How did I miss this when it first came out? How have I managed to keep missing it ever since? And why has my luck finally changed?

I went to see my ageing parents and it was on, at around the halfway mark - "Hello," I thought, "even though I've never seen this before, it looks unmistakeably like Irwin Allen." You see, while I might not have seen this particular movie before, I can certainly recognise Irwin Allen's distinctive signature on celluloid.

A cast of relatively high-profile actors (and a few like Alex Karras and Barbara Carrera who somehow managed to consistently get work despite having the least appealing screen personae ever) playing characters it never proves possible to get interested in. Some astonishingly unconvincing "exterior" studio sets. A script which fails on every level from plot to dialogue. Special effects which must have cost literally tens of dollars.

Even for Irwin Allen this is a cheapskate production - you could normally rely on spectacle to compensate for the dreadful script, but not so here.

A poor effort indeed.