Geoff Murphy’s The Quiet Earth (1985)

One of the subsets of post-apocalyptic storytelling is the “last man on earth” tale. Richard Harland Smith, critic for Video Watchdog magazine, explored the sub-genre in the insert for The Quiet Earth’s DVD release, writing:

“All last-man-on-earth movies lie. That’s how they rope you in, with their secret promise of a world with nobody in it except a sole protagonist through whom we hope to enjoy the vicarious thrill of being the only one left. Last-man-on-earth movies are our favorite worst case scenario, allowing us to fantasize about where we might live, how we might dress, and the ways in which we might spend our days if suddenly – by dint of atomic blast or nuclear fallout or bacilli spread – we found ourselves unfettered by economics or status and no one was looking. Would we seize a mansion or a penthouse, or possibly camp at the top of the Empire State Building? Would we drive a Rolls or a Porsche or one of those Caterpillar 797 off-highway trucks? Would we elect ourselves General or King or God, go paramilitary, or run through the empty streets au naturale? Would we teach ourselves to garden, take time to read the Greeks, or just go around smashing things? Unlike life as we know it, the possibilities of being the last survivor seem endless. Alas, the dynamics of the three-act screenplay require that last-man movies renege on the promise of their premise and trundle in a second party, then a third party (or more) to up the dramatic ante; before you know it, monologue becomes dialogue and there goes the neighborhood. Last-man scenarios are most satisfying in their first act, when it’s just our protagonist knocking around society’s hollow shell, going into buildings, taking stuff, and setting himself up with a lifestyle he could never have afforded before things went pear-shaped.

“Last-man movies are the flip side of the disaster flick, a sci-fi sidebar that mulls over the fate of the human race via cautionary tales of destruction from space (When Worlds Collide, Armaggedon) or nuclear folly (Testament, The Day After) More intimate and more selfish, last-man movies comprise a respectable title list of their own, reaching back to the silent era. In the Fox Film Corporation’s The Last Man on Earth (1924), a pandemic wipes out all adult men save one Ozark rube, who is promptly cashiered by the reigning gynocracy. A decade later, the more sober-sided Deluge (1933) destroyed the world in Act I, paired the last man Sidney Blackmer with the last woman Peggy Shannon in Act II, then trucked in Blackmer’s wife and children as a third act complication, prompting Shannon’s altruistic suicide to preserve the sanctity of the family (at the sacrifice of 33% of the earth’s adult population). In the three-handers The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959) and The Last Woman on Earth (1960), garrulous ménages a trios ponder the point of living after “The Big One.” In contrast, Sydney Salkow’s Italian-made The Last Man on Earth (1964) and The Omega Man (1971), both sourced from Richard Matheson’s classic science fiction novel I am Legend, are nightmarish nesting fantasies in which a sole survivor of the human race must barricade himself against an un-neighborly mutant horde whose incessant catcalling night after night requires him to keep his turntable volume on high. …

“Hitting American cinemas late in 1985, Geoff Murphy’s The Quiet Earth (based on the novel by Craig Harrison) dialed back the post-apoc weirdness to rethink The End of the World As We Know It without blasted cityscapes, monkey-man mutations and discotheque fashions. The film’s first act is a one-man-show for Bruno Lawrence, cast against type as Zac Hobson, an Auckland egghead in the employ of “Project Flashlight,” an American-financed experiment to create an energy grid allowing war planes to circle the globe indefinitely without the need to refuel. Something has gone terribly awry, however, causing the human race to go missing at 6:12 one July morning. … The Quiet Earth eases speculative science to the background in favor of nailing the very human behavior that in its own way has brought on the end of days.”

Richard Harland Smith
Video Watchdog magazine