I’ve gone on and on about how when it comes to TV movies, John Llewellyn Moxey is the director to watch.

Working from a script by Lewis John Carlino (The Mechanic, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea) and Sandor Stern (The Amityville Horror, Pin), Moxley puts together a compelling science fiction film here, with Steven Anders (Peter Graves) and his two children Deborah (Kathleen Quinlan) and David emerging from a cave to learn that a solar flare has turned most of humanity into dust. Those that survive often grow sick and after they die, turn into the same powdery remains.

The solar flares that cause the flash are also driving dogs and humanity insane — Day of the Animals was correct! — and drive the family home to Malibu to try and find the kids’ mother.

This is one downbeat film –1974 was a dark time — and it was actually the pilot for a series that may have taken things down an even more brutal path.

I mean, Peter Graves fights a house cat in this. If that doesn’t make you want to watch it, you really have no hope.