by Mrs. Mollo. While I can't claim to personally 'remember' those years when London wasbombed constantly, I can recall the sound, or should I say lack of it (we were all inside a bomb shelter), when a German V-2 rocket (nicknamed a doodle-bug),ran out of fuel and plummeted to the ground. We were lucky: it landed but a few streets away, killing many, many people, breaking windows, shaking chimneys and covering all our possesions in a thick layer of soot!