The Sur­vival­ist

If we keep burn­ing fos­sil fuels at the rate we’re going, the world will be trans­formed into a bar­ren waste­land in which the sur­vivors will bat­tle for suprema­cy with the tools that remain. No, not the first instal­ment of a new YA sci-fi fran­chise, but a tac­i­turn art film by direc­tor Stephen Fin­gle­ton. Para­noia reigns in this blood­thirsty dystopia where human con­tact is usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied with extreme violence.

A lone sur­vivor with swept-back hair played by Mar­tin McCann tends to his crop, fer­til­is­ing the soil with a rot­ting human corpse. Sel­dom with­out his rifle, this young man waits for peo­ple to pay him a vis­it so he can dis­patch them before they sul­ly his rur­al idyll. One day an old woman (Olwen Fouere) and her daugh­ter (Mia Goth), tip-toe down his gar­den path in search of bed and board. But who are they? Are they alone, or an advance par­ty for a gang of hood­ed maraud­ers? He’s right to think that they’re here to grab his patch, and treats them with caution.

With a script that you could prob­a­bly fit on to a sin­gle cock­tail nap­kin, Fingleton’s lan­guage is action not words. Why speak when a fierce glare can do the talk­ing? The claus­tro­pho­bia of this depop­u­lat­ed world is height­ened by film­ing in close-ups, sel­dom allow­ing the view­er to see beyond the nar­row per­spec­tive of the hero. As a call­ing card movie, it’s might­i­ly impres­sive; dra­mat­i­cal­ly lean, grip­ping where it needs to be, and a sto­ry told with sat­is­fy­ing economy.

As robust as it is, the film sore­ly lacks for orig­i­nal­i­ty, as this set-up is essen­tial­ly co-opt­ed from every zom­bie movie ever made. And while McCann is clear­ly con­sumed entire­ly by his char­ac­ter, he’s not a tremen­dous­ly excit­ing com­pan­ion to spend time with. But The Sur­vival­ist is a gleam­ing gold­en tick­et to Tin­sel­town, and it’ll be fas­ci­nat­ing to see whether Fin­gle­ton takes up the offer or choses to plough his own Bible-black art-house furrow.