Static Thoughts - Remain Indoors

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As I write this, the world is a scary place.  Fascism is globally on the rise, the ice caps are melting, the incoming President of the US seems shockingly okay with throwing nuclear weapons around like candy- it’s easy to see us marching headfirst into some kind of apocalypse.  Luckily for us, we can at least have a bit of a chuckle at our impending doomsday as the end of times has actually provided quite a bit of fodder for comedy.  

More recently you’ve had hits like The World’s End, or This is the End and even the show Last Man on Earth all trying to find the humor in mankind’s great disaster.  Personally, though, my favorite comedy take on what to expect after humanity experiences its final night comes from the British sketch comedy duo Mitchell and Webb in a reoccurring segment from their 3^rd and 4^th seasons entitled ‘Remain Indoors,’ about a game show being broadcast in the wake of the apocalypse. 

Movie Monthly: On The Beach

Edited by Robert Beach

August Apocalypse has been a slightly more sporadic Movie Monthly. That’s mainly owed to my own hectic schedule keeping me from getting to everything I hoped to touch on. I’m glad that things worked out for me to still be able to touch on the incredible under appreciated 1959 post-apocalyptic classic On The Beach. Directed by the great Stanley Kramer and starring treasured actor Gregory Peck, On The Beach is one of the absolute darkest, harshest and most realistic post-apocalyptic tales you’ll ever see. 

What’s so impressive about this, however, is On The Beach manages its chilling vision of a future after the fall of humanity,but not through the crushing melodrama of Walking Dead or the abject human ugliness of The Road. Instead the heartbreaking tragedy of the situation comes from the acknowledgement of a very simple, but affecting, anxiety at the heart of all post-apocalypse movies: inevitability.  

Movie Monthly - Last Man on Earth

Edited by Robert Beach

In 1954, titan of science fiction Richard Matheson redefined the zombie/apocalypse genre with his horror novel I Am Legend. Even to this day, I Am Legend stands as one of the best examples of both zombie storytelling and post-apocalyptic imagination. Given the impact the novel’s had, it makes sense that it’d see a film adaptation. Most people are probably familiar with the 2007 Will Smith adaptation of the same name. 

Despite the gloss and glamour surrounding that film, it’s actually not very representative of Matheson’s novel; it’s also not the only adaptation of the story. Previously, there was Omega Man, a 1971 film starring Charlton Heston as part of his post-apocalypse trilogy (alongside Soylent Green and Planet of the Apes.) However, the first adaptation of Matheson’s novel was the 1964 Italian horror film The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price, and it is incredible.