Customer Reviews

At the Earth's Core (Widescreen)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

AT THE EARTH'S CORE (based on a story by Edgar Rice Burroughs) never quite achieves good movie status but you have to give it credit for trying. Thankfully the film is set in motion the minute the credit sequence ends. Cushing and McClure (the latter shamefully getting top billing) are set to do a test run with their "iron mole", a great looking giant drill. Only minutes after their journey begins the two men are knocked out. Shortly after waking the mole has a power failure and the two men find themselves AT THE EARTH'S CORE.
For the uninitiated the Earth's core is full of giant plastic plants, bird beaked monsters, a tribe of human slaves (that speak English), some bizarre pasty faced creatures that serve a strange race of hypnotic pterodactyls. The core is bathed in pink light (which eminates from the magma above). At first the color scheme is quite neat but after awhile it becomes a nauseating experience.
It is of course Cushing and McClure's job to end the pterodactyls reign and free the humans, especially the most attractive human, the scantily clad Caroline Munro.
Munro sports an outfit similar to the ones she wore in The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad (One wonders if such races would ever be saved if it weren't for beautiful women with sweaty cleavage). Her character, Dia, is an enslaved queen looking for the right man. McClure steps up to the plate but doesn't follow through with the native's customs and nearly loses Dia. Cushing later informs the dullard to be "forceful." McClure is clearly bothered by taking on such a masculine role at first but he gets into it quickly enough after Dia shows her submissive approval.
The humans manage to destroy their evil rulers and eventually Cushing and McClure return to Earth's surface (one of the film's intentionally funnier moments).
Cushing is most endearing as a wacky British scientist. He adds a level of touching humor and professionalism not usually found in such a picture. McClure is a fine enough actor but he annoyed me to no end. I am not familiar with his career so I am quite surprised to see such unappealing person as the star of this film.
The truth is the special effects are the star of the picture. Being a fan of non-CGI effects it is always a pleasure to see a film like this. That said, some of the effects are laughably bad. A particular standout is when a bird beaked dinosaur eats a man. The man is clearly a stuffed dummy. Surprisingly the camera lingers on the hysterical carnage for some time.

The DVD is part of MGM's impressive budget priced Midnight Movies series. The enhanced widescreen picture is excellent. The source print is clean and vibrant (almost too much so). The film's keyboard soundtrack sounds very John Carpenterish. The mono sound is strong. The DVD also includes a theatrical trailer which is in fine shape.

When I was a kid, Doug Maclure movies were a Sunday afternoon tradition. Giant rubber dinosaurs and paper mache monsters. Awesome!!! Still as much fun to watch today as they were 20 years ago.

Despite some of the more negative reviews for this movie, I found it really enjoyable! Sure, the monster special effects technology is not comparable with Jurassic Park, but keep in mind that this movie was made in the 1970's! Doug McClure and Peter Cushing made a very good team in this action-packed adventure film! The movie starts out in the Victorian age as scientist; Dr. Abner Perry (Peter Cushing) and his Geologic Engineering student; David Innes (Doug McClure) are embarking on a mission to test a manned underground drilling machine called "The Iron Mole". When the "Iron mole" goes off-course, the teacher and student duo end up in a place "like nothing on Earth", as stated by David Innes.
David and Dr. Perry end up getting captured and enslaved with humans, by Sagaths, the soldiers for the Majars who rule in the city of Pellucidar.
After finding a way to escape from the caves of the Sagaths, David, aided by a new human friend; Rah, returns to free the slaves and rescue Dr. Perry. The human tribes unite and Dr. Perry trains the tribesman on the skills of Archery, in order to revolt against the Majars and Sagaths, and destroy them.
I loved the comradery between David and Dr. Perry, and the protective nature that David showed for the doctor when they were being roughly treated by the Sagaths and all through the movie. David even, helped physically hold the doctor upright, on the long trip into the caves as they were being pulled along on a long chain of human captives, saying "Come on doc,...it can't be much further". David is a real gentleman, and he also was very courageous and protective for the woman he fell in love with, Princess Dia. He even fought for her protection against ugly men who attempted to "man handle" her!
The movie was filled with humor that may have been unintentional, by the "air-headed" character of Dr. Perry, and the "serious natured character" of David Innes. The antics of Doug McClure and Peter Cushing in this film, for example, when they were being chased by a giant "eagle-looking" bird, after crash landing at the earth's core, was comparable to the antics of the "Three Stooges". I couldn't help but laugh! I enjoyed this movie so much, I watch it frequently! It seems that I pick up on things that I did not previously notice before, the more times that I watch it! A fun and entertaining movie overall! Andrea Lynn Burcham

This is one of the best films of all time, I saw it for the first time when I was very young and it blew my mind. I has lost none of its charm over the years...the rubber monster suits are laughable. The Mahars, although they look like toys you'd find at the bottom of cereal boxes, they are still frightening. Doug Mclure excels as the adventurer and Peter Cushing as the doddering Professor Parry borders on insanity. Caroline Munro is as gorgeous as ever but Cy Grant steals the show as Ra, the token black guy sidekick. Although you can see the film isnt all that it still succeeds in taking you to another world with the chattering Sagoths, pink sky and weird music.
If ever the world's been evil to you just stick this in your DVD player and live an another world. Only comlaint I can make is the menus, which are a bit minimalist.

I sympathize with Burrough's fans who wished for a more serious treatment of their beloved author's work, but they need to take the film for what it is. It is clear that the actors were having a great time making it, Cushing is great in an out-of-character role, Caroline Munroe is delicious, the Mahars are hilarious (like kids in big rubber parrot suits flapping their arms while hanging by their necks!) as are the afro-ed natives idiotically dancing around in celebration, and when the fire-breathing toad fell off the cliff and exploded, we were howling in stitches and had to replay that scene again and again. Add to this a fast-paced, quirky directorial style and Doug McLure and you have a "B" classic. For those of you who just don't get it, go out and develop a personality, then you might be able to let yourself go and enjoy.

I can appreciate a campy. low tech sci-fi "B" flick as much as the next guy, but this movie is about as bad as they come. I watched about twenty minutes of this movie, then I actually threw away the disc along with the artwork, saving the case as a replacement! Yep, I threw it in the trash! Absolutely no redeeming value here, no matter how you look at it.

My rating would be zero stars if that was an option.

This movie is a great classic sci-fi movie. Today's computer generated effects can hold nothing to this very creative and entertaining movie. They created a whole new world that was completely orginal and the story as well as the charters are very enjoyable. This movie has class and flair and even the music is enjoyable and fun. If you don't like this movie I questioned your respect for creative and fun movie making. I highly recommend this movie to all of those who enjoy sci-fi and just plain family fun kind of people. Try the other movies is this set, they include, the people that time forgot, the land that time forgot, and Warlords of Atlantis. This last movie is almost impossible to get the only copies I could get were generic copies. I wish the Amazon could get this movie in VHS or even better DVD.

Hey!Cheesy and low-budget as heck,this drive-in movie from 1976 is nonetheless a lotta fun!I can't help comparing it to Sid and Marty Krofft's saturday morning shows of the early 70s,especialy LAND OF THE LOST.VERY entertaning!

Though modestly entertaining, this movie isn't nearly as cool as I remember my teenage self thinking it was when it came out. And I think the reviewer from Brentwood Bay, Canada is onto something: several scenes looked suspiciously cropped (sometimes on the sides, sometimes on the top and bottom) for a true widescreen print. Some upshots: the print is otherwise in good shape, with rich colors; the drilling machine is still a neat thing to behold; and although some of the monsters' costumes aren't the best, the optical effects that integrate the monsters into the same shots with the actors (and make a normal-sized guy in a monster suit appear to be fifteen feet tall) are polished and work quite well. So, there's enough here for genre fans to enjoy, as long as one doesn't expect too much. Also fun to think about: Peter Cushing probably filmed "Star Wars" right after he made this movie. Think of the man's versatility; his sinister Grand Moff Tarkin character in "Star Wars" is nothing like the scatterbrained professor-type he plays here, yet he pulled off both parts beautifully.

I really enjoyed this film when it came out at the theater in 1976, and I have owned the open-mat full screen version on VHS for a while now. When I found out this was being realeased on DVD I was pretty happy & ordered it right away. To my horror, MGM has dropped the ball for a change, and this Midnight Movie release is a total flub!

I became suspicious when I first watched the trailer, and right away it was obvious it was a badly matted, with the tops of people's heads clipped off. So I decided to ge out my open-mat full screen VHS and play them at the same time, switching between VCR & DVD player to compare. Here's where the fun begins...

The opening credits on the DVD are totally matted, blocking off the top & botom of the picture, and to make matters worse, the edges have been clipped quite a bit as well.

On the VHS the credits are near the middle, with a large empty area on the sides... The DVD has the credits zoomed in on, making them 3x as large, and going off the edge of the screen on the left & right.

Things gets stranger... Some scenes on the DVD appear to be from a truely 'widesceen' print, but approx. 80-90% of the movie is just matted full screen, blocking off much of the picture, and cutting the tops of people's heads off!

It looks like MGM took 2 prints; one a fullscreen (open-mat) print, and mabey a partial print that was widescreen, and spliced them together, then matted the fullscreen parts in an attempt to 'blend' it in. Arrgg!!

A few more problems I noticed, are that the color seems wrong on the DVD, way too much red. (yeah, its supposed to be red, but not THAT red.), and that the VHS copy I have exibits very little to no speckles at all on the source print, but the DVD is riddled with speckles, especially noticable during the opening credits. The DVD does however look alot better than the VHS as far as clarity, detail and sharpness goes.

I really waited a long time for this to come out on DVD, and I didnt even have very high expectations, considering the B-grade of this flic, but this DVD has turned out to be a huge dissapointment for me. Dispite it's great low price, I have already returned it.

Shame on you MGM, this DVD is a mess! Stop trying to be cash in on the trendy 'anamorphic widesceen' craze by selling terrible FAKE widescreen bunk!!!!