The Andromeda Strain

Released in 1971, directed by Robert Wise
Starring James Olson, Arthur Hill, David Wayne

Scary, beautiful, and daring, The Andromeda Strain has a reputation for impeccable acting, storyline, and set design. While the plot of a virus that wipes everyone out save a select few who are mysteriously immune may sound as cliche as gets, this is probably the movie by which most others of that plot get their inspiration. Where 'A Boy and His Dog' inspired Mad Max, 'The Andromeda Strain' is equally influential and essential to not just the PA sub-genre, but to the Sci-Fi genre as a whole.

See, until the seventies, most sci-fi thrillers depended on bigger and bigger monsters to scare the crowd, and huge slabs of budget would be fed to these often gaudy and usually terribly designed beasts that made the movie more of a laugh-fest than a thriller. The Andromeda Strain stands the test of time and avoids feeling too dated because it succeeded in bringing a very realistic and frightening killer to the big screen: a virus. And not just any virus, but an alien life form that is so small it can only be seen by an electron microscope(which in th 70s, were pretty bulky and intimidating instruments in themselves, and leave it to the great director to surround these instruments with an equally intimidating super-lab called Wildfire).

The imagery is cold, isolating, with lots of air and space typical of seventies environments, and you really get that sense of, shit, if we don't fix this, we really will be the only ones left, and for how long no one can say.

The film is based on a story by Michael Crichton(Jurassic Park), and it's reputation marks it to Crichton as Carrie to Stephen King. So a space crew returns to Earth from a successful mission, and people start dropping like flies. Turns out they brought back something very deadly. Soon, the landscape looks like Jonestown and everyone is dead except a grumbling old alcoholic and an infant. These two are brought into the massive Wildfire Laboratory, which was built specifically for such a purpose. The casting was reportedly a determined move to avoid including too many big names and go with actors who could deliver the kind of suspense and tension this movie really needed to avoid imploding in on itself in a storm of pretentiousness. Indeed, between the great acting, Wise's direction, incredible art direction by William Tuntke(Mary Poppins, Buck Rodgers), and the palpable tension and pacing, I promise this will instantly become one of your favorite seventies films right alongside A Clockwork Orange and Serpico. It's film done right.

There was a TV series remake of this in 2008 that may or may not totally suck. So be sure you're buying the one from 1971 with the cover above, not the cover below.









This is the 2008 TV remake. Be sure you're buying the right one!

A Boy and His Dog

Released in 1975 Directed by L.Q. Jones
Starring Don Johnson, Jason Robards, Susanne Benton.

Considered one of the essential movies of the PA genre, A Boy and His Dog features one of the greatest challenges in filmmaking, or acting. That is, a lone character must carry most of the movie by himself. Fortunately it doesn't put you to sleep the way Will Smith did forty years later.

Based on the novel "A Walk in the Sun", Vic and his dog wander about a post-nuclear wasteland scrounging up whatever food they can find, and Vic being about seventeen or so, looking for any sexual relief he can get (with a human, not the dog). He seems to be psychically linked to the dog, providing some great comic relief, and the pacing is well played enough that it doesn't get too boring. The two have a deal for survival. Vic finds the dog food, and the dog finds vic some pussy. it's like Fin and Jake without the subtlety.

Eventually Vic comes across a girl who spreads out for him and brings him to a random door in the desert, you know, the kind that someone was nice enough to pop up in the middle of nowhere with nothing around it. What could be behind the door? It could be dangerous and full of giant rats, it could be a new car! No, it's stairs. Stairs that lead down, way down underground to a community of painfully old-fashioned white people who have locked themselves under the Earth with lotsa of makeup in a sort of creepy uber-religious 1950s existence and having never allowed themselves above ground, have become sterile. Well the men have. So Vic is offered the chance of a lifetime. Stay with the freaky deakies and fuck all their girls to continue the human population. At least, they assume they're the only ones left, by the arrogance of most religious fanatics they're convinced they must be right. Vic accepts, but it's not quite what it seems.

Definitely a classic of sci-fi movies, and apparently the biggest influence of Mad Max, the crown jewel of all PA films. So if you're a fan of the genre, you kind of have to see this before you can claim the title.