Hostile

Up late and found this movie. No need nitpicking this movie, just enjoy it. It's pretty damn good.

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.

It stands out in the overused zombie genre with its combination of horror (a bit?) and drama. Pace is slow with the amount of flashbacks but it pays off in the end. Don't expect to get a lot of explanation behind the apocalypse though.

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.

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".