Survival Box

Survival Box doesn't have many if any good qualities. You are better off with a dozen different Netflix titles with similar stories.

Plot

Seven teenagers. Five months. Twenty feet underground. No exit. The gripping story of a handful of high school kids trapped in a wealthy Philadelphia family's backyard bunker.

Cast

Unfamiliar with anyone involved, but they're some of the oldest "Teenager" I've ever seen.

Verdict

I don't know why but going into Survival Box with the missus we'd found ourselves believing incorrectly that the movie fell under a certain horror sub-genre we like. Not sure what it's called, but it's where people are thrown into a deadly game such as Cube, Circle, Human Race, Would You Rather etc. Let me be clear, this is not that and in fact isn't even a horror.

A thriller following a theme that we've seen before, no really we've seen this exact movie before. We see the turmoil, we hear the angst, we witness quite frankly very little as the movie slow burns to absolutely nothing. I'd hoped that it had a surprise twist (And not an obvious one) but no it has nothing and arguably has another non-ending.

Full of unlikable characters, dull dialogue and no notable scenes this is an utter bore.

Rants

I want a doomsday bunker! I mean I don't trust society nor our governments, I already stockpile food! I'd make a great survivalist. I'm just not a gun-nut, paranoid or into conspiracy theories. In fact it's probably a bad idea anyway as I'd probably descend into my doomsday bunker, setup shop there and never come out.

Breakdown

Recycled concept Poor casting Weak characters Goes nowhere fast.

2 stars......because it's a movie. And It's got....half decent bones (setting/camera-work.) The rest....wow. Truly just one messy trope cliche after another. Right off the bat, they make sure to throw in that one **** character every terrible movie has that is so far off the spectrum of a normal person it's laughable. In real life, if there were someone who is that much of a ****, people just wouldn't put up with you, let alone in a life or death end of days type scenario(He luckily doesn't have a ton of screen time). Anywho, the rest of the characters aren't much better, all falling into one or another type that has been recycled over and over again from every other poorly written movie out there. The other fun note, this bunker's automated systems kick in and seal this group inside. Yet there's about 3 seconds of them questioning whether it's maybe just a fluke. Then they all just kind of go, "yep, okay, world is over, everyone is probably dead" which would be fine if they acted ANYTHING remotely logically after that, instead it's paranoia and unexplained behavior left and right within a week or two. It's like the writers couldn't decide what each character would be...if they'd be survival experts, smart, stupid, grown ups, soap opera characters that give monologues, stoic non-emotional, hyper-emotional, or the spoiled rich kids they were supposed to be. So instead characters just change from scene to scene, thus the reasoning/thought process that you might be able to apply and fool yourself into believing to explain why a character would do something, has to switch every few moments for it to make any sense. Which becomes tiring....fast!

If you like the idea of this movie. But want something with characters who make sense with the way they are non-sensical due to circumstances. Something that is raw. Something that will leave you kind of feeling....icky. And point out what actually lies below the surface of humanity being kept in check by society. Watch a movie called The Divide. It also has an occasional meh-moment. But it literally beats this movie over the head with story/character based logic.

If you are an adult, or even a remotely mature teenager, skip this. It's for kids who don't want to see, and especially not read Lord of the Flies. It's basically a re-imagining of it with less creativity, worse writing and filled with contradictions and cliches. Lord of the Flies was all about the premise of what would happen if kids were put into an almost impossible situation. This movie was made just to have another movie with a bunch of pretty young people who look like the young Jonas Brothers and Kardashian fans. But: If you like movies where you couldn't care less about ANY of the characters, you might like this. But you might also be a little dopey.

Dont normally review movies here,but felt I had too because of the 2 false 10 and 9 star reviews.. this movie is very wooden with nothing to offer that is new..the cast is very boring and drab..as others have pointed out in other reviews around,this is more like a tax write off than an effort to make a decent flick ..very sub par and not worth the time it will take to watch.