This movie has to be seen to be believed. And that's pretty much the only thing about it that I could recommend to others.
It's shameless godsploitation intended to terrify its audience into submission, thereby converting them to Christianity. For all intents and purposes it's two short films spliced into a single almost-feature-length movie (52 minutes): Film 1 - tedious shots of Estus W. Pirkle preaching to Judy Creech and an otherwise bored audience (during the ending funeral scene, a woman in the background is clearly asleep through the entire shot), and Film 2 - poorly filmed and acted depictions of the horrors of the coming invasion by communists with fluctuating accents. Though the whole thing was filmed in the South, I challenge you to spot a single black person anywhere in the film, despite the fact that the South has a large African American population.
There is little attention to detail. A communist transport truck is clearly some redneck's personal truck, as a gun rack is easily seen in the rear windshield. The communist uniforms look like cheap army surplus uniforms with hammer and sickle armbands made from construction paper. The NUMEROUS dead bodies--many of them children--are just people with red syrup splattered on random parts of their bodies with no regard for where their wounds might be. When people are shot (with no flash or smoke from the gun muzzle) they kneel carefully to the ground rather than drop like any normal gunshot victim would. A news program uses cheap aluminum siding and a random map of the Mediterranean as its background. And in the most hilarious scene, a communist soldier with a Tennessee accent decapitates a mannequin of an 8 year old.
The only thing that looks real is a scene where a child is tortured to the point of vomiting. It looks real because, as far as I can tell, they really did gag the kid and he really did vomit. Classy. And that's not the only example of obvious child endangerment in the production of this movie--there's a scene where several men on horseback charge precariously close to children plodding through a knee-deep creek. I don't trust Ron Ormond's directorial skills enough to believe that he didn't actually endanger those children.
The propaganda is shameless. Basically everything that would be considered "new" to a backwards hick in 1971 is part of the commie takeover (integrated public schools, recent scientific developments, dancing, drive in theaters, sex education, Saturday morning cartoons, etc.) The commie takeover scenes are drenched with the blood of children, while the preaching scenes revolve around a young woman being guilted into Christianity by the death of her mother (played by an actress so decrepit that it's nearly impossible to understand what she's saying). All of this is punctuated by laughable close ups of Cecil Scaife's face, Estus Pirkle's paranoid god-babble, and Judy Creech's overacting.
The movie ends with Judy breaking down in tears over the death of her mother, and Estus Pirkle converting her to Christianity in a manner that even most cult leaders would find creepy, exploitative and manipulative ("Your mother wanted you to surrender your soul to Him, Judy"). This is depicted with such a heavy hand and in such a sanctimonious manner that you can't help but laugh.
But after you laugh, take a somber moment to realize that there really are people out there who believe this insane nonsense with all their hearts. That should make you more afraid than anything depicted in the movie.
It's shameless godsploitation intended to terrify its audience into submission, thereby converting them to Christianity. For all intents and purposes it's two short films spliced into a single almost-feature-length movie (52 minutes): Film 1 - tedious shots of Estus W. Pirkle preaching to Judy Creech and an otherwise bored audience (during the ending funeral scene, a woman in the background is clearly asleep through the entire shot), and Film 2 - poorly filmed and acted depictions of the horrors of the coming invasion by communists with fluctuating accents. Though the whole thing was filmed in the South, I challenge you to spot a single black person anywhere in the film, despite the fact that the South has a large African American population.
There is little attention to detail. A communist transport truck is clearly some redneck's personal truck, as a gun rack is easily seen in the rear windshield. The communist uniforms look like cheap army surplus uniforms with hammer and sickle armbands made from construction paper. The NUMEROUS dead bodies--many of them children--are just people with red syrup splattered on random parts of their bodies with no regard for where their wounds might be. When people are shot (with no flash or smoke from the gun muzzle) they kneel carefully to the ground rather than drop like any normal gunshot victim would. A news program uses cheap aluminum siding and a random map of the Mediterranean as its background. And in the most hilarious scene, a communist soldier with a Tennessee accent decapitates a mannequin of an 8 year old.
The only thing that looks real is a scene where a child is tortured to the point of vomiting. It looks real because, as far as I can tell, they really did gag the kid and he really did vomit. Classy. And that's not the only example of obvious child endangerment in the production of this movie--there's a scene where several men on horseback charge precariously close to children plodding through a knee-deep creek. I don't trust Ron Ormond's directorial skills enough to believe that he didn't actually endanger those children.
The propaganda is shameless. Basically everything that would be considered "new" to a backwards hick in 1971 is part of the commie takeover (integrated public schools, recent scientific developments, dancing, drive in theaters, sex education, Saturday morning cartoons, etc.) The commie takeover scenes are drenched with the blood of children, while the preaching scenes revolve around a young woman being guilted into Christianity by the death of her mother (played by an actress so decrepit that it's nearly impossible to understand what she's saying). All of this is punctuated by laughable close ups of Cecil Scaife's face, Estus Pirkle's paranoid god-babble, and Judy Creech's overacting.
The movie ends with Judy breaking down in tears over the death of her mother, and Estus Pirkle converting her to Christianity in a manner that even most cult leaders would find creepy, exploitative and manipulative ("Your mother wanted you to surrender your soul to Him, Judy"). This is depicted with such a heavy hand and in such a sanctimonious manner that you can't help but laugh.
But after you laugh, take a somber moment to realize that there really are people out there who believe this insane nonsense with all their hearts. That should make you more afraid than anything depicted in the movie.