Post Apocalyptic Movies

[nugundamII]

I usually like a serious Movie about a future where humanity is under strain by some unknown force

Zombie movies for me are a real bore

2012 like movies are unrealistic

Asteroid movies can be done right but hollywood has done a piss poor job.

The Core was a Fun ride.....

One I liked was 2009's Knowing until they introduced the feel good alien saves part of the Human race factor. I like watching the struggle of acceptance of final destination. The scene where the protagonist goes to see his father and hugs everyone until they are turned into plasma.

Well one really had me deep in thought and I swear I thought I was choking on my heart was The Road. At first I thought it was another funny silly Zombie movie making an attempt at being serious.

Well I was pleasantly surprised that it turned out so good. I like that fact you dont know what is or has caused the Global Catastrophe. Throughout the movie you get the feeling that the global pandemic is haunting the last bits of humanity. The coloring and the scenes are so real. You feel for the father and boy. When Viggo Mortensen toss his ring over the bridge you feel the anger and hopelessness both at the same time. Dialogue was scarce but I think that made the film all the better. One of the best purchases of 2009.

[the white drew carey]

I usually like a serious Movie about a future where humanity is under strain by some unknown force

Zombie movies for me are a real bore

2012 like movies are unrealistic

Asteroid movies can be done right but hollywood has done a piss poor job.

The Core was a Fun ride.....

One I liked was 2009's Knowing until they introduced the feel good alien saves part of the Human race factor. I like watching the struggle of acceptance of final destination. The scene where the protagonist goes to see his father and hugs everyone until they are turned into plasma.

Well one really had me deep in thought and I swear I thought I was choking on my heart was The Road. At first I thought it was another funny silly Zombie movie making an attempt at being serious.

Well I was pleasantly surprised that it turned out so good. I like that fact you dont know what is or has caused the Global Catastrophe. Throughout the movie you get the feeling that the global pandemic is haunting the last bits of humanity. The coloring and the scenes are so real. You feel for the father and boy. When Viggo Mortensen toss his ring over the bridge you feel the anger and hopelessness both at the same time. Dialogue was scarce but I think that made the film all the better. One of the best purchases of 2009.

Three words: read the book.

The Road (film) is a good adaptation, but the stylistic approach Cormac McCarthy uses in the novel leaves you even more barren inside than the movie does. One of the best novels I have ever read.

[Gubaba]

Three words: read the book.

The Road (film) is a good adaptation, but the stylistic approach Cormac McCarthy uses in the novel leaves you even more barren inside than the movie does. One of the best novels I have ever read.

I'll second this. The book is brilliant, as is most of Cormac McCarthy's stuff. He's definitely one of the best living American writers.

As for movies...well, most post-apocalyptic movies fall into the cheesy-80s-Italian-Mad-Max-Ripoff genre, don't they? Most of the really good apocalyptic movies I've seen aren't action movies, but serious character dramas. I think the best I've seen are probably Testament, When the Wind Blows (which is a cartoon), and The World, the Flesh, and the Devil (starring Harry Belafonte!). I can think of a lot of others that are fun, dumb, entertainment, but those are the only ones I can recall seeing that were genuinely moving.

And any list of post-apocalyptic films wouldn't be complete without a mention of

ZARDOZ

!!!

[taksraven]

Water World and The Postman are FANTASTIC!!!

[miles316]

Water World and The Postman are FANTASTIC!!!

It would have been less painful if you had kicked me in the Nuts why why!!

[taksraven]

It would have been less painful if you had kicked me in the Nuts why why!!

Sorry for the pain. :lol:

The Quiet Earth is an obscure little New Zealand post-apocalyptic film made in the 1980's. Its not Shakespeare and most of what is in it has been seen before, but those who have seen it will know how enjoyable it is.

Taksraven

Edited January 10, 2010 by taksraven

[Tober]

Off the top...

I thought 28 Days Later and I Am Legend were good for modern survival horror movies. The Quiet Earth is slow but good. Threads is gut-wrenching. Children of Men starts slow but improves (not sure it counts as post-apocalyptic though). Day of the Triffids (mini-series or movie) I liked but haven't seen in decades. I've heard good things about Survivors (mini-series) but haven't watched it yet.

Does Macross: Do You Remember Love? count? Probably not...

[Gubaba]

Sorry for the pain. :lol:

The Quiet Earth is an obscure little New Zealand post-apocalyptic film made in the 1980's. Its not Shakespeare and most of what is in it has been seen before, but those who have seen it will know how enjoyable it is.

Taksraven

I forgot about This Quiet Earth...yeah, good movie.

Off the top...

I thought 28 Days Later and I Am Legend were good for modern survival horror movies. The Quiet Earth is slow but good. Threads is gut-wrenching. Children of Men starts slow but improves (not sure it counts as post-apocalyptic though). Day of the Triffids (mini-series or movie) I liked but haven't seen in decades. I've heard good things about Survivors (mini-series) but haven't watched it yet.

Does Macross: Do You Remember Love? count? Probably not...

I haven't seen Threads but I heard it was really good. Children of Men, I found enthralling all the way through.

I remember being VERY freaked out by the old Day of the Triffids as a kid...I'd probably find it laughable now...

[Robelwell202]

I don't know if this qualifie for the discussion, but there was a recent flick that left me with a giant WTF feeling...

The Mist

I do have my isues with the movie. As is usual for anything Steven King, there's a huge hate of the US Military present in the flick. That's something I could do without.

Still, the ending left me feeling like my guts (and other vital man-organs) had been kicked into the stona-age...

Edited January 10, 2010 by Robelwell202

[Excillon]

Not really apocalyptic, but 12 Monkeys, Brazil (both Gilliam I know), and the first 2 Terminator films come to mind...I try to forget the last 2.

[Noriko Takaya]

One movie comes to mind, possibly the best post apocalyptic movie ever made. And that movie is:

Robot Jox

[nugundamII]

Off the top...

I thought 28 Days Later and I Am Legend were good for modern survival horror movies. The Quiet Earth is slow but good. Threads is gut-wrenching. Children of Men starts slow but improves (not sure it counts as post-apocalyptic though). Day of the Triffids (mini-series or movie) I liked but haven't seen in decades. I've heard good things about Survivors (mini-series) but haven't watched it yet.

Does Macross: Do You Remember Love? count? Probably not...

oh yeah forgot i am legend. Another excellent movie....and yeah i would count do you remember love but its really at the end you find humanity and earth are leveled same thing in BSG

[nugundamII]

Not really apocalyptic, but 12 Monkeys, Brazil (both Gilliam I know), and the first 2 Terminator films come to mind...I try to forget the last 2.

dam i forgot how many apocalyptic movies are there are. Yeah 12 monkeys was good too. Terminator i wouldnt call great but good too. And the last M Night Shyamalan about plants killing humanity off

Edited January 11, 2010 by nugundamII

[Gubaba]

dam i forgot how many apocalyptic movies are there are.

Probably more than you ever thought possible...

[sketchley]

Appleseed.

[bob joe mac]

I enjoyed The Stand pretty good mini-series nothing and I mean nothing compared to the book though like most everything. Still worth the check out the plot is government makes a super flu and something goes wrong and it gets out slowly infects the world despite lethal measures to quarentine the infected areas and then small fraction of the human population naturally immune try to survive. One of Stephen Kings first books and IMO one of his only great books.

[Ghost Train]

The trend towards "end of times" stuff (i.e. zombie takeover, 2012, supra-natural disasters) seems to be increasing in recent times. I attribute this rather unhealthy obsession to the fact that this decade has presented real challenges to Americans for the first time. To keep this non-political, I will simply state that this challenge relates to the general decline (perceived) of American influence in the world.

Instead of focusing on how to fix "things", we spend all of our time worrying, fearing, and even hoping for some strange post-apocalyptic clean slate from which we can start over... which explains the irrational stocking of supplies, ammunition, etc for whatever the nuts think is coming.

[nugundamII]

The trend towards "end of times" stuff (i.e. zombie takeover, 2012, supra-natural disasters) seems to be increasing in recent times. I attribute this rather unhealthy obsession to the fact that this decade has presented real challenges to Americans for the first time. To keep this non-political, I will simply state that this challenge relates to the general decline (perceived) of American influence in the world.

Instead of focusing on how to fix "things", we spend all of our time worrying, fearing, and even hoping for some strange post-apocalyptic clean slate from which we can start over... which explains the irrational stocking of supplies, ammunition, etc for whatever the nuts think is coming.

And with that in mind we enter the age of Blade runner where noodles and sex with cyborgs is a common thing

[Gubaba]

The trend towards "end of times" stuff (i.e. zombie takeover, 2012, supra-natural disasters) seems to be increasing in recent times. I attribute this rather unhealthy obsession to the fact that this decade has presented real challenges to Americans for the first time. To keep this non-political, I will simply state that this challenge relates to the general decline (perceived) of American influence in the world.

Instead of focusing on how to fix "things", we spend all of our time worrying, fearing, and even hoping for some strange post-apocalyptic clean slate from which we can start over... which explains the irrational stocking of supplies, ammunition, etc for whatever the nuts think is coming.

I disagree. There were a lot of "end of the world" movies in the '70s...and in the '80s...and in the (late) '90s...and throughout the '00s. Hell, there were even a bunch in the '50s and '60s. It's not a recent thing. What IS recent is that CG effects are good enough that you can show a whole city going kablooey without it costing millions upon millions of dollars for a single short sequence (a la Terminator 2).

[nugundamII]

Jan 15th Book of Eli

looking good

[VFTF1]

I just saw a movie yesterday called Revers, that I think qualifies as "Real Post-Apocalyptic" - although here in Poland, it merely qualifies as a drama.

Some Background:

My beautiful Misa asked me to take her to see this movie, but for some reason, I muddled things up. She had been going on and on about some romantic comedy with Meryl Streep last week, and this week she said "take me to see Revers." For some reason, even as we sat down in the cinema, I was convinced that this "Revers" thing was going to be a romantic comedy with Meryl Streep.

Boy was I wrong.

How is this film Post-Apocalyptic?:

Most post-apocalyptic movies take place immediately after a cataclysmic event during which millions of people died, civilization as it was known was whiped out, usually there are no buildings left standing, everybody is dead - and while some semblence of remotely human existence remains - well...it is only a facade masking the trauma of a horribly scarred world.

A classic of the genre is Mad Max - wherein Max, like any other cop who needs a break, takes his family for a vacation - but this idylic story becomes subject to the specific dangers of a post-apocalyptic world.

Well - Revers is Poland's Mad Max... although it's a lot more subtle and...tellingly; it's got a lot to do with culture whether or not you'll find it terrifying.

My Misa (who is Polish) found Mad Max terrifying. She sweated and shivered. The whole thing was so alien to her, and so frightening. But during Revers, she laughed at the humorous parts (I couldn't) and certainly didn't break a sweat (whereas for me - the movie was depressing).

I think this might be cultural. Revers, unlike Mad Max, is not a fantasy. It is a realistic portrayal of a historicall documented post-apocalypse.

SETTING:

The movie takes place in...1949.. or...no 1952. I'm fairly sure it's 1952 - one year before Stalin's death. Warsaw was completely burned to the ground in 1945 and roughly 10 million people in the country were killed during world war II (civilians only - counting of course people killed in Auschwitz). Between 1945 and 1952 (the year the movie takes place), the communists systematically purged anybody who was wealthy, creative, educated or independent. The idea was to leave alive only the people who were stupid, people who were women (weak), and people who were children (easy to raise and exploit).

Thus, the movie qualifies, IMO, as a 100% Post-Apocalyptic film, since the story of the movie takes place after 10 years during which time cities were burned to the ground, millions of people were slaughtered, and human civilization basically came to an end and was replaced by murder, rape and general barbarism.

The Exoteric Plot

The family who are the focus of the movie used to have a house, but their house was confiscated by the government and turned into a ministry, while the family itself was moved to an apartment building where they now live. The family consists of the Mother (played by Krystyna Janda who is a fairly well known Polish actress..at least well known in Germany too), the Grandmother, and the Mother's two children - Sabina and Arkady.

It is never mentioned what happened to the children's father, or Grandfather, but it is safe to assume that since they were men - they were killed during the war. Perhaps the grandfather died of natural causes earlier.

In any case we don't know.

Anyways - the exoteric plot of the movie is seductively normal. Sabina is a young girl - probably in her early 20s or lat teens, who works in a publishing house, in the department dealing with poetry.

Her main job is to "convince" poets to bend to the will of Stalinist censors and put their poetry in the service of communist ideals. On a daily basis, however, her job is editing texts.

Her mother's main preoccupation is trying to find a suitable husband for Sabina.

The story unfolds as the mother tries to track down good husbands for Sabina. An Accountant visits and has dinner with them, trying to impress Sabina with his excellent mathematical memory. He is like a walking calculator - ask him what 25345 times 5254 is and he'll have the answer immediately. He's also...not Sabina's type, to say the least.

There is also one other element in the Exoteric plot: namely a silver US Dollar.

The government issues a decree whereby all citizens were obligated to turn over all gold and silver or foriegn money in their posession - and Sabina's mother had discovered that they had a silver US Dollar in their home.

In a wonderful scene, the Mother says "look..it says liberty on it! It's illegal silver, it's American, and it says liberty - we'll all be killed for sure!"

Anyways - there is some heavy debate about how to get rid of this US Dollar. They don't know what to do with it. Finally, Sabina lies - saying that she'll take it and dispose of it - but instead - she proceeds to swallow it.

She swallows it every evening, and then sh!ts it out the next morning - rinses it - and swallows it again. This procedure is shown in some detail over and over and is meant to be humerous.

Why won't she just give it back or throw it away, you ask?

Simple:

If she takes it to the government to give it back as the law prescribes, then the government will no doubt be curious about where she got it in the first place? The government would then likely send agents to her apartment to search the apartment, and even if they didn't find any more gold or silver, they would most likely find other things of interest which they would then steal for their own personal use. In any event - going to the government with the coin would just invite trouble.

So...why not just toss it out the window or into the trash?

Because - someone might see.

And everyone is a spy. You see - as mentioned above - everyone intelligent, educated, courageous and brave is - in general - dead. The only people left are the ones who are stupid, old, quiet or cowardly (again in general).

This is 1952 - the height of Stalinism in Poland and following a world war during which time human life was cheap. If the girl goes to throw the coin outside - someone will see her - they will rummage in the trash and find the coin and report her and she and her family will all be hung.

Or at least that's the fear.

Only youn Arkady - who seemed to have been a small boy during the war - does not see any problem. "Just throw it away." he says. But the girls are more careful.

One last bit of Exoteric plot:

Fast Forward to the year 2009.

Sabina is 80 years old and gets into a taxi to drive to the airport in Warsaw, where she waits for a flight from JFK in NY which has been delayed.

Naturally, we the audience wonder who it is that she's waiting for?

All in all, the exoteric plot shows a humorous aspect to Stalinism - namely how it made people paranoid. Sabina's swallowing and crapping out the silver coin are kind of the main example of this. Also, the exoteric plot focuses heavily on something very normal in human lives - namely the quest of a young girl for love and her mother's insistence that she needs to find a husband.

Finally - after many attempts - Sabina meets a fine handsome young man, who saves her from two muggers. He's tall and dashing, wears a Bogart like trenchcout, and has a cigarrette dangling out of his mouth at all times. After punching the mugger who assailed Sabina, making him give her purse back and apologize to the girl, he galantly holds out his arm and escorts Sabina home.

The young man calls on Sabina again and again with flowers, takes her to the movies, and generally the two of them fall more and more in love.

Finally - Sabina happily asks her mother if she might invite someone home, and she invites the young man who meets her family.

Everything is going along well.

At this point, the movie could well have just become a nice romantic comedy or romantic melodrama about Sabina's quest for a husband during somewhat difficult times.

If it had - it wouldn't have qualified as Post Apocalyptic.

But - it is the esoteric plot - which had been boiling beneath the surface - that qualifies it so.

The Esoteric Plot

Finding himself alone with Sabina, the young man brutally rapes her. After brutally raping her, he asks to marry her, and also reveals his real job. He is an agent of the Communist Party and he wants Sabina to become a spy. Specifically, he wants Sabina to spy on her boss at the publishing house who is suspected of having un-clean thinking. The man also blackmails Sabina saying:

"Do you think we don't know about the silver coin you swallow and crap out every morning? We know."

Sabina, having been raped and shown that even what she does in her bathroom is known to the Party, is shocked. However, she collects herself, excuses herself, and goes to fetch some more vodka for the gentleman.

While in the kitchen, she opens the cupboard and takes a vile of poison out, pours it into the vodka, stirs, and then brings out the drink to the young man.

The man takes a drink and slowly looses all of his muscle functions - including his lungs, heart and brain - over the course of 15 minutes.

While watching him die, Sabina apologizes, saying "I'm sorry it's taking so long for you to die - but I couldn't find any stronger poison."

After he is dead, Sabina takes his gun and considers blowing her brains out - but for some reason - she doesn't.

When her mother returns home, they take the man's body up to the attic, where, using a variety of chemical agents (Sabina's mother is a chemist), they creat an acid which slowly burns all the flesh, veins, skin and muscles covering the man's skeleton until he is nothing but bones.

They then take the skeleton apart, stuff it in various bags, and over the course of a few weeks, throw those bags away in various spots - into the river, in the garbage, leaving one bag of bones at the train station, at a bus stop etc etc

In the end, it turns out Sabina is pregnant with the man's child. She wants to get an abortion.

However, Sabina's grandmother says to her "you can't blame him for raping you and decieving you. It is most likely that the communists threatened to murder his whole family if he did not go to work for them. Besides, the child is innocent."

Fast Forward to 2009.

Sabina is still waiting at the airport - but finally, a man steps out of the Arrival Hall to meet her - it is her son, who looks very much like his father. He has come back from the USA to visit his old Polish mama. They are happy to see eachother.

Once a year, Sabina regularly visits the place where she burried the skull of the man who raped her - and lights a candle at his grave - happy to have his wonderful son.

The end.

---

So - there you have it. This is a real Post-Apocalyptic film.

It has all the terror and surrealism of your best sci-fi post-apocalyptic movies.... with the one qualifier being that it is set in times that really happened and shows situations that likely were routine in those times.

Pete

[Agent ONE]

Macross is post apocalyptic.

There has never been a better story told.

[terry the lone wolf]

The Omega Man, the 1st 2 Planet of the Apes movies (the Tim Burton one doesn't exist in my reality), The Day After, Threads, The Road Warrior, The Fist of the North Star (anime not that gawd awful live action one), & 2020 Texas Gladiators.

I have a copy of Kadokawa Shoten's international cut of Virus and I've yet to watch it. Has anybody seen it? I've heard some pretty good reviews on it.

[Tober]

Macross is post apocalyptic.

There has never been a better story told.

For some reason I thought you would have nominated Cyborg

Although from what I remember of it I did actually enjoy it. Hovever I also remember enjoying Hardware which I saw about a year ago... awful movie...

----------------------------

I tend not to count movies such as Planet of the Apes because it's not really post-apocalyptic in terms of genre. Same with Terminator, 12 Monkeys, Battlestar Galactica, Akira etc... I tend to think of needing or focusing on a small group of survivors to qualify.

[DarrinG]

Recently got the novel "The Road" and flew through it in 2 days over Christmas break.

I felt shaken and could not stop thinking about it for about a week. Gripping - highly recommended.

But then I saw some movie clips on the web and wish I had never laid eyes on them. Not at all what I pictured.

It looked like a rough camping trip compared to the utter bleakness and devastation I imagined while reading the book.

All the actors should have been soaked in a vat of black brine prior to shooting and maybe do the whole thing in something very close to black and white.

The book, the book, the book . . .

[Moly_Sigang]

Resiklo(Recycle), a post apocalyptic movie made here in the Philippines.

Here's the trailer:

This movie is a bit too cheesy and lame though, and took some bit from Mad Max, and ripped off some mecha from Battletech.

The story is about a group of rebels/freedom fighters that are fighting an alien race that has invaded Earth several years prior. In order to take back the planet from these aliens, the rebels are forced to scavenge the land to recycle old mechas (hence the title-Recycle) for their use.

[the white drew carey]

We had an I Am Legend marathon a year or two ago, where we watched the three films directly based on the novel. "The Last Man On Earth" with Vincent Price was the most faithful to the novel, while Will Smith's "I Am Legend" was the most entertaining. That being said, "The Omega Man" and "I Am Legend" totally lose the whole point of the story. The end of "I Am Legend" even tries to re-interpret the reason that he is, well... legend.

[Rossi]

I'm sorry, but I can't take any discussion about post-apocalyptic movies seriously without the mention of such masterpieces as Solarbabies and Six-String Samurai...

I must be living in a vacuum; I have never heard of The Road. I'll have to give it a read!

[Duke Togo]

Three words: read the book.

The Road (film) is a good adaptation, but the stylistic approach Cormac McCarthy uses in the novel leaves you even more barren inside than the movie does. One of the best novels I have ever read.

^^^ QFT

[the white drew carey]

and how could everyone forget

?!?

[Wanzerfan]

Yeah, I did like "The Omega Man" with Charlton Heston (who can forget that character with the middle finger printed on the back of his jacket?).

The Mad Max series of movies were also pretty good, from what I've seen. (I do admit to seeing snippets of the original, most of The Road Warrior, and all of Beyond Thunderdome)

Any chance of Jackson making a "Fallout"? I think that would be right up his alley. Maybe we can get Ron Perlman to do the narration.

[nugundamII]

Recently got the novel "The Road" and flew through it in 2 days over Christmas break.

I felt shaken and could not stop thinking about it for about a week. Gripping - highly recommended.

But then I saw some movie clips on the web and wish I had never laid eyes on them. Not at all what I pictured.

It looked like a rough camping trip compared to the utter bleakness and devastation I imagined while reading the book.

All the actors should have been soaked in a vat of black brine prior to shooting and maybe do the whole thing in something very close to black and white.

The book, the book, the book . . .

Looks like I need to get the book. But I still like the movie. Too me it looked bleak...none the less Mad Max meets Moses Book of Eli I think will be pretty good. There have been good animes too. Nausicca and one which I cant remember the name of but humans injected trees with the human gene on the moon and started a chain reaction giving trees Goku like powers and incinerating earth I suppose cause their roots split the moon in half. Forward to the future much of Earth is desert with pockets of Sentient Fauna which control the water supply. The protagonist of the story is a girl from the technological past awakened from a cryosleep to unleash the doomsday mountain. A pretty good movie

[taksraven]

We had an I Am Legend marathon a year or two ago, where we watched the three films directly based on the novel. "The Last Man On Earth" with Vincent Price was the most faithful to the novel, while Will Smith's "I Am Legend" was the most entertaining. That being said, "The Omega Man" and "I Am Legend" totally lose the whole point of the story. The end of "I Am Legend" even tries to re-interpret the reason that he is, well... legend.

I listened to the audiobook after seeing "I Am Legend" and was stunned at how the movie stuffed it up completely.

Taksraven

[electric indigo]

Not all of them are post-apocalytic in a strict sense, but there's a lot to discover in the list

Top 50 Dystopian Movies

Not on the list, but personal favourites are "Stalker" and the experimantal "La Jetée".

"La Jetée" is told entirely with b/w still photographs, with haunting music at the appropiate places. Gilliam's "Twelve Monkeys" is a re-telling of the story.

[Vile]

Speaking of books (because the film was pretty poor), Nevil Shute's On The Beach is one of the most harrowing post-apocalyptic stories I've come across. It's probably enhanced by my first reading it during the cold war, but the scenario is still plausible today.