Plague |
Australia • 2015 • 89m •
   • Directed by: Nick Kozakis, Kosta Ouzas. • Starring: Don Bridges, Cris Cochrane, Tegan Crowley, Liza Dennis, Steven Jianai, Scott Marcus, Sarah Ranken, Benjamin Rigby, Nicholas Stribakos. • Music by: Benni Knop, Shaun Smith.    A small group of survivors in post-apocalyptic Australia seek shelter from an infection that has spread like a plague among the human populace. Evie and her fellow survivors become separated from her husband John. Evie refuses to leave John behind against the wishes of the group. The survivors revolt and abandon Evie to an uncertain fate. With the unexpected arrival of Charlie what appears to be an opportunity at a new beginning quickly turns to horror as menacing as the infected that pursue them.
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Review:
It hit the stereotypes pretty hard, but I'm honestly not sure how possible it is to do a zombie movie WITHOUT hitting at least some of them.
There's never really any explanation for why people started getting sick, what exactly the sickness does, or how long ago anything happened — all we know is that animals don't seem to be affected, which is just addressed in passing. Which is fine, I guess — we don't need a detailed back story for what is essentially just another zombie movie. But I felt like this was an area that they could have explored a bit to make it more unique. John at one point is kind of theorizing on the whole concept — he says "what if mankind's purpose is simply to live as a host?" — and it's like it almosttt got interesting for a second but then Evie literally just shrugs him off like he's a crazy person and that's the end of that.
Then Charlie starts to get a little creepy. They definitely did a good job of kind of exploring that realm of things — like we're already in this freaky situation and our nerves are frayed and things are bizarre and chaotic, but let's toss some sexual harassment in the mix just to heighten the overall fear and anxiety. Jianai does a good job at flipping his personality — I mean, you already have an inkling that he might not be as great as he's cracked up to me, but all of a sudden he goes from this helpful, encouraging guy to just straight up sleazeball, and it's really terrifying. You start to wonder what exactly his motives are, and you really forget that there's infected people stumbling around at all.
He preys on her commitment to John to get her to give in to his advances, which is a chilling scene. Again, you don't think there's much that could make their situation worse, but, oh, hey, here's Charlie to be a complete predator.
The tension while Evie searches Charlie's car for some kind of evidence is wild. Charlie and John are mere feet away and he almost glances over more than once but she's determined to find something to corner him. I definitely found myself holding my breath more than once.
Then John FINALLY decides to act like he gives a crap about their lives and makes Charlie leave. I kind of wish they hadn't had Evie LITERALLY cowering behind him during this scene. I'm not sure if I'm being insensitive to the crippling fear she must be feeling after her assault by him, but it was just disappointing to see them take such stereotypically gendered roles in that moment.
But then Charlie comes back, super angry that they didn't appreciate all he had done for them, and John decides to just do nothing. He lets Charlie take the gun and literally lays on the ground and SOBS while Charlie takes his wife inside to assault her again. I mean COME ON MAN. He lays there until his wife finally gives up screaming for help and it's painful as hell to watch because I can't imagine how hopeless and angry she must have felt that the one person who should have been putting his life on the line to protect her was just CRYING. Like, right, your fear in the face of having to be bold and fearless in this life or death situation far outweighs my desire to not get assaulted for the second time in as many days THANK YOU.
But then a soldier shows up and mentions that he has a place he's going to that is safe and then John decides, again, to put his crap aside and and he winds up killing the dude and getting both his gun AND his directions to this safe place. He kills Charlie, FINALLY (he struggles but eventually succeeds, but not before Charlie manages to shoot Evie in the shoulder), and then him and Evie escape in his Jeep. They get to where the safe place supposedly is but Evie is just NOT HAVING IT and she just lays on the ground and cries, unwilling to even try to get up and escape despite infected people nearing their spot. So John is finally like, k have fun, leaves her a gun and walks off but she decides to shoot him, saying "I need you to protect me", and she walks off as he is ripped to shreds by the infected group, and the movie ends eventually with her hearing a helicopter overhead.
I just I get it, it's more of a psychological drama than a classic zombie horror film. But that doesn't stop it from being kinda dumb. Which is too bad, really, because I feel like it had some promising concepts (as I mentioned, the hopelessness of having someone as predatory as Charlie around when you need him for other means of survival, and even Evie and John's crappy relationship) but it just didn't quite go as deep as it needed to, or with enough gusto.
Review by thelastblogontheleft from the Internet Movie Database.
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