Legendary B-movie pioneer Roger Corman made his sturdy directorial debut with this particularly prescient low-budget post-nuke end-of-the-world sci-fi survivalist item, a nifty little programmer which serves as an extremely basic, but still efficient exploitation cinema prototype for many similar features which followed in its influential wake.

A motley group of people -- a rugged, self-reliant scientist father (burly Paul Birch; the pernicious extraterrestrial in Corman's fantastic '57 knock-out "Not of This Earth") and his comely teenage daughter (the lovely Lori Nelson),a stalwart true blue heroic geologist (dashing Richard Denning),a vicious strictly looking out for himself mob hoodlum (a perfectly hateful turn by Michael "Touch" Connors) and his brazen dime-store floozy ex-stripper moll (superbly played to the bold'n'brassy hilt by bosomy blonde broad Adele Jergens),a sweet, boozy elderly gold prospector (amiably doddering Raymond Hatton) and his faithful burro companion, and a gradually going crazy scar-faced half-man, half-mutant fellow (a twitchy Jonathan Haze; the hilariously meek milquetoast protagonist in Corman's cheapskate black comedy horror gem "The Little Shop of Horrors") -- hole up in a remote mountainside bunker immediately after a nuclear war occurs. The eclectic bunch bicker and quarrel with one another over the ever-diminishing supply of limited resources while a huge, ugly, crusty-skinned mutant with telepathic powers, a carnivorous appetite for human flesh, three googly eyes, a gnarled head with horns on top, three-clawed fingers and toes, and a most unpleasant demeanor (50's monster movie make-up expert Paul Blaisdell in an outrageously funky and messed-up suit) stalks the surrounding woodland area with the intent of abducting the luscious, eminently nubile and thus desirable Lori.

Although by today's standards it comes across as really slow and talky, with very little action and a noted emphasis on the increasingly tense interplay between the desperate characters, "The Day the World Ended" all the same still makes for an engrossingly seedy and rough-edged nickel'n'dime doomsday romp. Corman's lean, no-frills straightforward direction treats Lou Rusoff's unusually thoughtful, literate and intelligent script like a tightly constructed acting ensemble piece, with the uniformly sound performances by the tiny, able cast creating a good deal of the film's grungy, cut-to-the-bone effective suspense and relentlessly bleak tone. Jock Feindel's grainy, unadorned black and white cinematography gives the flick a spare, cramped, uncomfortably claustrophobic look while Ronald Stein's eerie, understated, unobtrusive score makes especially unnerving use of the always spacey sounding theremin. The admittedly absurd-looking mutant beast detracts somewhat from the otherwise nicely maintained scruffy verisimilitude, but nonetheless makes for a very cool and suitably menacing monster. The film also deserves praise for its frank, level-headed depiction of how people would act in the event of such a cataclysmic disaster (some would rise nobly to the challenge while others would devolve into savage, greedy animals),the colorfully drawn characters, Corman's sharply observant, non-judgmental point of view, its atmospheric handling of the desolate, mist-shrouded forest location, and an ambiguously "happy" ending. Overall, this modest trend-setting outing rates as pretty solid, if scrappy two-cent fun.

If you were to pick folks to hopefully populate the world again as the new Adams and Eves the group from Day The World Ended would not be selected as a typical gene pool. But they are an interesting crew to entertain us for 79 minutes in a typical Roger Corman low budget film.

This futuristic look after the Apocalypse was shot on a shoestring and it shows, but Corman was a master at stretching things. A valley where Paul Birch and his daughter Lori Nelson have their ranch seems to have escaped the holocaust and some folks have arrived there for shelter that include an escaped convict Michael Connors and his moll stripper Adele Jergens, geologist Richard Denning, old prospector Raymond Hatton, and a strange man who has a taste for the radiated flesh of the dead animals around played by Paul Dubov.

Birch has a lot of supplies stored away probably he would be considered a survivalist today, but this is not a crew to think of the larger picture. Both Connors and Denning make a play for Nelson and Jergens is feeling rather frustrated. And there are some nasty mutant beings hanging around, but strangely not entering the valley.

Day The World Ended is a bit better than some of the low budget science fiction from the Fifties. The characters if not original are indeed entertaining.

Roger Corman could stretch a dollar better than most.

The film begins by telling the viewers that there was an all-out nuclear war and almost all the people on the planet are dead. However, a small number of survivors happen upon a home built in a perfect location to avoid nuclear contamination--and coincidentally, they all arrive one after the other within about two minutes! There are some serious problems, though, that hinder their survival. The most pressing is that there just isn't enough food for all of them. Also, there is a contaminated man who has somehow survived but has mutated into a vampire-like thing. But the worst are bizarro monsters--the sort of bug-eyed one that naturally were created by radiation! Will these folks somehow survive? And, given that several of them are complete idiots, do we even want them to?!

Among the humans is a total sleaze-bag played by Mike "Touch" Connors (of "Mannix" fame). He constantly is threatening the others, acting like a thug and ogling the pretty young lady who wants nothing to do with him. My question, then, is why didn't they just shoot this guy?! At one point, he tries to take the leader's gun and then promises to kill them--yet they do nothing! So, he tries it again later--yet they do nothing! He even attempts to rape one of the women and murders another. You'd think that enough would be enough!! His character is simply a very broad caricature of a hoodlum--too broad. And, the rest of the folks are simply too stupid to live! In addition to Mr. Mannix, the contaminated guy develops a taste for fresh, raw meat and begins talking about the deaths of everyone there at his hand or those of his new 'friends'! Once again, you'd think they would just shoot this guy!

In many ways, this plot is a lot like the plot from the Vincent Price film "The Last Man on Earth"--but with stupid bug-eyed monsters. It's the normal survivors versus the mutants. Now that I think about it, it's also a bit like the horrible "Robot Monster"! The end result is quite stupid, though considering the film was made in only nine days on a shoestring budget, it isn't too bad--plus it has a certain kitsch value. It also had a few cool scenes--such as when Connors tosses one of them off a cliff! The basic idea wasn't bad, but shabby writing and a dumb monster sink this film.