FORGIVE US ALL
***
Directed by Jordana Stott.
Starring Lily Sullivan, Richard Roxburgh, Lance Giles.
Horror, New Zealand, 93 mins, Certificate 15.
Released On Digital and DVD by Lightbulb Film Distribution on 13thOctober
Given the highly prolific cycle of post-apocalyptic cinema and television over recent decades, you’d think we’ll all be incredibly well prepared should we be (un)lucky enough to survive some kind of extinction level event, whether it involve Climate disaster or, perhaps, some demented Fascist world leader having a senior moment with the Nuclear codes. But it’s ok – keep calm, stock up on candles, tinned fruit and cyanide pills and everything will be fine.
FORGIVE US ALL is a sincere, well-acted addition to the sub-genre from New Zealand, marking the directorial debut of Jordana Stott, who also wrote the script and, with producer-husband Lance Giles, invested NZ $10m into the film. There’s significant talent behind the camera: composer Brandon Roberts won an Emmy for co-writing the score for the magnificent documentary FREE SOLO and cinematographer Peter McCaffrey (who shot M3GAN) gives it a distinctive look. Even the infected hordes were designed by prominent Weta FX personnel like Gino Acevedo.
It opens on a startling note. We’re introduced to the protagonist, very well played by Lily Sullivan, via an anxious close-up. As the camera pulls back, we realise she’s standing at a burial mound, gun in hand, unleashing a primal howl of grief against an attractive, deserted backdrop. She has killed and buried her husband and, in her ravaged, blood-stained mountain cabin, her similarly afflicted daughter launches a vicious attack before the screen goes black. The little girl will meet the same fate as her father.
Two years later, and, having lost everything except for her dad (an authentically tough but loving Richard Roxburgh), she’s suicidal and beset by recurring visions / flashbacks of her child. The infection, which turns its victims into cannibalistic “Howlers”, has decimated the nation (and presumably the world), and what serves as the government oversees survivors in designated camps. When the badly wounded Noah (Lance Giles) shows up at Sullivan’s home, her father warns of the grave dangers of taking him in, with government agents hot on his trail and potentially as lethal as the fast-let’s-not-call-them-zombies infected. Noah’s desperate mission: to get an antidote to his eight year old son.
Sullivan’s committed, moving central performance is the strongest facet of FORGIVE US ALL: her devastating backstory, and the chemistry she has with Roxburgh, provide a solid dramatic, emotional core. Touted as much as a “Neo-western” as an apocalyptic horror movie, it sports widescreen shoot-outs and the kind of vistas you might expect from something styled as a modern oater, with a scarred but strong heroine.
Despite these efforts to provide a different visual palette and approach, however, you’ll still suffer sustained deja-vu. The scenes of feral, frantic Howlers – complete with blood-shot eyes – feel old hat now, and weren’t original as long ago as Danny Boyle’s 28 DAYS LATER. (Umberto Lenzi’s NIGHTMARE CITY is still the most entertaining example of this theme, by the way). The dialogue is suitably (and relentlessly) sombre: “We’re surviving” insists Roxburgh, to which Sullivan responds despondently: “What are we surviving? I’m just a fucking ghost”. It ends as grimly as it began, and you’re left with that same sense of hopelessness you get from picking up any daily newspaper…but also with the feeling that the second season of THE LAST OF US visited this territory with much more depth, tension, wit and emotional impact.
Steven West