Poseidon-3 Review of In the Year 2889

In the Year 2889 (1969 TV Movie)

Well, the world's destroyed. Last one in the pool's a rotten egg!

[6 February 2007]

Despite the film's title, in the year 1967, a nuclear holocaust erupts, leaving a young lady (Doherty) and her retired naval officer father Fletcher in one of the very few unaffected areas of the U.S. It seems Fletcher had been prepping for the big day and deliberately built his home in a valley that is surrounded by lead and has an updraft that prevents radiation from falling on them. What he didn't foresee was the endless parade of interlopers who keep knocking on the door! He is reluctant to let them in but Doherty is either lonely, since her fiancé was lost in the destruction, or otherwise feels obligated to take the others in. This despite the fact that the strangers include a common thug (Feagin), his stripper girlfriend (O'Hara), a local drunk (Thurman), a chain-smoking young man (Peterson) and his radiation-drenched brother (Anderson)! The seven, seemingly sole survivors on earth, set up housekeeping at Fletcher's pad, but have trouble getting along and also frequently fret about whether it will rain or not, thus dousing them with deadly radiation. Fletcher waddles around with a detector, checking to make sure everything is under 50. As the static, trite (this was based on a 1955 film script called "The Day the World Ended") film continues, Peterson, who hasn't brought a change of clothes but seems to have brought a year's supply of Lucky Strikes, and Fletcher speculate about their fate and, fortunately for the male audience members, open up the pool so that the ladies can have a swim! Sadly, there's a hideous deformed mutant living in the woods who likes to watch them. Also, Anderson becomes increasingly odd, craving raw meat and lurching around the woods in search of it. The personal relationships begin to unravel just as the mutant decides to start killing people, but, predictably, there is still an Adam and Eve left at the end. Former child-star Peterson gives a stilted, dull, expressionless performance in the film. He wouldn't move much at all if it weren't for his nonstop cigarette smoking. What's sad is that he is one of the better actors! O'Hara adds some much-needed pulchritude and zip to this bland affair and Doherty isn't too bad, though she's a far cry from her role as a wise-cracking preteen in "Take Her, She's Mine." The badge of acting dishonor has to go to the sleep-inducing awfulness of Fletcher, who is given far too much to say and do in the film. His type should always be relegated to a supporting role. Anderson is actually quite ruggedly-handsome if not for his radiation scars and his penchant for going out in the woods to eat animals raw! It's a tacky, $4.13 production with occasional unintentional laughs, but not enough of them to warrant sitting through it.