Without a doubt “Nightfall”. I remember nothing about it except that in the year 1988, my ever-frugal father was excited to take his teenage sons to see a big-screen adaption of an Asimov story dear to his heart. Even it was unable to break his lifelong commitment to “I paid for this and by God, we are going to suffer through this experience in its entirety.” We watched the entire thing. Every other person in the theater had long ago walked out. And then I watched as he spent another 30 minutes arguing with the manager for a refund.
Under no circumstances watch this film. If you must, look upon the IMDB reviews and despair.
As a poor student I was searching the video store’s budget rentals for something to see. I was beside myself with joy when I found a film version of an Asimov classic. The 25p (40 cents) I spent on the rental is the worst investment I’ve ever made. Nothing happened in the film. Nothing at all. Then it got dark and the titles rolled. I’ll never get those 90 minutes back.
Elsewhere:
The casting was atrocious. The acting was terrible. The story was appallingly bad. The lighting was so dark you couldn’t tell who was speaking. If you want to compare my opinions with those of real people, I actually liked ‘Howard the Duck’ and ‘Transylvania 6-5000’. This is lightyears worse than those.
In fact, the IMDB reviews may be the only sliver of good to come from its creation - a warning to all future generations.
