The Earth Dies Screaming is a movie we’ve all seen before even if we’ve never seen it before. What I mean by that is the plot is very similar to every zombie film in many ways and while this pre-dates Night of the Living Dead by four years it’s definitely flown more under the radar over the years.

The film takes place in London and opens with seemingly everyone falling dead. We don’t know the cause at first but we witness a number of people collapsing left and right. Eventually we come across one survivor (Willard Parker).

The first 5-6 minutes of the film contain zero dialogue. It’s just this one survivor wandering around this small British town confused by what has happened. Given the film’s total runtime is just a mere 62 minutes this is quite bold. The first 10% of the movie has no talking and provides a bleak emptiness for what the world has become.

Eventually the survivor meets other survivors and they all try to piece together what happened. While the entire group is confused by what has occurred, they come to the realization that each one of them was in some type of air tight enclosure when the attack occurred. They all come to the conclusion that it must have been some sort of gas attack that killed everyone.

As the group begins to band together to look for more survivors they notice what at first appears to be a couple of Air Force or army men. After further investigation they realize these are no men but rather robots from outer space. These robots are able to kill humans by merely touching them and they can raise the dead and turn them into zombies to do their bidding. The group attempts to deal with these alien creatures all while looking for more survivors and facing distrust within their small faction.

While The Earth Dies Screaming isn’t what we traditional consider a zombie film to be, it does contain all the elements of a great zombie movie. This small band of survivors must come together to face an outside force that is completely unknown to them but their greatest challenge is overcoming the distrust internally. That paranoia from within proves to be quite difficult. And like the great George Romero zombie movies, The Earth Dies Screaming plays around with social commentary. The film was released during the heart of the Cold War and it plays off society’s fear of chemical warfare.

I cannot recommend The Earth Dies Screaming enough. Directed by Hammer legend Terence Fisher, the movie looks gorgeous and moves at a wonderfully quick pace. As I mentioned before, the runtime is barely 62 minutes and the film just zooms by, not wasting anytime. The film is now out on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber and it looks incredible. Kino Lorber has released a number of these smaller science fiction movies from the 50’s and 60’s and this may be my favorite one yet. As far as special features go there is an image gallery and audio commentary from film historian Richard Harland Smith that is quite informative. Given the film’s short runtime you can watch it back-to-back with commentary and take up no time at all.

If you’re in the mood for a zombie flick but also want some alien invasion action, this underappreciated gem is absolutely the way to go.

The Earth Dies Screaming is available now on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber.