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Chosen Survivors (1974)
Topic Started: Mar 31 2013, 10:18 PM (186 Views)
Laughing Gravy
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Prior to watching this thing, I assumed it was either a made-for-TV movie or a made-for-TV movie released theatrically. Why did I assume that? Well, it stars Jackie Cooper, Diana Muldaur, Bradford Dillman, Alex Cord, and Richard Jackel, not exactly your all-star cast, now, is it? Director Sutton Roley was almost exclusively a TV director, everything from Lost in Space to Mannix. As it turns out, this thing DID get a theatrical release, and if it was planned for TV, they sure added a lot of curse words to it before dumping it on the big screen.

Well, so, anyway.... Mankind has been devastated by nuclear war, and a group of 11 individuals have been hand-picked to go live far beneath the earth's surface in a special shelter built for just this purpose. They're not alone down there, though: some vicious vampire bats have moved into the space and, well, they don't like canned beans very much, so they start munching on humans.

This is not a good movie, it's very low budget (the "underground bunker" looks a lot like a hallway in a modern office building) and the special effects are mainly a lot of cartoon bats. In fact, this movie is a lot like The Birds, only, well, you know, not as good. And with bats. And set in an underground office hallway.

The big problem is that in a 94 min. running time, nobody (the writer, producer, director) could come up with a villain. For a while, it's Jackie Cooper, but come on - HE can't be the villain. So then it's Brad Dillman for a while, but he turns out to be simply clueless. So they finally just decide it's the bats, man.

As it turns out, there is no nuclear holocaust: it's all a government ruse to test some random citizens to see how they make out down there. So there is some half-assed governmental criticism thrown into the mix, too. And frustration from our sorry gang, as they can't get the government to actually let them free.

As for the bats, there's a lot of closeups of their ugly little faces (well, I think they're ugly, you might not, I know how you are) and there's a lot of blood in this film and a little gore and several bodies and a lot of dead birds (don't ask) but as mentioned, mainly it's cartoons.

Not a good movie, but not without interest. If it were on the late show and there was nothing else on to watch, it would hold your attention, probably.

It was released on DVD by Fox (it's a Columbia picture, though, and at one point they're down there in their cave watching It Happened One Night for recreation) as a double-feature with The Earth Dies Screaming, which I liked better.
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