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Panic in Year Zero!
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray B - United Kingdom - Radiance Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (6th December 2024). |
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The Film
 One weekend, family man Harry (The Uninvited's Ray Milland) drags his wife Anne (Singin' in the Rain's Jean Hagen), son Rick (Horror House's Frankie Avalon), and daughter Karen (Dementia 13's Mary Mitchel) out of bed and into a trailer in anticipation of an idyllic weekend fishing trip. While they are on the road, blinding flashes of light nearly cause them to drive off the road. When they determine that it is neither lightning nor atomic testing, and even the civil defense-dedicated radio stations are off the air, the family first think of heading back home to their family and friends. Upon encountering the reckless mass exodus from Los Angeles and hearing a first-hand account of the blast from a man ('s ) who fled the destruction in his pajamas and resorts to violence when he cannot pay for the gas he bought, Harry decides to abandon the plan and "continue" with their planned trip and hole up in a cave Rick discovered there during their last trip. Harry takes the family off the main highway and into the small towns to take advantage of their ignorance about the situation in securing supplies only for his family to discover just how quickly Harry will shed his civilized exterior when desperate. Their trip is fraught with danger including a trio of looting hoods (Chinatown's Richard Bakalyan, Ma Barker's Killer Brood's Rex Holman, and The Young Savages' Neil Burstyn) and running into the owner of a hardware shop (Attack of the Crab Monsters' Richard Garland) Harry has robbed; but an even greater threat to the family unit comes from within as they begin to reflect on what they have done to survive. With its basic setup, this black-and-white American International production could have been a seventy-odd minute double bill-ready action or science fiction at best and a right-wing fantasy of removing one's children and spouse from outside influences and being the sole font of wisdom for survival, but Panic in Year Zero is more interested in the real life ramifications of its apocalyptic scenario. The fourth of five films directed by actor Milland – who also directed television plays for the major networks as well as an episode of Thriller – based on the pair of stories "Lot" and "Lot's Daughter" by Ward Moore as scripted by Jay Simms – moving up from his more conventional sci-fi beginnings with the likes of The Killer Shrews and The Giant Gila Monster, it might first seem surprising not how quickly the rest of the world descends into chaos but how little of a psychic shock it seems to the family that a nuclear attack happened at all until one recalls that this was the era of "duck and cover" and bomb shelters as Rick and Karen blithely remark that they expected it to happen differently. For a world out of control, the family seem to keep running into the same people; however, this works in the sense of these reappearances as sort of recriminations for the family's actions (including the sense of responsibility Anne professes but Harry justifies abandoning when they try to make peace with another couple and discover they are too late). As quickly as Harry goes into survival mode and as shocking as some of his ruthless behavior is to his family – more so to his wife and daughter than his son who both seems to want to emulate his father but also seems impressed that his mild-mannered father has it in him (making one wonder how Avalon's career would have gone had he been cast in more amoral roles than beach party singalongs) – the film does not go the direction of turning him into a megalomaniac who drives his family away or the ultimate self-sacrifice against intruders. The film instead presents a more complex and contradictory etching of its hero who is torn between being proud of his son's resourcefulness, slyly belittling him to as not to supplant him in authority, and fearful that his son could become "uncivilized" (he tells his son upon arming him with a rifle "I want you to use it but hate it"). However much the film might seem to dramatically justify Harry committing murder, the act itself is still in cold blood and it is here that Harry is overcome with guilt despite removing a danger to his family ("I sought out the worst in people and found it in myself") with a certain degree of chauvinism in thinking his wife should feel less guilty about her own desire to murder the same people either because she did not carry through with it or because she's more emotional. While Karen is largely a shrieking female – rape victim Marilyn (Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter's Joan Freeman) is not only introduced as a love interest for Rick but also problematically more capable than Karen of "moving on" – Anne is the heart of the film saying things that are on the nose but need to be said like "intelligent people don't just turn their backs on the rest of the world" or "I love you, Harry, but not more than a future without hope" and her need to believe in "people who are better than just animals." If the film's resolution seems rushed, if not quite as rapidly as the rebuilding ending of The Day After and only a passing reference to radiation poisoning, Panic in Year Zero "pulls back" but in doing so asks the viewer to reflect on what they might abandon as a justification for survival and question their degree of sincerity or cynicism in their convictions about humanity. 
Video
Released theatrically in the U.S. by American International – who then sent it to television in 1964 before briefly reissuing it theatrically in 1965 as "End of the World" – and in the U.K. by Anglo-Amalgamated (who would have a hand in some of AIP's early mid-sixties British productions), Panic in Year Zero was released to VHS stateside by Orion when they got the American International library through Filmways in a panned-and-scanned transfer and then soon after as a letterboxed laserdisc double feature with The Last Man on Earth (an American International/Italian co-produced adaptation of Richard Matheson's "I am Legend" starring Vincent Price). MGM repeated this double feature when they put the film out on DVD in 2005 – in a new anamorphic transfer but sadly without the isolated music and effects tracks that accompanied both films on laserdisc while the U.K. got a barebones DVD in 2015. The film made its Blu-ray debut in the United States in 2016 followed by French and German editions. Region free viewers who did not pick up the out-of-print U.S. edition will be pleased to discover that Radiance Films' 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray not only features the same HD master but also carries over the extras and adds on a few of their own. While the film's monochrome anamorphic photography – one of the last assignments for veteran cinematographer Gil Warrenton (The Man Who Laughs) who also lensed the dire Operation Bikini for AIP featuring Avalon – is generally slick and professional, the heightened resolution of HD suggests that some of the roadside conversations were not shot with shallow focus but were actually lensed separately from the location work on a sound stage against a blue screen while the much coarser grain of some shots during the car conversations reveals that the scenes were lensed entirely in master shot and then optically "punched in" to vary the coverage (the long takes might have worked on the small screen with more performance-driven projects for Milland but not on group compositions in scope). 
Audio
The sole feature audio option is an LPCM 2.0 mono track which sports clear dialogue and effects. The jazzy scoring of in-house American International composer () is nondescript but appropriately so since it is introduced playing over the car radio and comes back to underline busy sequences without calling attention to itself. Optional English SDH subtitles are also included. 
Extras
Ported from the Kino Lorber Blu-ray is the audio commentary by film critic Richard Harland Smith who discusses the film as both a Cold War artifact in the latter half of the twentieth century and its timelier elements now with "preppers" anticipating everything from the end of the world to the government making them "woke". Smith also discusses the film in the wider context of "bug out" movies. In addition to the history lesson, he also discusses the careers of the cast including Milland as actor, director, and his run of AIP movies. The new interview with writer/critic Kim Newman (20:55) is focused more on Milland's career than the film itself, discussing his transition from extra to leading man to character actor, and revealing that Milland came to American International by way of Roger Corman trying to get away from the studio by independently producing a Poe film The Premature Burial with Milland instead of AIP contract player Price only for American International to buy Corman's company and the film.  Also new to this edition is a 1972 interview with actor Ray Milland (30:31) in which he discusses his career, going from a sharpshooter in The Informer right to a leading man with a screen test for The Flying Scotsman, his subsequent contracts with MGM and Paramount in America, and his observations on working with studios versus independent productions, noting that the former deliver what they promise while the latter are less predictable, more personal, and more interesting. Also ported from the Kino Lorber disc is "Atomic Shock!" (9:10), interview with filmmaker Joe Dante (The Howling) who provides a first-hand account of the fear of nuclear annihilation during the period in which the film was made in addition to an appreciation of the cast and the film. The disc closes with a theatrical trailer (2:23). 
Packaging
This limited edition of 3,000 copies comes with a reversible cover featuring designs based on original posters and a booklet featuring new writing by film critic Christina Newland, and is presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings.
Overall
If the film's resolution seems rushed, Panic in Year Zero "pulls back" but in doing so asks the viewer to reflect on what they might abandon as a justification for survival and question their degree of sincerity or cynicism in their convictions about humanity.
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