One of my absolute favorite movies at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival was Stephen Fingleton‘s “The Survivalist,” a pragmatic post-apocalyptic film about the lengths people will go to survive. Unlike many films in the genre — which tends to focus on either spectacle or heavy-handed parables explaining why humanity is the true monster — “The Survivalist” offers audiences a future where our own standards of morality have long been put to rest. The film’s characters are willing to trade whatever they have — food, sex, supplies — to ensure survival for another day, and while that may sound bleak, Fingleton’s film weaves its story around a few thin threads of compassion that makes the whole thing work.
And while it’s been a long and winding road for “The Survivalist” to find its way into American movie theaters, I promise you the film is worth the wait. The film has been picked up by IFC Midnight, which should give you every indication of its quality; IFC Midnight releases might not be for everyone, but no genre distributor can match IFC for the consistent quality of its horror films. This is the same company that picked up movies like “The Babadook” and “The Devil’s Candy,” and I’d argue — very passionately — that “The Survivalist” is a lot closer in quality to these titles than you’d probably expect.
READ MORE: The 20 Best Movies Of 2017 That We’ve Already Seen
Here’s the full plot synopsis for the film:
