The Quiet Earth (1985)
What an interesting little hidden gem. Well almost a gem. Simple concept - man wakes up one morning and is apparently the only human alive on Earth. Not just human, only being alive since all animals, insects etc. is gone too. Strangely though, he doesn’t seem overly surprised by this, and the phenomenon clearly has something to do with his work on some secret science project.
It is, no surprise, a somewhat quiet movie. It has the atmosphere of a zombie apocalypse movie, except without the zombies. Doesn’t mean it isn’t scary, just in a different way as things start to unravel.
Overall, the movie has a very literary feel to it and I wasn’t surprised to see it was based on a novel. Though not by any author I have heard of, it has an aura that I get from many classic science fiction stories from the 60s and 70s.
The strong elements of this movie is its script and location shots. Really impressive how deserted they have made everything feel. Just unfortunate that the acting isn’t quite up to the same standard, otherwise this could have been really great.
Rating: 4