“Here Alone” (2016) - Review
“Here Alone” - a deeply affecting tale of isolation - does more with its modest 150 thousand dollar budget and 90 odd minutes than so many survival horror thrillers before or since. Discovering this 2016 tale feels more like finding a lost premonition than another entry into the swarm of zombie genre fare that occupied the 2010s.
Director Rob Blackhurst and writer Ebeltoft craft an emotional tale of a woman seeking refuge in isolated forest land, hidden from the zombified victims of a worldwide pandemic. The lone woman (Ann - played with an instinctive spirit by Lucy Walker) survives in the picturesque wilderness, scavenging nearby abandoned properties for food, taking lengthy and viscerally disgusting precautions to sneak past clusters of undead ravagers.
In Blackhurst’s direction, Ebeltoft’s sparse script and Walker’s appeal draw you in from the film’s opening moments. Ann appraises her dwindling supplies in a car that looks like it’s taking an off-road residency permanently. Covered in hardened brown paste, wearing a mask, it’s clear that Ann is scared and frustrated. What follows is a silent bath in the lake, making the brown concealment shine before it sheds away. Ann floats - nothing but the sound of a brewing storm, and then rain showers her half-submerged body. This moment of suspension is the only solace in Ann’s life. A respite from the reality of life, when she dries off, and dresses, she marches up a dale to a perch to listen to the remaining radio signal—a french speaking emergency warning on repeat. The location gives Blackhurst the freedom to create a dialogue between Ann’s interior process and relish the scope of this picturesque location. In another circumstance would be a sought after getaway spot.
Ebeltoft structures Ann’s story as two converging trains, one carriage, of the epic lengths of her survival. The other carriage, the traumatic tale of the last remnants of her former life that led her here. The effect, once you’re introduced to her husband Jason (Shane West at an intentionally high degree of patronising, survivalist “man-splaining”) and sweet baby - you’re immediately unsettled by the future tragedy and hoping that whatever happened galvanised her for enduring survival.
Walker is “Here Alone”. Walker’s performance as Ann is the scaffolding that “Here Alone” stands atop. Without her committed, procedural approach, her authenticity adopting the tactics she could glean from her husband despite lack of experience, the film could not succeed. At the mid-point of the film, Ann encounters Olivia and Chris. Despite her automatic withdrawal, she empathises with Olivia and nurtures the pair back to health. Gina Piersanti plays Olivia, the skittish and possessive teen clinging to the threads of life in the before time. Adam David Thompson plays Chris, a modern city man, good-humoured and mirthful despite the crushing reality - a quality that causes him to but heads with Ann.
Just as the “Walking Dead” universe expanded and thrives, “Here Alone” could just as easily fit alongside Danny McBride and Alex Garland’s “28 Days Later” series. “Here Alone” is as impactful as economical; you feel the end of the world stakes from the micro-scale.
