The Quiet Earth

1985 "The End of the World is Just the Beginning"
6.7| 1h31m| R| en| More Info
Released: 18 October 1985 Released
Producted By: Cinepro
Country: New Zealand
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

After a top-secret experiment misfires, a scientist may be the only man left alive in the world.

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Reviews

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
Jemima It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.
Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
dungeonstudio The movie starts off with a seemingly hot sunrise, and to a naked man asleep on his bed. The bedside clock reads 6:11, and for a brief moment there's a flash and weird shift to time and space. At 6:12, the man awakes somewhat confused and bewildered, but gets ready to begin his day. On his way to work, he notices there is nary a soul around. Vehicles are abandoned in the middle of the street, and a fiery plane crash with no one on the scene in way of survivors or rescuers. He makes his way to his work at a research facility with a large satellite dish, only to find in it's emptiness that the computers confirm that 'Operation Flashlight' has been initiated. So how did it go so wrong? And why was this man named Zack the sole survivor? On the surface, the movie deals with Zack's attempts to find other humans that may have survived, while enjoying the wealth and recklessness he can experience by having everything to himself. After brief insanity over his isolation, Zack straightens himself out to study where this project went wrong, and study the effects it may still be causing to time and space on the planet, if not the whole universe. And then a young woman appears. Happy to find another living being, the two set out to find more. And come across a macho native Mari. Needless to say, jealousy and contempt soon follow for the three, while at the same time effects from this mass project may eradicate them and the rest of the universe as well. As a romantic drama, with a little bit of sci-fi thrown in, it's not a bad movie. But on a deeper level dealing with psychological fantasy and/or insanity, the movie is more lasting. Are any of these characters really 'alive', or did they bring the others into the fold due to desperation and atonement? Is 'purity' that pure? Is 'savage' that savage? Can we ever live by ourselves with the choices we make and God's will around us? On that level, the movie bodes much better. It doesn't answer things any clearer, but makes the viewer think more for longer after. And I think that's why it has such staying power to this day.
Dalbert Pringle The way I see it - All that "The Quiet Earth" comes down to being is just a poor man's version of "I Am Legend".Even though the release dates between these 2 films is 22 years apart, with The Quiet Earth coming out way back in 1985, long before I Am Legend, it's still impossible not to compare these 2 films, right down the their very last details.Yes, "Earth" and "Legend" certainly do contain a lot of similarities in their plot-lines, etc., but, just the same, there are definitely some notable differences between these 2 films, as well. For instance, The Quiet Earth's story takes place in New Zealand, while I Am Legend's location is NYC.Note: The remainder of this review may contain spoilers.It's at The Quiet Earth's big, climatic finale where this film loses significant points, all due to a technical problem that was quite visibly evident when it came to the presentation of the particular scene.Whoever it was that set up this final, all-important shot certainly wasn't paying very close attention to what they were doing when it came to keeping all of the imagery as still as possible. And so, as a result of this neglect, the dramatic background matte-images of the planet Saturn as it slowly rises up over Earth's ocean horizon fluctuates rapidly at an alarming rate, which is quite easily noticeable to the naked-eye.This whole faulty technical blooper was not only incredibly annoying, but it completely ruined the otherwise awesome effect of this scene, reducing what was basically a fairly good film to the level of something quite disappointing and extremely amateurish.
Smoreni Zmaj Man wakes up and everything is somehow strange, but it takes some time until he realizes that everybody else is gone and he seems to be the last man on Earth. In first part of the movie we go with him through all psychological phases, through madness till he finally takes over control and tries to reorganize. I saw few movies with this kind of plot and it seems to me this one is the most realistic. Then plot thickens and speeds up and magical atmosphere of this movie slowly fades. Still, movie keeps your attention and its quality almost to the very end. Ending scene... I did not understand it at all and I had a feeling as they took the ending of some other movie and simply stick it to this one. It feels completely wrong. I guess what they wanted to accomplish with it, but to me it spoiled impression of this movie as a whole and it lowered my rating to7/10.
tom-spring51 I cant believe I'd never heard of this before, and it took so much digging around to find! A nice, original, apocalypse movie, about the last man on earth. It captures the loneliness so well, but doesn't overdo it. My only complaint might be its management of time. It feels like the time it takes for things to get a little odd might be a bit short, and so, while in hindsight I realise there probably was a gap, while watching it I felt a little like it just tried to skip the slow progression to it. To avoid spoilers, I'll tell that that by a little odd, I don't mean a shift in the plot. I mean for the affects of loneliness to take its toll. And to top it all off, an amazing OST to match. I really cannot recommend this movie more, and it is terribly underrated.