LAST SURVIVORS

US, 2021, 98 minutes, Colour.

Drew Van Acker, Alicia Silverstone, Stephen Moyer, Mark Famiglietti.

Directed by Drew Mylrea.

The title has overtones of the apocalyptic experience in world. And, that is how it begins.

A father and son have taken refuge in the wilderness, the father explaining that there had been the experience of World War 3, the man and the loss of his wife, their having to take refuge and build themselves at home to survive. And this has happened for 20 years, the father, Stephen Moyer, and a strong influence on his son, now grown up, Drew Van Acker.

The father is a strong personality, dominating his son but underestimating the curiosity of the son as he has grown older, living the primitive survival life, hunting killing and storing, with some of the remnants of past mod cons, including some magazines. His father’s order is that any human seen has to be killed and the son tells a hunter.

However, the drama is about the son being curious, venturing beyond the boundaries of the wilderness, seeing a woman at home at a washing line (Alicia Silverstone), returning, curious, questions, even a sexual encounter.

In the meantime, the audience discovers that there was no World War 3, that everything has been going on as normal for 20 years, the police precinct, and diner, plenty of traffic in the streets…

The drama is in the challenge to the son, questioning his father, questioning the woman, misinterpreting a sequence where she is accosted by her former husband who wants her to return to the city which she has abandoned.

Ultimately, the father realises what has happened, tries to intern his son. However, he escapes, build up to a confrontation of the house, involving the woman, and the son having to make decisions.

1. Title and expectations? Post-apocalyptic?
2. The settings, the woods, Montana? The town, homes, streets and cars, the police precinct, diners, business? The musical score?
3. The opening, the frontier, father and son, over 20 years, father raising his son to be independent, hunting, storing, surviving? World War 3, everyone the enemy? Weapons, fighting? The bond between father and son? The setup, the house, storing, hunting and killing, skinning the animals…? Remnants from the past, the magazines? The son not having memories? The absent mother?
4. The son, his age, the mission, confronting the hunter, seen as the enemy, death?
5. The son, wandering further than the boundaries, his father urging him to kill anyone seen, the woman at the clothes line, his observing, not killing her, telling his father he had?
6. The tension between father and son, the son and his questions, suspicions, returning?
7. Henrietta, her house, the background, her leaving her family, mental health, medication, her husband coming to seek her, demanding her return?
8. Henrietta, the encounters with Jake, talking, his being tentative, her hearing his stories about the World War 3, her trying to reassure him? The sexual encounter and its effect?
9. Jake, returning to the town, seeing the cars, people ordinary, no sign of World War?
10. His father, suspicious, confining his son, the son’s escape?
11. Seeing Henrietta at the diner, with the man, his suspicions, accosting him? The consequent violence?
12. The buildup to the confrontation between father and son, the father, his motivations, the police officer and his looking at the records, his father’s behaviour, the reason for the retreat?
13. Father and son, violence and death, the sums future? And Henrietta?