Starring Robert Clarke, Darlene Tompkins, Arianne Ulmer, Vladimir Sokoloff, Stephen Bekassy
Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
After a test flight into space, the pilot returns to Earth, only to find he's traveled 64 years into the future, and the world is now a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Low-budget auteur Edgar G. Ulmer works his magic yet again, this time in the science fiction genre, delivering a pretty entertaining offering despite financial limitations. The bulk of the film takes place in "The Citadel," an underground complex housing Earth's last survivors, which was apparently filmed on state fairgrounds in Texas, with production designer Ernst Fegte adding diamond shaped ornamentation to the walls and ceilings to make the settings seem futuristic. Per Wikipedia, distributor American International Pictures also cuts in footage from Fritz Lang's Indian Tomb films to make the army of mutants kept out of the Citadel seem much more expansive. Robert Clarke, star of The Incredible Petrified World and The Hideous Sun Demon, who produced the film, appears as our hero, Major William Allison, and gives a good performance as the noble test pilot. He's well supported by the always dignified Vladimir Sokoloff as the complex's leader, Darlene Tompkins as a deaf-mute mind reader he falls for, and Ulmer's own daughter Arianne as one of a trio of scientists from the past kept prisoner. Darrell Calker contributes a nice score with a noble march to represent Allison, Universal horror's Jack Pierce supplies some important makeups, and Arthur C. Pierce's screenplay offers a unique twist on what caused civilization's demise on Earth. It's far from a great film, but I certainly found it enjoyable.
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