Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

PlatinumRead Just so...so bad

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Asad Almond A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

udar55 Two scientists (Eli Wallach and Robert Culp) head to an Antarctic science lab to relieve another doctor who has been sending back crackpot messages. They find the doc dead, having locked himself in a room and left the window open so that he froze to death. Naturally, this method of suicide perplexes both men, but still have a job to do in testing chimps for outer space travel. They go about their business, but things start to slowly go bump in the night. Are they not alone? Is the station haunted? This is a superior TV movie from back in the day. The cast is mainly the two leads and both Wallach and Culp are fantastic in their roles. The setting is really great (think Carpenter's THE THING, which it looks very similar to) and the tension really builds perfectly. Best of all, the film's mystery really pays off and you will be rethinking everything you've seen 75 minutes prior. To say anything more about it would give it away.

CatTales What could be so frightening and irrational that a scientist would choose to freeze to death rather than confront it? You'll find out.While we think of scientists as being unflinching heroic seekers of truth, they can be pretty nutty people in denial of reality (it's true!). The movie is about two different types of scientists who are trying to complete some research involving monkeys in a remote freezing mountain environment. The experiment was left uncompleted by the death of a scientist who seems to have gone insane, and died freezing to death. Regardless of the fact that the audience can more-or-less figure out who the culprit is, the last 30 seconds are incredibly chilling to see. Imagine characters debating if a shark was involved in the deaths in JAWS, but only in the last minute of film you finally see a fin circling the hero. Or a ventriloquist who insists his dummy is alive, and at the end you see it move. Worth watching in the dark for the very creepy climax. Kudos for the director's long-takes and Gil (Andromeda Strain) Melle's unsettling score.

JackmanWulf I remember when I was a kid saw my first horror movies in the late 70s, this one scared me to death. It's full of atmosphere, like if you know John Carpenters "Thing", but there's no Monster or Alien which kill one after another, the horror is more like "real life". The loneliness of the place where these scientists are working with the apes is more than claustrophobic and the more you stand by the cast and going through that story the more mad you'll get. The score give it's parts perfectly to it, old 70s synthesizer - sounds bring mad and scary atmosphere. I really hope this will find it's way to DVD ! A real underrated classic !

snowleopard During the 1970's the three major networks (mostly ABC) made a slew of Made for TV movies. Many of them were junk, some were imitations of Hollywood hits at the time, and more than a few were excellent films. This is one of them. I'm fortunate to own this movie and watched it just last night. I won't recant the plot, for you can find that here. but I will say this - this movie holds up very well as the years have gone by. The look and feel of it really captures the isolation and situation. The script isn't filled with old 70's clichéd dialog, and is very well paced. It's very well shot, and very well acted by two solid actors. Gil Melle's synthesizer score, while dated, fits the film quite well. Some of the effects are old, but there aren't very many, and don't detract from the story. If you are fortunate to get a look at this old movie you won't be disappointed. Although I see the point of another reviewer who stated this movie's obscurity is part of it's charm, ABC (and the other networks) need to dig into their archives and re-master and release some of the good old TV movies to DVD. This one, A Short Walk to Daylight, Dying Room Only, many others.