The Collapsed

Post-apocalyptic America. The zombie apocalypse. These are all themes of the coming of the end of days, end of civilization, and the end of humanity as we know it, thus making for a rather solid setting for a movie. From THE ROAD to most recently, THE DIVIDE, these type of flicks generally invoke responses of terror, horror, and maybe most of all, depression. Yup, these movies are depressing as f*ck. And then there’s THE COLLAPSED, a super low-budget indie flick that plays up the end of the world, but with a small twist that sort of sets it apart from the pack.
The film follows a family of four (parents and their 2 adult children) as they attempt to survive the apocalypse by heading into the forest and taking their chances with nature. Ok, so it starts out like THE ROAD or even THE WALKING DEAD in some regards, but let’s face it—for a low budget flick, it’s the best situation possible as there’s not much to fake in terms of showing a forest void of people. Masked men with machine guns are on their tale as well as another unseen and deadly force, which is likely the reason for the whole end of humanity to begin with, is also amongst them in the woods (again, THE ROAD comes to mind with the crazy f*ckers in the woods chasing them down).

So as a concept, THE COLLAPSED works really well. The filmmaking is top notch, the cinematography is polished, and it feels like a big budget Hollywood picture. They also do this thing with focusing on the woods and their whole environment that was actually pretty cool. Also, the musical score is actually spot-on, as it adds to most of the film’s tension, escalating moments that would normally not be that big of a deal into something more.

However, what almost out-right killed this movie for me were the performances of the entire cast (save for the main dude, who was merely mediocre). The mother being the worse, with the daughter not far behind—seriously, these two were painful to watch. Every time they opened their mouths I felt like I was watching some high school drama production, only worse. And the mom—she didn’t even have to open her mouth to start being extraordinarily annoying and not worth a grain of salt in the acting department. Seriously, how did they get this gig? She had to of have been the only one to audition because these two were just ridiculous. So ridiculous that they practically made the movie unwatchable—lucky for us, they’re not in the entire thing. That said, the brother isn’t all that much better, nor are “the others” that show up at the end. For as solid as the production and the filmmaking is (for their budget and whatnot), the performances by the actors almost ruin the whole thing.

That aside, THE COLLAPSED offers what you’d expect to get out of a post-apocalyptic movie with a pretty good twist at the end that I only slightly saw coming. It’s a small film that aims to do big things and does so for the most part, making it a watchable experience overall, through I was keeping an eye on the clock as it drags here and there.byammon gilbert