There are a few things I take issue with this film, but I'll summarize it in that it involves the "realism" of the film itself; and some weird writing / narrative decisions.
First, the good: it was reasonably well acted, every actor does a commendable job considering the material they are working with. They all seem to be fairly amateur actors; too, I think some may even have a future in acting.
The bad? A lot! But mainly 2 things:
1) This isn't "how it would really go down", this is a prepper's wet dream. Now, I have no doubt at all society would eventually break down during a global power outage, but not so fast. I know it was probably a narrative decision to cause a sense of panic, but the "let's kill for fun" faze would take at least a few months. Probably more.
Likely, in a situation like this, the national guard and police would keep order a few weeks, maybe some months. If supplies truly ran short nationwide, the breakdown of society would occur once cops left to fend for themselves, again probably months into this. The film "Into The Forest" does a far better job pacing out a scenario like this.
Especially in small towns, their isolated locations would make it take longer to break down. I live in the Midwest, I've lost power regionally for a week due to storms. No looting. People helped each other. Or in parts of Puerto Rico they lost power for a year+ due to the hurricane. No mass murdering.
Again, a nationwide breakdown would speed up the panic, but 3 days? The hordes "come out of the cities" (?) after 3 days? No.
2) I know the idea for this film is viewing "every day" people dealing with a global catastrophe, but some of the subplots were weirdly unnecessary. The teens going backpacking at the exact moment the disaster starts, just so they naively wander into a camp of psychos? Huh? What the hell was with this subplot? It created really odd pacing where the story jumped back and forth between their dumb teen bliss, and the crisis, for unknown narrative reasons. I suppose they represented "innocence" or whatever. But, it was just stupid.
My biggest frustration is that with the mostly competent cast and a decent premise, this film was a wasted opportunity.
First, the good: it was reasonably well acted, every actor does a commendable job considering the material they are working with. They all seem to be fairly amateur actors; too, I think some may even have a future in acting.
The bad? A lot! But mainly 2 things:
1) This isn't "how it would really go down", this is a prepper's wet dream. Now, I have no doubt at all society would eventually break down during a global power outage, but not so fast. I know it was probably a narrative decision to cause a sense of panic, but the "let's kill for fun" faze would take at least a few months. Probably more.
Likely, in a situation like this, the national guard and police would keep order a few weeks, maybe some months. If supplies truly ran short nationwide, the breakdown of society would occur once cops left to fend for themselves, again probably months into this. The film "Into The Forest" does a far better job pacing out a scenario like this.
Especially in small towns, their isolated locations would make it take longer to break down. I live in the Midwest, I've lost power regionally for a week due to storms. No looting. People helped each other. Or in parts of Puerto Rico they lost power for a year+ due to the hurricane. No mass murdering.
Again, a nationwide breakdown would speed up the panic, but 3 days? The hordes "come out of the cities" (?) after 3 days? No.
2) I know the idea for this film is viewing "every day" people dealing with a global catastrophe, but some of the subplots were weirdly unnecessary. The teens going backpacking at the exact moment the disaster starts, just so they naively wander into a camp of psychos? Huh? What the hell was with this subplot? It created really odd pacing where the story jumped back and forth between their dumb teen bliss, and the crisis, for unknown narrative reasons. I suppose they represented "innocence" or whatever. But, it was just stupid.
My biggest frustration is that with the mostly competent cast and a decent premise, this film was a wasted opportunity.