The Survivalist is getting released in key cities and On Demand around the UK this weekend. I was lucky enough to see this post-apocalyptic drama at the 2015 London Film Festival. My review is up at Starburst Magazine. Here's a little taster:
Opening
with a simple red line that charts the exponential population growth
that occurred around the time oil production began, The Survivalist
offers a bleak new world after the collapse of civilisation when the
population has plummeted back down to sustainable levels again. We don't
get to see much of what this post-apocalyptic future is like, but we
see enough to learn that human nature hasn't changed a bit since the
dawn of man.
Martin
McCann plays an isolated loner who has settled in the woods and is
scraping a living by setting traps to catch anyone who comes near his
tiny farm. Here he is growing enough food to survive, and burning pages
of the bible to keep his bare hut warm. With no dialogue for a decent
chunk of the film, the titular protagonist goes through his daily
rituals, concentrating only on the basics of life; warmth, keeping clean
and making food. It is only when a starving mother and daughter arrive
and ask for food that his solitary existence is shattered.
Synopsis: Orphaned Martin is taken under the wing of bad-ass Mister as they travel across vampire-ravaged America in search of the refuge known as ‘New Eden’.
Aside from the fairly frequent jumps, scares and gore, Stake Land feels surprisingly subdued for a recent horror film. With its melancholic tone, ravaging of the religious right and focus on characters over action, the film succeeds in being a bit more thoughtful than many of its contemporaries. And don’t go into this expecting sanitized, pretty-boy vampires a-la-Twilight. These monsters are old school to the core- more like zombies than modern takes on vampires; all ferocious snarls and messed up faces. With fairly few jumps or scenes that are likely to scare a grizzled horror fan, Stake Land is easier to recommend for its realistic world-building, mournful soundtrack and interesting, well-drawn characters.
Opening with Martin’s voiceover as he introduces himself and his travelling companion, the enigmatic father figure and teacher, Mister, the film quickly flashes back to a vicious encounter between Martins family and the horrific vampires. Sticking with most of the rules of the vampire myth, it is soon established that stakes and sunlight are still useful in this tale of vamp vs human conflict. The pace is deliberately slow and the film painstakingly constructs a very authentic feeling vision of post-apocalyptic America. Guarded communities living in fear while supplies dwindle, drinking and sleeping together in packed bars until the sun rises and religious nutjobs taking over the wilderness to rape and murder as they please. It is this rendering of the Christian crazies that strikes the biggest false note in the story, feeling over-blown and too simple for the subtleties of much of the rest of the story and character drawing.
The cast are great, particularly Nick Damici as Mister who delivers a convincing performance with the familiar role of mean old git with a soft heart underneath. Kelly McGillis is barely recognizable as a constantly victimized nun (bet she must be wondering what happened to the days of getting jiggy with Tom Cruise in a Navy uniform) and the youngsters, especiall Connor Paolo are good in their less demanding roles. It’s particularly nice to see Danielle Harris still working, even if she has lost some of the spunk of her early appearance as Bruce Willis’ daughter way back in The Last Boy Scout.
Jim Mickle should be applauded for his direction; the film works very well as a whole, with good performances from the cast, a bleak soundtrack and pacing that could have easily been spoiled by trying to appeal to a bigger audience. It is a brave movie; not overly rushed and taking its time to build to its understated climax. The action and horror are handled well and the villain is a right nasty piece of work that should stick in the memory.
The film is most memorable for its details of life after the vampires take over. The small communities that have popped up round the country feel realistic and lived in. A sense of community, of something we have lost to some extent in 2011 shines through and gives the film a nostalgic feel, as if the vampire apocalypse may help America return to a simpler, more caring time. The positioning of the cult of Christian crazies dropping ‘bombs’ on peaceful communities and their obsession with deliverance and the ‘will of God’ is the least subtle and most forceful of themes on display and does feel a little OTT in places but the journey of the characters and their encounters with ordinary folk ground the film and make up for its excesses in other areas.
Stake Land is a very well made film and can be enjoyed as a simple horror film but also as an experience of a post-apocalyptic society and the highs and lows of living in a world with a drastically reduce population.
Synopsis: Father and son travel a long, long road, battling the elements, cannibals, starvation and the temptation for suicide in post-apocalyptic America.
According to Hollywood the world’s going to end very soon. Not sure how, not sure why… all that’s clear is that civilization will crumble and only a few survivors will be left. As if the idea of the decimation of most of the world’s population isn’t depressing enough, John Hillcoat’s The Road plunges the viewer into the desperate, hopeless struggle of a father and son to survive against misery, despair and the degenerate remnants of humanity. For much of its run time, the film is unrelentingly bleak, pessimistic and difficult to enjoy. Sadness and hopelessness bleeds from every frame. Still, for fans of drama, this film is a real tearjerker. Stick with its slow pace for a rewarding ending that may surprise with its glimmer of hope after all the preceding misery.
T he Road is unlikely to appeal to fans of other recent post-apocalyptic cinema such as I am Legend, The Book of Eli and Terminator Salvation, but if viewers are willing to succumb to its mounting sense of despair and forget about action set-pieces, there is plenty here to, perhaps enjoy is not the right word… but… appreciate.
The plot is barren like the landscape the protagonists are travelling. Like Lord of the Rings, there is a great deal of walking to be done (only this time Aragorn does a hell of a lot less fighting along the way). This is road trip without the girls, drugs, good times with great friends or even a sodding car. So much of the film is just the man and his son (Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee) walking, occasionally talking and grimacing at the cold, the hunger and the fear of strangers on the titular road. The two leads carry the film, helped only briefly by interludes of flashbacks/dreams that add to the overwhelming sense of despair coursing through the veins of the film. In these flashbacks Charlize Theron has a thankless but memorable role as suicidal wife and mother that adds to the hopelessness of it all. The flashback structure adds to the poignancy of the central relationship between the father and son and reminds the viewer of the determination of the pair to survive. Cameos from Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce and other assorted travelling folk (some friends, some foes) add interest to what could become a stale, repetitive and unbearably slow and depressing slog.
Duvall is fantastic in a brief role, but Mortensen and Smit-McPhee shoulder the burden of the entire film. Rarely off screen, Mortensen’s performance is haunting; gaunt, caring, determined and half-broken. It is an incredible performance. Smit-McPhee is equally good with a whinier role but some heart-wrenching scenes that he pulls off convincingly. With scenes that require the father to put a gun to the head of his son in moments of desperation and despair, the pair are outstanding and believable throughout.
While the pace is slow, the film feels a hell of a lot faster than the book which is a difficult read, despite its prize-winning popularity. The cinematography is excellent, particularly with the strangely beautiful shots of decimated landscapes. The never ending grey adds to the relentlessly bleak tone. Grey skies, grey trees, grey buildings and grey sea. Life has left this planet and it shows in every frame. Moments of colour are only glimpsed in reminders of what the world used to be; the opening flashback, the solitary coke can. Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ score complements the tone and gets under your skin with its sad, unrelenting piano.
This film is far from the crowd pleasing post-apocalyptic scenarios of films like I am Legend. Cannibalism, starvation, rape and suicide are all very real threats to the protagonists. The film seems to be dealing with notions of morality with the father constantly teaching his son right from wrong. The boy must learn to be a good guy, not a bad guy. But the film questions the father and his moral codes, as the son does. What is bad in this new world? Is stealing wrong? Is suicide wrong? Is cannibalism wrong?
It could also be argued the film also implicitly deals with contemporary America. The idea of fear and isolation and shutting oneself off from the ‘bad guys’ is crushingly foregrounded in the closing moments of the film. The idea that so many of these apocalyptic films have been made recently is because of American fears of civilizations imminent collapse rings true. The use of the gun as the last hope a man can have of protecting his family feels very right-wing and familiar from so many other American films. But the gun is almost used on many occasions in the film to prematurely end life, not just as protector of the family. The cause of the apocalypse is never explicitly stated but the original book has been praised by environmentalists for taking the potential outcomes of the human races current actions as a serious threat.
The Road is undoubtedly a tough watch. It’s not a popcorn/multiplex kind of movie and fans of 2012 and I am Legend may possibly want to give this a miss. It is a slow, grey and depressing film. There is very little action but many moments of suspense; heartbreaking, unbearably tense in places and carried by a pair of grim but inspiring protagonists, played with conviction by a couple of bright stars.
