Hostile

Movie has a great premise and an interesting setup similar to "Buried", "Locke" or "The Wall", where most of the action is just the lone protagonist communicating with disembodied voices on a radio or cellphone. The post-apocalypse narrative was what I came for, so I was disappointed that so much of the film's scant 83 minute runtime is given over to a distractingly creepy "Pretty Woman"-style romance subplot presented as flashbacks. And when I say it's creepy, I don't mean in the way you want your horror movies to be. I mean the way the controlling, wealthy romantic interest, having met the main character once, later follows her home and then later still imprisons her in his own home until she kicks her heroin habit and falls in love with him. Stockholm Syndrome? The movie acts like this is normal and sweet.

Back in the main storyline, the titular "Hostile" creature is well designed and well played with the correct kind of creepiness to his movements and appearances. The standoff between the creature and Juliette eventually reaches its necessary showdown, to good effect with some nice echoes to "Predator".

No lie...I was really enjoying this movie right up until the ending. The post apocalyptic movie genre has always intrigued me mainly because I like to judge the decision making processes (or lack thereof) of the protagonists as they dart from one sticky situation to the next. The one common denominator in nearly every single one of these flicks is "OMG! Did you really think going into the dilapidated farm house by yourself and without a weapon or flashlight was going to turn out well?" This movie was no different. Our protagonist played by Brittany Ashworth immediately hit the right notes by coming off as capable, confident, and extremely self sufficient in the desolate landscape she was forced to survive in...and then she rolled her "Mad Max" Battlewagon when a "pre-end of the world photo" she obviously treasured blew out the window, and got a compound leg fracture in addition to an upside down hunk of useless metal, AND was stranded alone. Of course she'd be alone! But to her credit she did a good job fighting off the "things" you'd expect in a world gone to Hades. Then there was that ending. Oh boy. Up until then, not a bad run and I think most people would like it. Grade: B.

I love a good post apocalyptic thriller so I was looking forward to this one. It starts really well, and then quickly becomes odd, then frustrating, then just plain eye-roll worthy.

The entire movie jumps back and forward between timelines but does so in a way that feels very jarring. The entire relationship between the two leads felt unrealistic... so many plot points and character decisions just became too much of a stretch for me. I can suspend my disbelief to a certain point but c'mon guys...

I really wanted to like it, it was shot beautifully, the creatures were genuinely creepy, and it had potential.

Points for originality, I definitely wasn't expecting what I saw (though I did call the 'twist' about 20 minutes before it happened). The message that the writer tries to leave us with is a nice one but feels out of place in this genre and left me with too many questions.

This post-apocalyptic love story could have been very good, even great, had it not been for the jarring back-and-forth jumping between two different timelines.

The main plot-line finds our heroine injured and alone in a barren, zombie-infested no-man's land, hunted by a spindly creature with a bad skin condition. This situation could have been a nerve-wracking viewing experience, had the director not decided to splice scenes of her "life before" throughout the full run-time of the movie. This breaks the tension EVERY TIME, in both narratives.

If you want to tell a backstory, just tell it and get it over with!

The acting, music and cinematography was adequate.

This was definitely not what I was expecting, it was actually much better, and deeper. I'm sure this movie, like most with flashbacks, will get panned by some reviewers because of it. However, after watching it through, the movie is actually more in the flashbacks than the "present" storyline. It has a really cool and moving symmetry at the beginning and end, using the gunshot. I actually let the movie begin to play over again at the end, which is where I really noticed it, and by rerunning is where you catch all the foreshadowing that you may not have caught. One of the first scenes, in the art gallery, with the "look past the ugliness" explanation of the Bacon artwork, is the basis of the story. I think you'll enjoy the movie as long as you're not looking for it to be the typical, gory, zombie-like post apocalyptic movie. Also understand that one flashback doesn't pick up exactly where the other left off (this threw me off at first and is why I enjoyed watching it a second time after understanding). The flashbacks are linear, but time passes (weeks to months) between them. This was a pleasant surprise, since I sit through quite a few bad movies when I look for free movies to stream.