Lightdeossk Captivating movie !

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

kevin olzak 1962's "This Is Not a Test" is a rarely seen end of the world melodrama, a fitting and logical conclusion to a decade's worth of such science fiction endeavors. Director Arch Oboler began the sub genre with his 1951 feature "Five," more highbrow efforts such as "The World, the Flesh, and the Devil" and "On the Beach" sharing the screen with more exploitive titles like "Day the World Ended" and "Last Woman on Earth," both from director Roger Corman. By 1962, Ray Milland directed and starred in his own take on the subject, "Panic in Year Zero!" followed by this tiny budgeted effort, which appears to have bypassed any theatrical distribution and gone straight to television (the last word on the 50s era 'end of the world'). It's 4:00 AM, and Deputy Sheriff Dan Colter (Seamon Glass) is assigned to create a road block, stopping traffic somewhere in the Sierra Nevadas. His curt instructions to all the passersby is simply to pull over and wait, and it soon becomes clear that a state of emergency has arisen. Once the red alert is sounded and martial law declared, the sheriff's behavior grows more erratic and unpredictable, keeping events at a good pace and reasonably believable (the story takes place in real time, roughly 72 minutes). Despite the clichéd characterizations expected from such a film, the little known cast does very well indeed, marking this forgotten programmer as a growing cult item. There are a few familiar TV faces among the performers, particularly Thayer Roberts as the elderly farmer, comedic scene stealer Ralph Manza (in rare serious mode), and Michael Greene, making his screen debut as the jive talking Joe (he would star in 1973's "The Clones," another cult film).

drystyx This is more of a stage play than a blockbuster movie, and has the elements of drama that make it rise.It deals with a policeman, or a deputy as he calls himself, armed with shotgun and pistol, performing his duty at a road block. Blindly, he carries out his orders, and seems to be part of a system, but we gradually find he is a tyrant who is making up his own system.It turns out that the road block is because of an impending nuclear strike, and the setting is well over 25 miles away from the city and strategic military centers, but also smack dab in the center of them.The other characters come across as clichés to the naive, but they aren't. In fact, neither is the officer. Unfortunately, this is still the way people panic, trying to appear sensible, but in fact like chickens with their heads cut off. Those who laugh the most at the silliness mark themselves as most likely to crack themselves. Only by facing the reality of Fear can someone hope to be as sensible as the trio who actually have a chance of escaping a horrid fate.SPOILER HERE: Three characters, local people, soon realize the mania of the cop and devise their own survival plan. Two of them obviously survive the ending, and even in 1962 it was obvious they survived. This steps on a lot of people's toes, because these two don't fall into the mode of what modern hate mongering audiences like to see survive, but sorry, those are the facts. This comes across as a very intriguing drama. And the characters only seem far fetched to those who've never been in danger. They are frighteningly realistic. Even the events aren't that far fetched today. This is a highly underrated piece. And the lesson to learn isn't so much how to have a chance to survive disaster (although that is shown also), but how to survive the lunacy of those who have authority.

queun The best thing about this movie was also the best thing about Carnival of Souls. Namely that its lower budget led to hazily filmed, sometimes unclear and murky scenes. In both movies it made the mood creepier, while in the case of This is Not a Test it also gave it something of a documentary feel.One surprising thing about this movie was that it was filmed completely at night, which is an added expense and unusual for such a low budget movie.But to me the most surprising thing was the gratuitous animal cruelty. I'm not referring to the famous strangled puppy scene which took place off camera and was only implied, but to the chicken scene. When the psycho character comes back to discover the truck has left, he takes his anger out on some unfortunate chickens. Besides smashing wooden cages on the ground, releasing REAL chickens, he picks up at least two and smashes them to the ground like an angry child. I've watched the scene several times and they were real chickens. Okay, not earth shattering but an interesting look at something filmmakers will never do again.

Michael_Elliott This Is Not a Test (1961) ** (out of 4) Somewhat cultish film about a group of passengers thrown together as the threat of a nuclear attack causes fear and panic. I had heard several good things about this film but none of the hype really lived up. The film has an ultra low-budget so we never leave this one location, which is good for the story but the director and screenwriter do very little with the characters. They fight, panic and have a little sex throughout the movie as we await the ending to see if the world really does come to an end. When the ending does come, we see what happens to one character yet ever other character is just forgotten including a younger couple who had the most interesting story.