Ah, the 1980s . . .

Watched this film back around 1989, while skulking around the video store as a hormone-laden 14 year-old. I found this apparently straight-to-video release and popped it in the old VCR (according to an interview with Sarah Douglas on the Code Red DVD I just obtained, she can't recall this movie ever getting a theatrical release, though the DVD does contain a trailer).

I wasn't expecting much, as it was rated PG-13, but boy was I surprised . . .

There was quite the steamy campfire sex scene between Charles Hayward and Andra Millian, her bare breasts glistening with sweat as she lets out screams of ecstasy as Hayward barks away on top of her. This scene was filmed in the daytime, under the heat of the sun of the American Southwest (which is supposed to pass for the fictional desert planet Aeon). In fact, Millian shows quite a lot of herself in this film, and there is an earlier scene where she torridly makes love to David Birney's character while twisting away among scarlet sheets.

As for the violence/gore, there is a sequence where Sarah Douglas, as part of a religious ritual, has her eyes pecked out by wild birds.

The whole point of the film is the conflict between science and religion, as groups from Aeon's small, nomadic population divide into one camp following the prophet Sor (Alexis Kanner) and another following the scientist Aton (Birney) as this primitive world tries to make sense of the impending eclipse of its three suns.

Not just the nudity and the sex scenes, but the general theme and the aforementioned blinding scene would certainly get this film an "R" today.

There is a monograph waiting to be written about the changing cultural mores of America when it comes to film, as I can recall seeing a number of films made from the late 1960s all the way through the 1980s that were quite violent and/or sexually torrid, yet only rated a PG from the MPAA, or later a PG-13 when that rating first appeared in the early 1980s.

Many will find "Nightfall" quite campy, cheesy, and cheap 1980s B-grade fare, and I remember thinking how low-budget it was even when I watched it at 14, but rewatching it now all these years later, I give the filmmakers and all the actors/actresses involved credit for making a sincere effort with a project they seemed to be taking seriously at the time.

Check it out for the 1980s nostalgia/vibes if for nothing else.