(CCR Original Content) Here Alone Review [Spoiler Free Review & Spoiler Review below picture] (3/10)
Here Alone is a 2017 post-apocalyptic horror/drama directed by Rod Blackhurst and written by David Ebeltoft. Producers who worked on the film include Rod Blackhurst, David Ebeltoft, Arun Kumar, Noah Lang and Josh Murphy. The movie was produced by Gentile Entertainment Group and Preferred Content and distributed by Signature Entertainment and Vertical Entertainment. The film stars actors Lucy Walters, Gina Piersanti, Shane West and Adam David Thompson.
On the constant brink of starvation Ann (Lucy Walters) leads a regimented and isolated life, deep in New York's upstate wilderness after a mysterious epidemic decimates society. When her food stores run dangerously low she must venture into nearby homes as the bloodthirsty threat of the infected lurk just outside the forests border all while haunted by the memories of her past. One of these raids leads to a chance encounter with a teenage girl, Olivia (Gina Piersanti) and her step-father Chris (Adam David Thompson) and she must make a decision on whether she should help them or ignore them, with the outcome of her decision irrevocably altering their collective existence and survival.
This movie was has me very mixed on where I stand on it. I originally liked it from the beginning. Lucy Walters puts on an amazing performance as Ann. The film showed the extremes that Ann goes through to keep on living in this world full of zombies and the survival skills she displays are respectable. All of that gave this movie a level of realism that is overlooked or ignored in most zombie films that are just about blood and gore. I really enjoyed the flashbacks which showed that she wasn't always alone and fills in the gaps of her backstory. When 30 minutes had passed and no real action scenes happened that didn't bother me much as some zombie films have a building up that happens but I was alarmed and greatly disappointed when at over an hour into the film nothing had really happened in terms of zombie action. This movie is a good movie for the drama part of it and showing that part of the character interaction in a zombie apocalypse setting but it was a big time let down when it came to the zombie part. I was hugely disappointed in this film as a zombie movie. It wasn't until probably the last 20 maybe 15 minutes that any zombie action really happened and the zombies were not of the quality that I'm used to. There were some clever scenes but I just couldn't get over how stagnate the plot was and how long anything took to happen in this movie and it's really just a drama with a bunch of dialogue. I wouldn't recommend this movie for anyone looking to watch a zombie movie unless you want to watch one that isn't really scary in anyway. Because of that I would have to say that this is a good movie but below average zombie movie, I give it 3/10.
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Spoiler Section Review:
Man, I can't believe what a let down this movie wound up being when it had so much potential. It started off really strong and I like Ann (Lucy Walters) and thought she was a strong female lead/protagonist. She demonstrated early on the extremes she puts herself through to ensure her survival such as covering her naked body with a mixture of scat and mud to cover her scent, cutting herself to collect blood and use as bait to lure zombies away, and collecting her urine to douse herself with incase any zombies follow her back to her camp. She's shown rationing her food and scavenging maggots for protein, and keeping two camp sites incase one is lost. Even when she ventures out to get supplies, the moment she hears zombies, she doesn't wait to see them, she stops what she's doing and gets moving. What killed me with this film was that it was so slow building and wound up being nothing but dialogue. The flashbacks intrigued me, because I was interested in her backstory since it showed she wasn't always alone and had a husband and baby. But nothing ever happened even when she chose to help these strangers who she didn't know and house them in her camp and give them food. For more than an hours of the film there is probably only 1 minute of zombies. It's not until the last 15-20 minutes of the movie does it get good when Chris's daughter Olivia betrays her on a raid and knocks her out and ties her up, and screams to attract zombies before leaving her to die. It was already hinted at that Olvia didn't really like Ann as much as she was pretending to or that she was getting jealous of Chris and her relationship so this wasn't even a big of surprise as it shoud have been but it was a little shocking. I did like how when Ann goes to help them when she gets free that she forgets to grab more ammunition and has to chose who she will help survive. I thought that was very believable and a good final twist especially since she chooses Olivia who tried to kill her. Still everything in this movie could have been summed up in an epsiode of The Walking Dead and been better action wise if not as good drama wise but close. I still give this movie a 3/10.