As a new star and planet hurtle toward a doomed Earth, a small group of survivalists frantically work to complete the rocket which will take them to their new home.
When Worlds Collide won the 1952 Oscar for best special effects, and its easy to see why. This movie is, from start to finish, absolutely breathtaking. The models, the matte paintings, the vibrant color palette, the realistic effects; it’s such a criminally overlooked sci-fi classic that I’d go so far as to place it in the same class as Forbidden Planet, War of the Worlds and The Day the Earth Stood Still.
It made a powerful impression upon me when I watched it as a teenager, and the anthology I’m currently writing, Effugium, is strongly influenced by the feeling it evoked within me.
I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of human beings fleeing the Earth to tame a new world, and this movie is one of the best executions of that idea ever to appear onscreen.
In an era of little green men with antennas, bubble helmets and rayguns piloting wobbly flying saucers on strings, this film must have stood apart as something special.
Watch it here.
Patrick Walts 