Chosen Survivors (1974) Online

One of the most successful (and equally irritating) TV-formats of recent years is Big Brother, in which a bunch of people, complete strangers to each other, are put together in an isolated location and become forced to get along and accomplish ordeals together. Apparently this concept isn't so new or innovating at all, as the obscure (although less obscure now, with its recent release on DVD) and still criminally underrated 70's gem "Chosen Survivors" thrives on a similar premise. Only this movie is at least a gazillion times better than any Big Brother edition you ever saw, because it has genuine suspense, a formidable cast of characters, plot twists you actually don't see coming and – not to forget – thousands of bloodthirsty bats! Now, THAT is what they should do in the TV-series of Big Brother: unleash an army of aggressive and rabid bats on the attention-horny participants, ha! Ayway, "Chosen Survivors" opens with atmospheric images of the New Mexican desert and army helicopters approaching a secret underground lair. Eleven eminent persons, who achieved great things is different fields (sports, science, literature, business…) awake to hear they are the chosen survivors. On the earth's surface, a nuclear war has wiped out all humanity and they are to remain underground until it is safe again to re-populate the planet. But of course, the survivors don't get along as they should, some them behave overly hostile and suspicious and the hi-tech government designed lair isn't exactly bat-proof. The film offers a splendid combination of terrific character drawing, for psychological tension, and actual nail-bitingly tense situation with the bat attacks and the quest for freedom. H.B. Cross' script is excellent and Sutton Roley, usually a director of TV series episodes, does an amazing job providing the film with a genuine apocalyptic feeling. The acting performances are top-notch, with notably exceptional roles for Jackie Cooper as the arrogant Mr. Couzins and Bradford Dillman as the calm behavior analyst. Highly recommended Sci-Fi gem.

Chosen Survivors is directed by Sutton Roley and written by H.B. Cross. It stars Jackie Cooper, Alex Cord, Richard Jaeckel, Bradford Dillman, Barbara Babcock, Diana Muldaur and Lincoln Kilpatrick. Music is by Fred Karlin and cinematography by Gabriel Torres.

It's the eve of nuclear war and a government computer has selected a specialist group of people to live 1,758 feet underground in a nuclear proof, purpose built housing facility. The purpose is that these people can start to repopulate the Earth in five years time. However, something isn't quite right about this set-up and things take a distinctive turn for the worse when it's revealed that a colony of vampire bats have also made the facility their home.

It's far better than any plot synopsis suggests. True, it's very 70s, both in characters (clothing/delivery of dialogue/hair), and the effects used, but it also captures the zeitgeist of paranoia running at the time. Fear of nuclear war and the government hangs heavy, while the group dynamic under a stress situation makes for a tellingly oppressive mood. The whole thing has a bleakness about it, and that's before the vampire bats turn up hungry for what is apparently the only source of blood left available to them. The downbeat feel is further enforced by Karlin's music score, which often sounds like the synthesiser strains favoured by John Carpenter for some of his well revered culters. There's the expected bad turn of events with some of the characters, I mean it would be a dull film if everyone just got on all hunky dory, while there's a wicked twist that propels the narrative to another level of enjoyment for the viewer.

Competently acted by the cast, and effectively put together by Roley, Chosen Survivors is a neat horror/sci-fi hybrid. Not without some cheese and gaps in plotting for sure, but very effective and recommended on proviso you aren't looking to be cheered up! 7/10

How's this for a really inspired and effective handy-dandy sci-fi/horror combo premise: Let's take your basic randomly selected motley assortment of everyday folks gathered together in a deep, isolated, self-contained underground nuclear fall-out shelter so they can survive an impending end-of-the-world holocaust tale and embellish on this standard situation with a borrowing from the then hip killer-animals-run-amuck trend by having a horde of vicious, relentless, chattering vampire bats with a taste for human blood attack the understandably terrified bunch at regular bloodcurdling intervals. Sounds like a pretty desperately reaching "high concept" effort, right? Well, that brusque blow-off assumption is wrong. Dead wrong.

Under episodic TV show vet Sutton Roley's taut, capable direction the admittedly threadbare story works surprisingly well, resulting in a genuinely scary, creepy and suspenseful nail-biter. The neatly varied cast helps a lot; they fill out their stock roles with commendable conviction. Former child actor Jackie Cooper portrays a cross, feet-of-clay rich jerk grumbler with stand-out sliminess. Constantly reliable B-pic perennials Richard Jaeckel (who later had a fatal run-in with a killer bear in "Grizzly" and got offed by a pack of wild dogs in "Day of the Animals") and Alex Cord (the latter bears a passing resemblance to tough guy thesp extraordinaire William Smith here) make for properly stalwart heroes. The always composed and elegant Diana Muldaur brings a welcome touch of class to the tense, grisly proceedings. Future "Hill Street Blues" regular Barbara Babcock is a lovely damsel in distress. A bespectacled Bradford Dillman (who went on to get stung to death by killer bees in "The Swarm" and had his face nibbled on by carnivorous fish in "Piranha") nerds it up nicely as a duplicitous dweeby scientist. Chronically unsung character actors Pedro Armendariz, Jr. and Lincoln Kilpatrick contribute solid performances as an eminently expendable decent dude and a gallant, rugged Olympic athlete, respectively. The sequence where Kilpatrick tries to climb out of the subterranean shelter on a rope is both gripping and nerve-wracking. The bat attacks are almost unbearably frightening and ferocious. The claustrophobic set design, Gabriel Torres' cramped, closed-in cinematography, Fred Karlin's jazzy, spooky score, the unremittingly eerie tone, and the bleakly ironic ending all add considerably to the gut-wrenching tension. And those nasty screeching bats are truly horrifying little suckers!

Like the other person that reviewed the film, I was young (12) when I saw the film but I have thought about it many times since.

In fact, I was able to finally track down the title. I cannot say the movie was great but the premise was interesting and, for a 12 year old, plenty of frights. I must have checked over 100 sites to try and find the name of this film. Several scenes were memorable such as when the were being attacked in the control room and then when they were trying to escape by climbing out, since the elevator no longer was operable. If anyone has a copy of the film, I would appreciate being contacted so I can share it with my children.

"Chosen Survivors" poses quite a few ethical questions, while taking extreme liberties with the reputation of vampire bats. The film has an almost fatal failing in that it introduces a dozen characters all at once. This of course means that character development is totally inadequate. We really know nothing about those unfortunate individuals who succumb to the blood sucking winged annoyances. On the positive side, many of the futuristic sets are intriguing, there are some unexpected twists, and the use of actual as well as animated bats lends realism. The movie occasionally grinds to a halt with meaningless small talk, but overall has definite entertainment value. - MERK

Selected intellectual minds, and important folks deemed special for forwarding the human race once a thermonuclear war is to rage across the globe, find themselves fighting for their very lives underground in their fancy governmentally (supposedly)secure bomb shelter well equipped with all the resources they could possibly need as vampire bats, which rest within a cavernous area secret to them, enter and attack when the group is most vulnerable. With a female assigned, via taped recording, guiding their day to day activities, offering a planned regimen for them to survive on, the group find themselves at odds with Raymond Couzins, a loudmouth who often stirs up bad vibes with his constant talk of conspiracy theories, and drunken insults. Yet, perhaps there is some truth to what he's saying as Dr. Peter Macomber(Bradford Dillman)holds a secret which will only add to the worsening mental state of the group as a whole. Realizing that they were merely part of an experiment on how a group could function together in an isolated situation, had such a catastrophic event taken place, the group hope that a signal had reached Washington, for Couzins, in a bumbling mishap that damages important electrical equipment resulting in the death of a member, leaves them with few alternatives left. Major Gordon Ellis(Richard Jaeckel)comes up with a method that could be quite dangerous..someone could climb an elevator shaft 17oo feet which could open a door to the outside providing a chance for contacting help. Macomber, despite the group's hostile feelings towards he and his government which put them in their difficult crisis, comes up with an idea on how to kill the bats, through electrocution by suckering them with blood as bait.

I must say that this was a pleasant form of entertainment. Sure, the special effects are rather inferior to today's modern technical improvements, but they didn't seem to bother me all that much because I found the cast so much fun to watch, and the premise was quite enjoyable. It's essentially mixes the always-reliable "animals attack" premise with the theme of nuclear war and how mankind could deal with such a thing. Perfectly capping these elements with a government conspiracy plot yielding terrified characters in search of an exit. Perfectly 70's carrying the sensibilities of the time, with a cast of familiar faces. I thought Dillman has a startlingly good scene where he admits to who he really is and the hoax that has put them all in grave danger..I think Dillman realistically displays the emotional weight his character is bearing in both coming clean with his confession while showing that he believed that the experiment was for the betterment of mankind. I thoroughly enjoyed Cooper as the antagonist, and Jaeckel is a delight as the sincere army man, burdened with keeping the underground shelter under operation despite a series of set-backs that make that nearly impossible. I also loved this confrontation between the accusing Couzins claiming Ellis was perhaps behind a conspiracy to keep them in the shelter..Jaeckel and Cooper produce some fireworks. Some performances are overwrought, as often was the case for Made-for-television movies with character actors, but I think the situation stressing and depressing those caught between a rock and a hard place, warranted such heightened emotions. I think Woody's elevator shaft climb was quite suspenseful..it sure had me biting my nails. I do think the story provides some food for thought, and is a perfect time capsule of what was on the minds of the country at that time.

This is a movie I've wanted to see for over 30 years now; I first read about it in horror magazines when it first came out, but it soon turned into a lost film that went completely out of circulation. It has now been made available by Fox as part of their Midnite Movies Collection, and I'm a little disappointed to say I wasn't missing all that much. It's not a "bad" genre film and it's got a good premise, but it's still rather ordinary in the way it's executed. A group of people are selected by computer, sedated, and then sent down 1,758 feet into an underground bomb shelter to see if they might sustain life in the event of a nuclear war. It was another of those perfect experiments hatched by the government, except they overlooked the fact that this project was built down within caves, so now swarms of hungry vampire bats manage to find their way into the bunker and chomp on these frantic chosen survivors. There's more talk going on than anything else, but when the bat attacks do occur, they're pretty satisfying, even if sometimes the special optical effects amount to little more than a flurry of dark splotches.

I got a kick out of seeing former Our Gang child actor Jackie Cooper as the main loudmouth of the bunch who at one point goes on a bender and becomes your basic arrogant pain in the ass character. Other '70s regulars among this cast are Richard Jaeckel (GRIZZLY) Bradford Dillman (BUG), and Lincoln Kilpatrick (THE OMEGA MAN). I thought I recognized director Sutton Roley's name from somewhere, and later I found out that's because he directed some LOST IN SPACE episodes and was primarily a TV show director. I'm not sorry I saw this, but it sure was some tepid tea. ** out of ****

One of the biggest challenges to movie makers is conveying the horror of nuclear war in post-atomic film. The reality is that shelter life isn't that glamorous if depicted realistically. The threats present aren't very dramatic and in most cases stealthy and lacking in suspense. The madness of nuclear war has to be communicated instead through contrivances, like atomic mutations or pervasive inescapable radiation like in ON THE BEACH. These things are not realistic but somehow they can often transmit the bleak and terrifying plight of the survivors.

CHOSEN SURVIVORS uses vampire bats to contrast with the serene tranquility of the expensive government shelter the characters take refuge in. No matter how safe they may think they will be, it turns out that the bats are determined to intrude in their sanitary environment and prey on them where they believed they were safe.

It's very effective for a low budget film. It is well acted and well directed and has an interesting score that complements the story. There are times you really feel claustrophobic and at the mercy of the bats who can penetrate even what they think are secure places.

The color scheme was pretty good considering it was accomplished before CGI filters existed for post-production and the special effects are pretty convincing as well. The somber blue shades over everything in the darkness combined with the lively shadows of the bats is very well done. The sequences of bats attacking is extremely well choreographed with the human actors.

This movie is a rare sci-fi gem with a bleak apocalyptic ending that is common for this genre of cinema but somehow satisfying. The movie stopped a little short of being a classic but is well worth viewing.

The world as we know it, is about to end. Total Thermonuclear Destruction: 4 billion casualties, 168 survivors, 12 hi-tech underground facilities spread across the USA at a depth of 1.758ft, one located in the New Mexico desert inhabited by 11 unsuspecting citizens on government command with their sole purpose… the survival of the human race. But our group of chosen survivors will soon have something else to worry about than the lethal radiation levels above their heads: Desmodus Rotundus, commonly known as the vampire bat.

CHOSEN SURVIVORS is one nifty 70's post-nuke paranoia-thriller. The opening-scene already looks promising: 11 sedated citizens are flown in by helicopter over the ominous desert landscape, accompanied on the tunes of a tense brass score. In slow-motion they are shoved into an elevator and when it starts to go all the way down, the opening-credits come on and slow-motion shots of the elevator rattling and shaking continue. Great stuff! Once inside the facility, the survivors learn about their faith.

The characters are all well drawn-out, each of them having an expertise in a certain field (science, sports, writing,…). They'll all have to get along and work together in order to survive, but needless to say tensions arise and conflicts occur. All that is pretty entertaining already, but the real fun starts when they discover a vampire bat inside the facility. They realize that a whole horde of hungry killer-bats is lurking inside the caves surrounding the facility. And paranoia turns into survival. Psychologically, the characters are also well thought-out. Naturally, there's one guy you love to hate that eventually does something very stupid, but even his character changes throughout the movie. So, all-in-all CHOSEN SURVIVORS is pretty unpredictable when it comes to who'll survive and who won't, if any.

The set-design, of course, looks dated but nevertheless was a well-constructed concept for those days. The bat attacks are staged in a decent fashion. Good thing is that they actually used a lot of real bats in certain scenes, instead of going for the obvious fake ones. The blue-screen effects are obvious in certain scenes, but always effective. Aside from the survival-horror-element with the bats, CHOSEN SURVIVORS is a bit more in the sci-fi/thriller vein of other 70's paranoia/conspiracy movies like, for instance, CAPRICORN ONE. Only this time with nobody being hunted down, but the whole group being trapped deep below ground. As to be expected, the facility isn't all that big (limited budget, limited sets), but the location is put to good use.

With the look and feel being obsolete, CHOSEN SURVIVORS actually could inspire a decent remake, in my opinion. Just replace the global nuclear devastation angle with that of the ever-so-popular killer-virus one, put the whole concept in capable hands with a decent budget for a skilled crew and up-to-date special effects supported by a good cast, et voilà, we should have a remake that's far more decent than the uninspired crap they keep cranking out nowadays. No need to change the script even, because it already contains a decent twist around the middle part, which in today's suspense cinema has become a must. Actually, they might want to make the bats virus-infected this time, because how in this film they manage to kill off adults in a couple of minutes with a dozen bites or so, is beyond me. Other than this shortcoming, the script successfully blends genres. A typical 70's accomplishment on the one hand, and ahead of its time on the other. Check this one out. It's a gem.

This is one film that, even though I have not seen it in years, deserves a DVD release. It was, when I saw it as a teenager, one of the scariest movies I had ever scene, and the ending sequence with the bat attack still brings back some shivers. I taught a Science Fiction class in a NJ high school and I had a budget for films - - I found this movie as a projection movie at a local distributor. After carefully discussing the plot with the class, and the graphic scenes, my class viewed the film and enjoyed it thoroughly as a message movie and a horror film. With more and more archive titles coming out on DVD, perhaps soon this "little gem" will be released. For those who have not seen this film, have patience - - - even though I have never seen it on Sci-Fi Channel or TBS or such - - this is a tidy little thriller that really delivers the goods!

Is this movie really as gory as I remember it? My younger sister and I still talk about the time one of our older sisters dumped us off at the theater in order to get us out of the house while the parents were away. The movie playing that day was "Chosen Survivors". Yikes. If memory serves this one had plenty of blood on the walls and lots of bat attacks. Maybe there is more to this movie than blood and bats but that's all I can remember from it. I'd love to find this one on video to see how it has held up over the years.

"Chosen Survivors" is a rare film. It has a GREAT story idea but it's completely undone by bad writing. It's a shame, as the main plot is fantastic.

A small group of people find themselves sedated and brought to a shelter more than 1700 feet underground. It seems that the dreaded nuclear apocalypse has arrived and the government has picked a few people to secure in various bunkers under the earth in order to propagate the human race. Much of the film concerns how these folks adapt to their new lives--or, rather, how some of them cannot cope. I loved the film up to this point and felt it was a brilliant study of human nature. Then, abruptly, the film took a detour to Stupidville! That's because without warning, insane vampire bats invade the bunker. I say insane because these bats in real life are NOT killers--but here in the film they are worse than killer bees, piranhas and Cobras combined!!! Bats just don't behave that way and then too much of a once-interesting story is spent focusing on how to survive with these murderous beasts flapping about....which is a shame, as the film has a wonderful twist that is lost in the process. A great example of a wonderful story idea that is ultimately ruined.

i'd been going nuts for quite a few years trying to find this one and finally found it on ebay. i remember it came out about the same time as "earthquake" did, and i remember thinking what a creepy, claustrophobic feel it had to it. it starred just about all of the b-list TV stars from that time, including my favorite, Diana muldaur. a group of regular citizens are pulled from their beds in the middle of the night to find themselves shoved into a bomb-proof shelter miles beneath the surface. once they start to adapt to both the world ending and to their situation, the original residents of the cave decide to come by for a visit. filmed with effects similar to Hitchcock's "the birds", there are several vicious attacks by blood-sucking vampire bats until the survivors decide to try and escape. highly recommended, if you can find it.

I saw this movie in the theaters when it came out, which would have made me only seven years old! Wow. Some have described it as a horror film. I don't think it was that gory, but some people might think it so. It certainly was S-C-A-R-Y with the swarming bats. Not scary enough to give a seven year old nightmares, but certainly thrilling and enough to keep most viewers on the edge of their seat! Maybe a Sci-Fi thriller is more accurate.

A bunch of unrelated people (men and women) are drugged, kidnapped, and thrown into a high-tech underground bunker, where they are told via a remote video screen, that they will be held in this stainless steel complex for years, riding out the Apocalypse in a bid to repopulate the Earth.

!!! SPOILER !!!

Actually, this is all a lie. They are the subjects of a manipulative psychological "experiment" where people are the lab rats. But, a monkey wrench is thrown in the works, in the form of RAVENOUS VAMPIRE BATS that eat their way through the walls, attacking the people in the lab complex. Of course, no contact with the outside world is possible, as the complex is sealed and is on a timer lock, which won't open for a month, says the one government spook on site, who knew the whole set-up was a scam. Now, the mission is to escape before the bats kill everyone! Can they do it, or will everyone die in a hail of blood???

SPOILER OVER...

At the time I had not seen every single Twlight Zone episode, so the "twist" actually did blow my little mind. (Twlight Zone used to actually frighten me around that same time as well, whenever I did occasionally catch a rerun of that).

This movie vanished off the face of the Earth for years. But quite recently, I did manage to pick up a (not exactly official) copy of it on DVD! Looking at it again, I was shocked that I remembered so much of it. One thing that surprised me was the woman who appeared on the giant video screen "explaining" the situation was former Los Angeles newscaster Kelly Lange! I had been watching her (and being annoyed by her) on TV since I moved to L.A. in 1989. Diana Muldaur, a favorite from Star Trek (both original series and TNG) is good in this movie as well.

Over the years I would think about this film from time to time, and its unique, claustrophobic atmosphere of doom, and this certainly holds up. Upon further viewing, it really is a cool little flick. The only part I misremembered was the fact that they reveal the "surprise" to the kidnapees about halfway through the film, and I had thought that the deception wasn't revealed until almost the end. A creepy sci-fi horror hybrid that I recommend highly to anyone who can find it!

UPDATE 9/2007: 20th Century Fox is releasing a legitimate DVD of this film just in time for Halloween 2007! Hurrah! I highly recommend this movie, go out and get it! UPDATE: I got the DVD! Nice remastering job, great picture and sound, reasonably low price. No extras, though. Highly recommend the DVD. Great obscure sci-fi movie, lots of nostalgia for me.

Very few spoilers here, nothing new...

Like others who have commented, I only remember this film from childhood. I remember very little about it -- only that it had a group of people who went underground to escape a nuclear holocaust, and there were bats. And that the title included the word "Survivors." Using that information I found the movie's title using Google. I saw the film only once, when I was in 7th grade in Sheridan Wyoming, which would be 1977-78. It was shown on 16mm to an audience of students in the school, with no explanation. Now as an adult I wonder, why? I remember it as being sort of a horror film, which pleased me greatly at that age, but why did the teachers feel it was necessary to show it to us? I wish I could see the film again.

This was a movie that had one too many bad-things.

We start with a group of strangers (reminding one of TZ's "five characters in search of an exit," in all the right ways) tossed into a it's-the-end-of-the-world survival pod. Add in one maintenance man (the always reliable Richard Jaekel), and one... well, traitor (Bradford Dillman in strangely fitting glasses, for some reason). And pretty much everybody falls to pieces with the knowledge of what's happened to everyone they know.

That's a great story. Add in the possibility that this is some sort of macabre psychological experiment, but that no matter what, nobody can leave.

That's a greater story. Add in... vampire bats?!? Suddenly a human story is converted into a piranhas-are-out-to-get-me scream-fest. And suddenly ridiculous. Now we're just waiting for someone to be killed, screaming, by swarms of vampire bats, while some try to find a way out, and are killed, screaming.

This could have been a fantastic movie (along the lines of another 'survivor' tv-movie, the superb "Sole Survivor" (1970), or the equally superb "Groundstar Conspiracy" (1972)), but somebody decided "there needs to be an immediate danger", and that it should be vampire bats. Too bad.

My uncle took me and my cousins to see this movie when I was around 10 or 11 (1970's) and it's always stuck with me, although I couldn't remember the title. What I thought I remembered was a group of people in outer space (seems they're actually in an underground bomb shelter) and, oh yes, BATS. LOTS of vampire bats, to be specific! I almost was beginning to believe I had fabricated the entire thing in my mind, but I can so vividly remember the movie theater in Asbury Park, NJ and going with my uncle and cousins (he also took us to see Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Wars...). Loved going to the movies with him, needless to say, but this particular movie especially haunted my nightmares. So glad to finally discover the correct title and the IMDb reviews. Looks like the BluRay is going to be released THIS WEEK (Oct 4, 2016)! What amazing serendipity. Can't wait to revisit this horror (sci-fi?) flick from my youth. Interesting to read so many posts by others who had seen this as kids and who remembered it vividly.

One can't help but wonder what kind of screening process was used by The Powers That Be when they selected the "survivors" for this experiment. It's interesting to note that the Free Poor are not included in the "drawing straws" experiment. Still, CHOSEN SURVIVORS is an entertaining tale of Terror and very probably the best vampire bat movie ever. (Sure, the vampire bats in this movie are decidedly HOSTILE- but who wouldn't be if someone came along and invaded your territory?) Slow motion lends a dream-like quality to the opening sequences and the mostly practical effects are guaranteed to make your skin crawl (it isn't until late in the going that the use of opticals becomes blatantly obvious; beanbag bats would've been better). The music is, at times, a little reminiscent of the score for John Carpenter's classic, THE THING. BATS, by the way, are the one solution to the current Zika virus outbreak that no one's even considered (as far as I know).

A diverse group of characters - including a behavioural scientist (Bradford Dillman), an Olympic athlete (Lincoln Kilpatrick), a novelist (Alex Cord), a doctor (Barbara Babcock), and a corporate honcho (Jackie Cooper) are whisked away by the government. Armageddon is at hand, and these people are taken to a specially designed shelter buried almost two miles below the Earth. They're all stressed out as it is, but the main problem is yet to come. It seems that the government, which modified existing caves, just couldn't create a shelter that was vampire bat proof.

"Chosen Survivors" has the feel of a TV movie, and in fact the director, Sutton Roley, worked mostly in that medium. Nothing about it is particularly stylish, although it does have decent atmosphere, especially in scenes where the lights go out. Shock and squirm moments are variable: when real bats are used, things are fine, but the special effects are simply *terrible* when it comes to creating mass bat attacks. (The movie *is* gorier than the typical TV movie, to be sure.) The screenplay by Harry Spalding and Joe Reb Moffly has some rather thin characters and silly dialogue, making it all the more impressive that some of the actors would come off as well as they do. The music score by Fred Karlin is pretty good.

Of course, this does fall into the clichés of the genre, particularly when it comes to characters. One of our "chosen survivors" is a loudmouth Jerk (the Jackie Cooper role) who does a lot of complaining. Also, we get one poor woman, Kristina Lerner (Cristina Moreno) who's obliged to do most of the screaming and panicking. The cast does the best it can with the material; the quietly effective Kilpatrick and the excellent Richard Jaeckel come off the best.

At the very least, "Chosen Survivors" can boast one very well executed set piece, when one person tries to step to the heroic challenge and scale the massive elevator shaft to send a signal to potential rescuers. It's here that Roley is able to generate the most genuine tension.

This is very much of its time, but still offers a reasonable amount of entertainment for undemanding B movie lovers.

Six out of 10.

A diverse group of people are flown to an underground bunker, where they are informed that they are the sole survivors of a nuclear war that has broken out. They are naturally shocked and upset by this, but try to learn more about the war and new surroundings, when another horror happens...the survivors discover that their underground cavern is filled with vampire bats, who are not content to leave them in peace.

Obscure film deserves to be better known, since it is well acted by its stars(Jackie Cooper, Diana Muldaur, Alex Cord, Bradford Dillman, among others) and has an intelligent script that contains quite a few surprises for the viewer. Ultimately downbeat drama, but compelling,and would have been at home on either "The Twilight Zone" or "The Outer Limits". Is on DVD at least, and worth seeing.

The message in "Chosen Survivors" is don't trust the government. Ten people find themselves stuffed into a "Dr. Strangelove" sanctuary over 17-hundred feet beneath the surface of the Earth. They have been chosen based on a number of characteristics that make them ideal specimens for survival. Above, the Earth smolders in the wake of a global, thermonuclear war. Unfortunately, when the government constructed the tactility, they overlooked a new species of vampire bat in a nearby cavern in New Mexico, and this species invades the place and starts killing people. Our heroes don't have anything with which to protect themselves. Moreover, they don't band together, and one of them, Raymond Couzins (Jackie Cooper of "Superman"), goes berserk after he gets drunk and sabotages the works. A great ensemble cast struggles to make lemonade out of this lemon. Alex Cord, Richard Jaeckel, Diana Muldaur, and Bradford Dillman give it their best, but the screenplay by "House of the Damned" scribe Harry Spalding and freshman scenarist Joe Reb Moffly lacks charisma. Lenser Gabriel Torres' cinematography and composer Fred Karlin's score contribute to the suspense that director Sutton Roley generates. The action turns a momentous turn about an hour into the narrative that is fairly mind-blowing. Everything is spun about 45 degrees. Meantime, a problem occurs, and the chief scientist, Peter Macomber (Bradford Dillman) tries to send a message. Sadly, the message doesn't make it back to surface. When it isn't suspenseful, this exercise in Nihilism isn't very uplifting. The satire is a bit heavy-handed. The production values were strong, and the underground facility looked convincing in a slick, shiny, sci-fi way.

~Spoiler~

They simply do not make films like this one anymore. The Chosen Survivors blends thought provoking science-fiction with exploitation horror. Random people (including Richard Jaeckel, Lincoln Kilpatrick, and Jackie Cooper) are chosen by computer because of their skills, intellect, and genes to survive the nuclear holocaust. They are re-located to a military instillation deep within the earth where they get to watch the end of the world. Minds begin to frazzle, egos flair, arguments erupt; it's a classic exercise in fear and paranoia. And just when things couldn't get any worse...they do. Our chosen survivors are not alone. The military didn't just hollow out the earth. They built the bunker within an already existing system of caves and tunnels. Caves and tunnels where a horde of vampire bats lay in wait searching for their next meal. The movie quickly becomes a terrific scare-fest with twists and turns you won't see coming. It's a brilliant film with absolutely nothing cliché about it. Give Chosen Survivors a chance, because it will surprise you.

The story concerns a disparate group of people who are placed in some kind of underground bunker just before the world is destroyed by a nuclear holocaust. They are told that they are the "chosen survivors" who will re-populate the world for humanity. Unfortunately, the bunker was built near some caves containing hordes of bloodthirsty vampire bats which proceed to attack the characters, threatening to wipe them out.

I saw this film when it first came out & some of the scenes stand out in my mind to this day. Unfortunately, the film is completely unavailable on video despite the appearance of much more obscure movies in that format. Since I haven't seen it in 25 years, I won't make any comments as to its quality--but as a 14-year old in 1974, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

I remember seeing this movie at the theater and have been waiting to see it again. I am still waiting. Most movies end up being shown on TV, not this one, most end up on video, not this one. Where has it gone??. I have always remembered this movie because it was so well done. It had a great story line as well as fine acting. And what a twist at the end.

My husband found Chosen Survivors on DVD on eBay. It is on a disk with another movie I never heard of, but it is finally available to all those people who have spent the last twenty five years looking for it. I don't know if there are any more copies out there, but if you start there, you might have some luck. I saw this once when it was first out - at a drive in, no less - and have wanted to see it again ever since. As I recall, the twists and turns are not the ones you would expect when you first watch it, but they are interesting. It will be interesting to see if it scares me as much watching it now as it did the first time, now that I know how it turns out. You can email me if you want and I will let you know where in ebay my husband found it.