During a period of economic uncertainty "Professor Stephen Miles" (Gary Bayer) visits another college professor "Dr. Carl Klineman" (Malcon McCaiman) after class and learns that the next term has been canceled due to lack of funds. While they are talking an earthquake rattles the office and when Stephen looks up Dr. Klineman is gone. Not knowing what to make of it Stephen decides to drive home but on the way he stops for some groceries. Once there he is shocked to see how badly food prices have suddenly skyrocketed. Not long after arriving home, he and his wife "June Miles" (Alana Rader) decide to drive into the country to visit her father who isn't answering the phone. Along the way they encounter mobs who are rioting and vandalizing property. They also run out of gas and are picked up by a recently hired worker for June's father named "Gary Reed" (Jerry Houser). Although there is no trace of June's father, they do find a young woman hiding in the barn named "Cindy" (Sarah Rush) who tells them that both her mother and father along with June's father have disappeared right before her eyes. It's at this time that they realize that there have been strange disappearances all over the world and they are left to fend for themselves in a world that has become very chaotic. Anyway, rather than disclose the entire story I will just say that this was a pretty good apocalyptic film for its time. The acting was surprisingly good and I especially enjoyed the scenes involving the local sheriff, "Jackson 'Pug' Mckifer" (James Blendick). Still, it was obviously a low-budget production and there were some scenes involving the "Prime Minister" (Michael Amber) which weren't of the highest caliber. I also thought that just one film--lasting only 98 minutes--simply wasn't sufficient to fully address all of the information that is available on this particular subject. As a result certain significant events were condensed for the sake of time or money constraints when they could have easily made 2 or 3 movies out of the material they had. Still, this movie was a valiant effort and I believe the best way to enjoy this particular film is to keep an open mind. Again, this was a decent low-budget movie produced over 30 years ago on a topic that is somewhat controversial. While I don't necessarily accept everything about it, I certainly wouldn't want to denigrate anybody who happens to believe it. That said, I am able to give credit where credit is due and I rate it as slightly above average.

The movie is on a low budget, but well acted and directed. I did not mind the story about a group of people and how the characters react during the rapture. Years of the Beast drags a bit due to low productions values. The plague scenes were short. The story is realistic, I am sure mean peoples true natures will come out in a such hard times. I like how "Years of the Beast" portrays how the state can enter your home, take whatever it wants, and orders the characters pledge their belief in the state. I would not want to live in such hard times. I give "Years of the Beast" an six out of ten. I always wonder why the anti-Christ is portrayed as American?

I saw this movie back in 1982 as well as all of the other Apocalypse movies from that era. There is a good reason why this one gets an overall 7 IMDb rating, which is higher than all the other movies for the time period of this genre. While this movie was definitely low budget and does have a couple of bad "B movie" moments, the overall screen writing, directing and acting are actually pretty good for the low budget they had to work with. Of all the Apocalypse movies from this time period, this is the one to do a remake of. With special effects now being light years ahead of where they were then, as long as the original plot / script were followed and they didn't drown the movie in special effects, this would be a great remake.