A tense and brooding British film about an alien invasion told from the limited perspective of several people of disparate backgrounds who come together in a small English village. The film begins creepily enough with people dropping dead, some at the controls of vehicles, others while waiting for trains or doing other mundane tasks. The characters postulate that it was a gas attack because the survivors who tell their backstories all were cut off from outside air--in a high-altitude aircraft, in an oxygen tent, squatting in a bomb shelter, etc. Some characters are vague about their backgrounds, but none more so than Taggert. He carries a gun, dresses nattily, is highly secretive, and can pick a lock in seven seconds. Some might guess him a hood, but I'm thinking government agent, perhaps MI5. The wholesale death that may encompass all England, perhaps the world, is a prelude to an invasion. Who's behind it? That's a question left to conjecture, both by the characters and the audience. It's a vagueness that, to me, works within the context of the story. This film has some connections unnoticed by IMDb, primarily "The Poison Belt," a Professor Challenger story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in which the world succumbs to a gas zone through which it passes. The second connection is to another Professor Challenger story, "The Earth Screams," echoed in the film title. The theme is also carried in the film "Target Earth" in which several people awaken in a deserted city and are hunted by mechanical invaders. Connections aside, the film is engaging on its own merits and uses its limited budget to good effect. A great example of mid-century B- film science fiction, a last effort to appeal to an adult British audience before film studios realized the age of the average movie-goer was dropping, and dropping quickly.

This is a prime example of how to draw an audience in to a cinematic story . People all across the English countryside suddenly fall dead . Cut to opening credits with a creepy film score then cut to a perplexed survivor driving and stopping at a village strewn with corpses . Something dreadful has happened and the audience know they're going to be watching a spine chilling classic of British cinema For reasons unexplained the producers then decide to ruin the film by .... well not explaining anything . As the story continues we're introduced to one note human characters and eventually robotic villains . Who are these robots ? Obviously they were created by a higher alien intelligence . The aliens it seems can then bring the dead back to life in traditional zombie fashion though this is never explained how or why . Nor is it explained the motives of this invasion . In fact the audience spend so much time asking themselves questions any enjoyment of the film becomes totally negated It's obvious that this movie is movie is produced as a simple B movie to be shown as a precursor to a main feature hence the very short running time . It certainly doesn't suffer from a disjointed feel meaning that the lack of explanation and the all too easy method to defeat the robots comes from script level . This is a pity because if the screenplay especially the exposition and characterization had been developed more then it could have been a classic highly regarded Brit sci-fi movie

Might have been a more accurate title. I've really never understood in these British horror and sci-fi film when all these fantastic things are happening and everyone is so calm about it.The characters being way too calm with the near genocide of the human race aside, this actually is a fairly effective film. The setup is that there is some kind of gas attack and everyone just falls over and dies, save a few characters who happen to be in hermetically sealed situations. So there's a rather effective opening sequence where vehicles crash and people drop dead.The culprits are robots in space suits working for an unseen power. And that's kind of the beauty of the story, you don't know why and it isn't important. The way the characters interact is.Terrance Fisher directed this, and he was one of those directors who could do a lot with a very little, as we would see with many of his Hammer films. He is able to make the hokiest monsters this side of Doctor Who look threatening with music, pacing, camera work and actor reactions. Big budget directors have done far less with far more.

This black & white British sci-fi looks an awful lot like another 1960s British sci-fi film when it begins. Like "Village of the Damned", it begins in a village where suddenly and inexplicably everyone collapses to the ground. However, unlike "Village of the Damned", the people are all dead AND it appears to extend all over the planet! Who is responsible is unknown at first, but when a tiny group of survivors come together it becomes obvious that whatever killed everyone was air-borne. Each survivor had been lucky enough to be away from the air--one in a high-altitude jet, another in an oxygen tent, etc..Soon, the source of all this death is apparent--there are some robot-like aliens walking about the planet. And, when the survivors see them kill one of them, they shoot at the creatures repeatedly--with no effect! In fact, the alien thingies seem completely indifferent to this. What's weirder is that later, the woman they killed comes back to life as a white-eyed zombie!! Soon other white-eyed zombies appear and this does not bode well! Can these folk somehow survive and manage to repel this ruthless invasion? So is this apocalyptic sci-fi drama worth seeing? Well, if you are a fan of sci-fi, then definitely. The movie is amazingly low-key and subtle in its approach--a nice change from the usually loud and in-your-face style of most sci-fi. The only problem is the ending. While not terrible, it did seem to leave too many dangling threads and was far from certain. Still, well done and interesting...and also a lot like "Target Earth" (1954). In fact, both together would make a dandy double-feature.