The Last Survivors

A teenage girl (Haley Lu Richardson) fights to protect the last working well in a drought-stricken valley from a greedy water baron (Jon Gries).

What I like about his film is that it concentrates on building a world. Although the location used was probably relatively small, we are given the illusion that the entire world -- or at least enough of it -- has completely dried out. And it is very effective.

We do not have zombies (thank goodness) or unbreathable air. Just the simple idea of a drying up world and the increasing value of water. It works. By gosh, it works. Add in a few guns and a samurai sword, and we have a nice plot. Is it horror? Not really. Science fiction? Sort of, but it is so close to reality it almost gets around that, too.

Saw this at the Leiden film festival 2014 (LIFF), where it was selected for the American Indie Competition. Given is a post-apocalypse situation, after all water disappeared from a large area. Some farm houses are still more or less intact, with a few sparse inhabitants who try to survive with limited resources and nearly defective equipment. Our main character is 17 year old Kendal, involuntary head of a household that consists of herself and her handicapped brother with ailing kidneys. At the other end of the spectrum we have a greedy water baron, who claims all of the (little) still available water, collects it underground in water tanks, and is supported by a small army that doesn't shy away from lethal violence. As a result, he makes it more and more difficult for everyone in the area to pump up the water they need for their survival.

Our main character Kendal has lots of luck, she is resourceful and armed with plenty of determination. As the story progresses she remains standing, contrary to many others with ill intentions. Kendal even has her way with a sword. Moreover, along the line of sheer luck, her brother with the ailing kidneys who can only walk with crutches, succeeds in shooting three men in a row, in spite of the latter being armed and normally impose their will by means of those armory. It shows desperation all right, but it stretches our belief that this can happen for real.

Beautiful shots of a desolate area, leaving us wondering how this situation came about. I'm not sure, contrary to another reviewer, whether it would have improved our viewer experience if we had known more about the background of brother and sister, and similarly about the reason of the water shortage. The background is hidden along the story, and is revealed sufficiently for us to understand a bit of the context. The message we take away is that there is no hope for the nearby future.

Another irrational element in the plot is Kendal's desperate chase for a distributor cap of the correct type, that fits a plane in a hangar seemingly belonging to no one. She goes at every length in finding the distributor cap, checking every car or van within reach, in order to get the plane in the air. She hopefully assumes that the rest of the plane is in perfect order (it does not look that way from our viewpoint). This chase for missing motor parts is a constant theme throughout the running time.

The label Horror is not correct by my standards, due to missing creepiness throughout. Yet it has all the elements of a slasher movie, that maybe being the reason for the Horror label, coming from the continuous killing that seems necessary in the survival of the fittest process as demonstrated here.

None of the flaws summed up above keep us from intensely following what happens on screen, and feeling along with Kendal and her brother. They seem the only ones standing up against the greedy water baron, in short a perfect candidate for a young female heroine to sympathize with. Due to their lone position we cannot expect them to survive until a final solution is reached, nor do we see a viable strategy to leave the area. Yet, they come a long way, much farther than we could have assumed. For spoilers sake, I cannot tell more about how this story works out eventually, but anyway it is different from what I had expected.

All in all, depressing landscapes, mixed with little hope for some form of escape from the harsh reality due to defective equipment and limited resources all around. From the "post apocalypse" situation that is the center of the action, we cannot expect an "enjoyable" experience. Nevertheless, the believable acting, the camera work in and around the abandoned farms, and the desolated landscapes, all of that cooperates nicely to let us leave the theater satisfied. Also, no action or violence for the sake of it, but what we get perfectly fits in the story line. In conclusion, I am fully prepared to overlook the flaws that I summarized earlier.

Considering this site lists this movie as being made for television* I was expecting something along the lines of what you get on the SyFy Channel . Warning sign number one . I read the synopsis on this page and saw it featured a ballsy heroine in a post apocalypse scenario which conjures up images of teen marketed speculative action thrillers similar to THE HUNGER GAMES and THE MAZE RUNNER . Warning sign number two . On top of that this film is known by the dual title of THE WELL and THE LAST SURVIVORS which is never a good sign of a film so it looked like three strikes and your out but still decided to give it a chance and while I wasn't blown away in amazement I was occasionally surprised by THE WELL

Set in the near future mankind faces extinction due to a lack of precipitation making the land surface of the planet arid . Now human life is dependent on water , a human being can't live for four or five days without it and one wonders why governments haven't embarked on a crash program of building of water desalination plants to solve or at least lessen the problem . Perhaps they have but the film doesn't really give details of this and is left open ended and mainly unexplained . That said the enigma of the drought doesn't really damage the story and unlike the recent Brit flick HOW I LIVE NOW the apocalypse is fairly convincing and well done . The film concentrates on the trauma of teenage girl Kendal as she tries to survive against a gang of scavengers who want to rule the desert valley she lives in by stealing all water resources and murdering anyone who is of no use to them . In some ways it plays out like a revenge Western . I was taken aback in how gritty and gloomy the story was and it's not afraid to kill off characters . Haley Lu Richardson makes a somewhat uneven heroine and while Kendal is written and cast to audience identification for a female teen audience she wasn't really someone who I could relate to though I did appreciate the downbeat mood of the piece . That said - and I hope am not being patronising - the people who can identify with Kendal will probably be put off THE WELL / THE LAST SURVIVORS by the gloomy tone . In other words despite some strengths it won't satisfy all the audience all the time

* It was until I wrote this review I realised "TV" beside the title was IV . I should have gone to Specsavers

I guess. If beautiful teen models struggling to survive a violent, widespread water shortage isn't silly enough, the dialogue and acting in "The Last Survivors" are too weak to convey believable struggle. The actors just don't have the chops to offer much more than their beautiful faces as entertainment. Put a little makeup on the male lead and he'd be kissable too.

No offense, but based on most of the reviews on Amazon, young viewers enjoy it as a beautifully shot post apocalyptic teen romance. Fair enough, but I can't imagine any intelligent person over 30 sitting through this vapid chain of artfully composed scenes. I had to fast forward through almost half of the film to see if there was any payoff by the end of this uninteresting, slow moving, cliché ridden story. Nope! And, "better than the "Road," as one reviewer wrote? Not even close.

I generally enjoy the low budget post apocalyptic sci-fi sub genre. However, the lack of grittiness and believable survival savagery made this movie too lightweight to sit through.

"There was a time when a man owned the land, he controlled the water. But things are different. The water's mine, so the land is mine."

The feeling I had after watching this post-apocalyptic film, was an irresistible urge to drink. Just as in "Mad Max" there's a scorching drought. Earthly life is reduced to a struggle for survival in a world that hasn't seen a drop of rain in more than 10 years and the survivors search daily for some precious water. Similarly, the courageous and very young Kendal (Haley Lu Richardson) who goes on patrol every day to get a few sips of water for herself and a few survivors in the area. She's also looking for a particular component that's required to make a defect airplane so she and the sick Dean (Booboo Stewart) can escape from the dead and dry Oregon valley.

First the positive comments about this movie. The dreary, parched landscape is truly brilliant portrayed. The decaying houses buried by sand and the endless sweltering desert ensure, as I mentioned earlier, that you soon need something to quench your thirst. To create this miserable, desolate world, the Mojave Desert was used. The isolation of the scattered remaining inhabitants, is filmed in an adequate way. More than once the images made me think of an old Western movie. Also the performances were, especially that of the youthful Richardson, admirable. Quite an achievement at that age. She plays the role as protector and guardian of the spring with skill. The role of Booboo is limited, partly due to his illness, which means that his action space is confined to the attic. And the most adorable part is played by Max Charles as Alby, a brave little boy who sometimes turns out to be more mature than we thought in the first place. And third, despite the lack of action, the tension is tangibly present.

Unfortunately, there were also some negative points. First, the bad guys are not very original. Obviously, there's again the religious whining. And when push comes to shove, they turn out not to be that clever when it's about defending themselves. After a while it even started to be a bit monotonous. Over and over again the back and forth running in between the various buildings and abandoned vehicles, really started to irritate at a given time. And seeing this fragile girl using a samurai sword as if she has done this already for years, was also hard to believe.

But still it managed to fascinate me and it all looked intriguing enough, despite the limited budget. The desperate situation in which the individuals found themselves and the insane plan of Carson to acquire dominion over all the available water, so his daughter Brooke would become heiress of an empire, created a nerve-wracking cat-and-mouse game. "The Well" is a typical low-budget film that nevertheless managed to surpass other similar films, just by the appropriate use of limited resources, its authenticity and some decent acting.

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