The Collapsed
2011, Canada
dir. Justin
McConnell
cast: John
Fantasia, Steve Vieira, Anna Ross
A family flee the
city in the wake of a violent breakdown of society, heading for their
former home in a small rural community. Abandoning their car to avoid
a confrontation with another group of survivors, they take to the
woods but soon find that the other survivors are the least of their
problems.
On
paper, this doesn't sound particularly promising- the premise of a
catastrophe that sends survivors homicidal has been done to death
post 28 Days Later. However,
rather than turning out to be another sub-par, low budget zombie
movie, The Collapsed benefits from a real sense of unease and sense
of hopelessness. The nature of the apocalypse is never made explicit,
only that something terribly violent has happened, with the immediate
issue of survival and finding safety taking precedence over mediation
over the nature of the disaster . The acting is generally much better
than you would expect, the script economical. Normally, the limited
locations for low budget films works against them, but here, such an
atmosphere of despair and panic is created, that it's not an issue.
There's a real tension as the family are stalked through the woods,
and when the nature of what they're facing is revealed it does come
as a shock. An unexpected little gem of a film.
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