THE DAY TIME STOPPED!

(1978)
Dir. by Charles Band
Star: Jim Davis, Dorothy Malone, Chris Mitchum
(and a lot of really cool monsters!)

This almost unknown sci-fi potboiler from the late ‘70s bears more resemblance to the work of Pedro Almodovar (“El Topo”) than to the kind of stuff that played drive-ins in the late pre-video/pre-cable world of 1978—and that’s good!!! Directed by Charles Band, in an unusually light and fast-moving style, with outstanding performances by the veteran cast, this film is truly a rare pearl found among a dungheap of cinematic swine.

Imagine David Lynch and Ray Harryhausen co-directing a film based on a screenplay by Ed Wood—and you come kind of close to understanding the discombobulated and incoherent intensity of this camp masterpiece!

OK, so Jim Davis is this really hip grampa in polyester slacks and he’s just constructed this completely solar-powered home somewhere in the high desert for his family and his grown daughter, son-in-law and grand-daughter. But when they all arrive at the place…whoooooah! The inside of the new home has been trashed! The teenage son, kind of on the porky side, immediately blames the local bikers, but nothing is stolen.

Also, the little granddaughter is acting weird because she’s found this gigantic glowing green pyramid which has swallowed up her pony. Then it barfs back the pony and gets real small, so she uses it for a necklace. Meanwhile, the house gets hit by weird electrical storms (which look like they’re animated, since this movie was decades before CGI) and a little humonclues (a small man) appears to the granddaughter and the grandma and does a weird, constipated space ballet for them.

Then a rather pathetic Star Trek type plastic model (obviously suspended by strings) follows everyone who goes outside the house around and threatens to vaporize them. Of course, the phones are acting funny and the electricity all goes out. Jim Davis goes into this knee-jerk reaction of pulling out his pistol and taking some shots at the weird model, but of course, his weapon is useless (hasn’t he seen any sci-fi movies before?). Grandmother Dorothy Malone, still looking awfully attractive in middle-age, gets kind of panicky and concerned, while Grampa just gets grumpy and looks constipated for most of the movie. But the little girl is the key and she befriends the weird aliens.

At this point, things really start to get incoherent! With absolutely no explanation or rationalization, two Japanese-style giant monsters (one of which looks like Godzilla, Jr., from the Son of Godzilla movie) start to fight it out in the family’s backyard. Then a weird dragon invades the barn, but grandpa pitch forks him in the head and, man, that makes him mad! Remember, Alka-Seltzer works faster and better!

Events continue to escalate at a dyspeptic and dizzying pace, defying all logical theories about plots, themes, and generally accepted theories of filmmaking, until “The Day Time Stopped” starts to resemble what would happen if “El Topo, The Mole,” met “Mars Invades Puerto Rico” and they had a baby!

The film contains absolutely no humor, but is immensely campy and perfectly suited to home-viewing by baby-boomer film buffs who are consuming alcohol. Coming in at just over 70 or so minutes, the hits just keep on coming! And if that isn’t enough, the ending has that “we’ve run out of money, so film the ending—today!” feeling, and it’s complete lack of linear or thematic continuity make “Santa Claus Conquers The Martians” look like an advanced course in Logic. No matter how many bad Grade-Z movies you’ve seen, you haven’t seen enough until you’ve watched “The Day Time Stopped!”