Doomwatch (1972)

The Worst Film Ever

Captivating movie !

Brilliant and touching

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Ian Bannen stars in the big screen version of the British TV show concerning a British government organization that keeps an eye on the effects of pollution. After an oil spill Bannen is sent to check out a small island where an isolated fishing community lives. Once he arrives he finds he's not welcome and that something weird is going on. Is it related to the spill or the near by naval dumping site ("Its just low level radiation, nothing to worry about")? Will Bannen get out of there alive? I've wanted to see this film for decades thanks to pictures of the deformities that appeared in horror film books. Now that I've seen the film I'm not sure why its classified as a horror film. Mostly this is a slow plodding procedural and by the numbers thriller as Bannen tries to figure out what is going on and the taking steps to help the people. There is in actuality only about an hours worth of plot which they stretch to 90 minutes. Other than the location filming this is pretty much the classic example of a TV episode blown up for the big screen with too little plot stretched to fill too much time. The result is a rather dull film. Perhaps watching this with commercials it might have been better but curled up with the lights off I found my attention wandering.Disappointing. (and the low level radiation remark was made by Bannen who knew that couldn't possibly be the problem- so much for 1972 science)

Being a fan of the 1970's BBC 'Doomwatch' series, I had always wanted to see this film but never got the chance. At Last I caught it on the TV the other day and I have to say I felt let down. Obviously money was in short supply and the production values were not noticeably better than the TV version, but at least the story was far more low-key and thoughtful than most of the horror/sci-fi films we have to suffer. I found myself constantly comparing it to some of Nigel Kneale's output, and in many ways it stood up quite well. One final point - I wonder how John Paul (the main character in the BBC version) felt at having to play a rather distant second fiddle to the 'star' Ian Bannen?

This one feels a lot like the beginning of Wickerman, with out all the singing.An investigator from Doomwatch, goes to an island to investigate strange occurrences and come up against a wall of close mouthed villagers. He picks up hints that all is not well.Monsters. Monsters!Now this movie was made in 1972, and follows a British TV show of the same. (Which of course desperately needs a US DVD release.) Oddly, the Environmental cause for some of the things, is Genetically Engineered Food. A current Hot Potato Political Topic that has Industry Giants spending Millions of Dollars to quash any Ballot Initiatives for Food Labeling. On the other side, Nuclear Waste is briefly used as a red herring, but Nobody, and I mean Nobody, seems worried about Nuclear Waste.A Cool and Fun movie, just slightly on the weak side.

Whenever I want to watch a late-night BBC movie, I always check the IMDb site first to find out if it is worth to stay up for. At first I had my doubts about this one, but I'm certainly glad to have seen it.Without being patronizing, idealistic or action filled, this movie is the most realistic movies about the environment. Some might say it lacks gore and monsters, but that is not the point of this film. It has interesting twists and turns and the characters all are reacting very unexpected. Again, this may confuse the average Sylvester Stallone fan, but for me it was very pleasant to see a movie with intelligent plot. The movie could be seen as some thriller/horror crossover, but the strange thing about this one is that the story isn't about zombies and that it has a unsatisfying ending, which is good. No pointing fingers, no big stormy weather scenes and no action hero stuff. If you hated "The day after tomorrow", you'll like this one. Cause this one might prove that environmentalists aren't always right...I give this one a 8/10