Grindhouse 2 The Day Time Ended DVD Review

Written by Sharon Davies

DVD released by 88 Films

Directed by John ‘Bud’ Cardos
Written by Wayne Schmidt, J. Larry Carroll and David Schmoeller
1979, 79 Mins, Rated PG (UK)
DVD Released on 11th February 2013.

Starring:
Jim Davis as Grant
Dorothy Malone as Ana
Christopher Mitchum as Richard
Marcy Lafferty as Beth
Scott Kolden as Steve
Natasha Ryan as Jenny

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Review:

The movie opens with the Williams family driving to their home after returning from a holiday, not exactly a traditional maisonette, but a solar powered house in the middle of the desert. The family consists of Grandparents, their son, daughter and husband plus their granddaughter and a couple of random ponies. So other than the fact that they are living in the middle of nowhere, nothing seems odd… except for a massive green glowing pyramid in the garden.

This alien-like triangle of mystery or GMT (Glowing Massive Triangle) is initially only seen by Jenny the granddaughter who, after hugging it (well that’s the first thing I’d do) and pocketing it (fear not, it handily shrinks), it would seem has been granted the power to control things with her mind. Cue the first lot of odd goings on.

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From here further mental incidents occur such as UFOs in the sky, a tiny green alien dancing in Jenny’s room, an angry camera-looking alien and two duelling giant monsters. All of this madness then causes a storm, which shoots the family and their house to an alien world and to their destiny on the day that time ended!!!

So the first thing to note is that this is a Seventies film, so with this in mind ignore the flared trousers, the over blow-dried hair, the cheesy as hell acting and the absolutely awful special effects. If any of you have seen old school star trek, especially episodes where Captain Kirk fights green fish monsters, then this lives in a similar place, although Kirk was cool enough to try and battle said monsters. This family just does a lot of staring and shrugging so on the cool scale they come nowhere near.

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The acting is OK, again very much old school Little House on the Prairie style, but all that smiling and togetherness made me want just one of them to be eaten by the Godzilla monster.

As for any form of horror, forget it. This is a basic sci-fi movie with literally nothing to be horrified about other than the special effects.

The storyline is pretty bad, lots of pointless scenes and lots of odd directions. Once minute I’m settled with the fact that the GMT has come to take the family to another planet, next minute there’s a plastic Godzilla in the mix. It just left me with a lot of head scratching and a desire for my day to actually end.

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That’s another thing, time doesn’t actually bloody end in this film, they just get shifted to another planet. I should complain under the trade descriptions act.

FYI if this happened to me, I would be mashing the GMT like a dairylea triangle and protecting my solar powered home Ripley (Alien) style, not worrying more about my Saturday Night Fever hairstyle. Aliens you have been warned.

Video and Audio:

The era of this film really screams out to you here, the music is cheesy and over the top. It actually gets in the way of the scenes more than it helps. A lot of the dialogue seems dubbed and lacks environment noise.

The Video is slightly blurry and dated, but everything is clear and easy to watch. The special effects do seem to get in the way of the visuals quite often and never really allowed me to be sucked into the film. I was watching a man-made story and boy did I know it.

Special Features:

Two special features to this disc:

Full Moon Trailer Park: 10 trailers to wet your appetite here, T1: Sorority Babes T2: Puppetmaster T3: The Dead Want Women T4: Puppetmaster II T5: Tourist Trap T6: Zombies vs Strippers T7: The Pit and the Pendulum T8: Puppetmaster III T9: Castle Freak T10: Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death..wth? BEST MOVIE NAME EVER!! lol

Stills Gallery: this includes pictures of video covers, posters, reviews and also some pictures of the monster making / motion capture process.