FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

poindexter_mellon It started out watchable, in a Plan 9 type of way, until maybe 30 minutes into it when some jackass starts ripping a whole bunch of live chickens to shreds. Sick and demented garbage, was 1962 the Stone Age or what? Who participates in this crap and thinks it's acceptable? Am I allowed to swear here on IMDb because this animal torture scene was so freaking outrageously inhumane it makes me want to go back in time and pour gasoline over everybody involved in this thing and then light a match to put them out of my misery and make sure they can't procreate because I don't want to live on the same planet with jerks like this or their spawn either. Disgusting!

drystyx This is more of a stage play than a blockbuster movie, and has the elements of drama that make it rise.It deals with a policeman, or a deputy as he calls himself, armed with shotgun and pistol, performing his duty at a road block. Blindly, he carries out his orders, and seems to be part of a system, but we gradually find he is a tyrant who is making up his own system.It turns out that the road block is because of an impending nuclear strike, and the setting is well over 25 miles away from the city and strategic military centers, but also smack dab in the center of them.The other characters come across as clichés to the naive, but they aren't. In fact, neither is the officer. Unfortunately, this is still the way people panic, trying to appear sensible, but in fact like chickens with their heads cut off. Those who laugh the most at the silliness mark themselves as most likely to crack themselves. Only by facing the reality of Fear can someone hope to be as sensible as the trio who actually have a chance of escaping a horrid fate.SPOILER HERE: Three characters, local people, soon realize the mania of the cop and devise their own survival plan. Two of them obviously survive the ending, and even in 1962 it was obvious they survived. This steps on a lot of people's toes, because these two don't fall into the mode of what modern hate mongering audiences like to see survive, but sorry, those are the facts. This comes across as a very intriguing drama. And the characters only seem far fetched to those who've never been in danger. They are frighteningly realistic. Even the events aren't that far fetched today. This is a highly underrated piece. And the lesson to learn isn't so much how to have a chance to survive disaster (although that is shown also), but how to survive the lunacy of those who have authority.

queun The best thing about this movie was also the best thing about Carnival of Souls. Namely that its lower budget led to hazily filmed, sometimes unclear and murky scenes. In both movies it made the mood creepier, while in the case of This is Not a Test it also gave it something of a documentary feel.One surprising thing about this movie was that it was filmed completely at night, which is an added expense and unusual for such a low budget movie.But to me the most surprising thing was the gratuitous animal cruelty. I'm not referring to the famous strangled puppy scene which took place off camera and was only implied, but to the chicken scene. When the psycho character comes back to discover the truck has left, he takes his anger out on some unfortunate chickens. Besides smashing wooden cages on the ground, releasing REAL chickens, he picks up at least two and smashes them to the ground like an angry child. I've watched the scene several times and they were real chickens. Okay, not earth shattering but an interesting look at something filmmakers will never do again.

hpmc6 This was definitely a lower end 'B' movie, in terms of acting and production values. For a movie with such dramatic, relevant and plausible importance at the time it was made, it was surprisingly boring at times.But it's worth seeing, because this really did almost happen in the year it was made, 1962. It's a time capsule, even if lower end, of such a drama made at the time, not interpreted decades later.People who make fun of the paranoia of the cold war should remember this fact. The only thing that's really changed, is the perception. The possibility of nuclear war, is still with us.