Here Alone

I have no trouble with low budget films. No trouble either with off the formula stories. Some the most creative work is done with low budgets, and breaking formula is often good.

Obsessions with character arcs, closure, etc make for poor story writing , but some aspects of story telling formula are in fact necessary. Those aspects include some level of credible or believable climax and anti climax and some level of characters being consistent absent anything in the story showing why they would change.

This film is just outright terrible throughout and the climax is just, well complete BS.

This film is low budget combined with every lowbrow cliché imaginable.

Do you need to be a survivalist to write in the Zombie genre? No. But you certainly need to think out your story, and do a bit of research not to make yourself a laughing stock. That people would go to the woods in a post apocalyptic scenario is credible, but not because it would be a good place to survive, but because that is where idiots would go. To be making unneeded campfires (ie showing every threat exactly where you are) , handling and using firearms with no basic skills or common sense, to foraging in places with no likely forage completes the idiocy.

That leaves the interplay between characters. Frankly it is terrible and juvenile. Without getting into spoilers here, the interactions throughout are childish, and the ending is simply a cheat on the audience.

Lastly a whole lot of the positive reviews of this film , virtually all of them are from single review posters. This is the problem with IMDb removing its comment boards, as there is no place to quickly leave an note that the reviews are clearly shilled. They are. Frankly, there is more imagination and creativity in those positive reviews than in the film. The creative team for this film should have had their buddies write the film instead of trying to upshill it here!

Not so much a zombie movie as a movie in which zombies provide a backdrop to the developing relationship between a pair of survivors and the man's step-daughter. It's sombre and slow, and dialogue is at a premium for the opening half, but it's worth sticking with.

Short review here as most other reviewers have covered the film in detail. I will just say that the entire film was gripping and brilliant. The performances by all involved were some of the best I've seen in this type of film: completely organic and believable.

That is, until, the final 15-20 minutes of the film. The ending, and the events directly leading up to it, are so obviously an attempt by the filmmakers to subvert the audience's expectations, that the whole plot takes a drastic turn toward the impossible. The final actions of all 3 of the main characters are completely out-of-character with everything we had seen up until that point.

Therefore, all of the goodwill the filmmakers built until then is completely lost. As such, a film that could have easily been a 9 to me has now become a very low 6.

For those considering watching this, don't bother. The emotional investment you'll gladly share in the first 2 acts does NOT have a payoff and you'll end the film completely disappointed. What a shame and what a waste.

Believable characters, realistic action and an interesting story, all delivered in the right pace. Very well directed in all, barely any of the dreaded shaky cam low budget productions seem to like so much, the shots of nothing to set the mood are kept in check and the audience is spared any cheap jump scares.

Even the score supports the images, which is something a lot of filmmakers struggle with. Dialogue is relatable, use of profanity appropriate.

Here Alone is definitely worth a watch.

Ann is surviving alone in the woods during the zombie apocalypse. She's no Ripley, but she's not a scream queen either. Holing up in the woods of upstate NY was the idea of her survivalist husband in an effort to save them and their infant child (ominous tone). But Ann isn't a strict adherent to her husband's survivalist tutoring, shown especially when two uninfected strangers show up and present an immediate tension in the rationing of the already meager supplies. But also the tensions of three people living alone in the woods. The Road meets No Exit.

A nice touch to this movie, besides the slow reveal of the outcomes of the rest of Ann's family, is how there doesn't need to be a clear sign of zombie for the first half hour or so, merely suggestion and peripheral sightings. But the movie doesn't hold off from seeing the monsters for too long to make their absence distracting. The film doesn't quite cash in on its interpersonal tensions by the end, but overall an intriguing effort.