I would have rated this film with 1 star, but it got an additional 1 for Lloyd Nolan's brave performance as a security officer and an extra 1/2 for Ida Lupino as a shrewish wife, and an extra 1/2 for Ralph Meeker's role as a truculent drunk bad dad.
But the MUSIC! Oh my God. The music. The horrible synthesizer music bubbling away like little rodential heartbeats as we are supposed to feel fear, tension, drama, interest, or some other emotion which we cannot feel because the music is popping like popcorn farts! Oh, Lord have mercy. If you are the kind of person who can't take bad music, please, be cautious -- the sound track may damage your internal organs.
Also this film is a wasteland of bad late 1970s architecture, as it was filmed right before Post-Modern architecture saved us all from architectural cultural suicide. Just keep reciting your mantra, "Later on there would be good architecture. This was not the end of the world." Oh, and there's this insane fainting-gas stuff. The teens buy it at the local convenience store, no doubt. Another reviewer suggested the idea came from "Batman." I concur.
And i will offer a sparkly reward to anyone who can tell me the name of the book that Ida Lupino is reading on her bed when Ralph Meeker comes home after a long day in the armoured car industry. My TV was too small to zero in on it, but i have the feeling that if i could have read that title, i would have been rewarded by some sort of fabulous in-joke. Or maybe not.
Lloyd Nolan is okay. Ida Lupino is okay. Ralph Meeker is okay. The rest of this movie is insanely useless except to people who want to watch cars crash into one another over and over and over and over again.
