To me, this movie is perfection.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

This is an imaginative early film full of special effects—what film historians call a "trick film". None of the effects, including substitution splices, miniatures and pyrotechnics, were invented here; in fact, they'd been employed for countless movies made earlier, especially in the work of Georges Méliès. Additionally, as others have mentioned, they do appear primitive today, but must have remained impressive enough back then to be used in so many pictures. Nevertheless, the narrative of a Zeppelin invasion of England is unique and proved to be a precursor to Germany's use of Zeppelins against England during WWI about five years later. In recognition of this, the film was re-released in January 1915. In film, as in real life, however, these airships were more frightening and technologically impressive than they were effective in battle. The film also features a primitive tank and fighter biplanes, as well as a funky-looking surface-to-air missile.Walter R. Booth was one of the best trick film artists of early cinema to follow in the footsteps of Méliès. Before making this film, "The Airship Destroyer", and others for Charles Urban's company, he made trick films for R.W. Paul. The earliest that survives today appears to be "Upside Down, or the Human Flies" (from 1899). Some of the other interesting early films to feature trick effects that Booth and Paul collaborated on include "The Magic Sword", "Scrooge; or Marley's Ghost" (both from 1901) and "The '?' Motorist".For another Booth-Urban trick film available on the web, see "Willie's Magic Wand" (1907).

This is a cracking little film from the pioneering days of cinema (just over a decade after the Lumiéres). It's not exactly science fiction, more a vision of what-might-be given the technology of the day. So we have fleets of airships bombing civilian targets, and an armoured car/tank firing ground-to-air missiles in an effort to destroy them.Our hero has developed what we would now call a drone: a pilot-less aircraft capable of locking on to a target. He has proposed to the love of his life but her father turns him away. The girl's home is destroyed in the air-raid. Our hero rescues her and her father from the wreckage then returns to destroy the raiders with his new technology. He gets the girl, of course, but I'm not sure whether father was dead and out of the way or just willing to have a brilliant inventor for a son-in-law.Of course the special effects are primitive but the shot of a burning church is still a distant ancestor of the destruction of the Empire State Building by Roland Emmerich. You can see the film at www.freemoviescinema.com. Have a look. It's worth a few minutes of your time.

Airship Destroyer, The (1909) *** (out of 4)Early science-fiction film (some consider it the first) about a Zeppelin that takes off in the night where three men use it to drop bombs on England. I guess you could call this an early "fear" film as it's pretty clear that it was made to put fear into people watching the film that an invasion could come from the sky at anytime without any notice. I really don't agree that this is a science-fiction film but for some reason people consider it one. The special effects for the most part are pretty good with one great shot of the Zeppelin off in the distance while another one, with actors that we can see, comes floating in the shot. The ending doesn't hold up very well due to some obvious effects but it's still fairly impressive for 1909. Original German title: Der Luftkrieg Der Zukunft.

It is frequently and falsely claimed that Porter created the story picture in THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY. Melies was creating such films already, most notably in A TRIP TO THE MOON. Likewise, D.W. Griffith did not invent cross-cutting, although he did establish its usage as standard and produced what Lillian Gish called "the grammar of film." Here is evidence that he was not working alone.This short film, based on a Verne novel, imagines the course of a future war, in which dirigibles are used to bomb cities. Although primitive by today's standards, it is clearly an epic picture and well worth the time of anyone with curiosity about the origins of film.