Comments on: post-slatewiper documentary

post-slatewiper documentary

cloudscratcher — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 23:27:17 -0800

"When you walk into a house that was sealed in the last couple of years of the plague, you can crack the door or window and it pops like a vacuum seal, and you walk in and there's surprisingly little dust..."

Among the quotes from "Ever Since the World Ended," a fake documentary about the 186 survivors left in SF following a slate-wiping pandemic. No idea if it's any good, but the documentary approach makes it creepy, because it doesn't feel far from home.

By: tomble

tomble — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 23:55:45 -0800

Wow. I hope to be able to catch that when (if) it screens locally.

By: tehloki

tehloki — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 00:14:33 -0800

I don't know why this struck me, but the text in the trailer is unbelievably well-done. It seems to literally peel off the screen. Okay, I guess I'm just jaded to post-apocalyptic films.

By: Ian A.T.

Ian A.T. — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 00:20:07 -0800

I'm sure this thread will turn into a meh-fest, but I found the acting in the talking heads bits to be quite realistic and well-done. (The "we can't stay here" dramatic bit in the field...not so much.) I wonder how they handle outdoor scenes...it's not exactly easy to clear out city blocks with a presumably-indie budget.

By: dreamsign

dreamsign — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 00:27:05 -0800

Needs more cowbell.

By: The God Complex

The God Complex — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 00:47:53 -0800

Looks neat.

By: slimepuppy

slimepuppy — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 01:13:50 -0800

Neat. Reminds me a little of After The Apocalypse, which I haven't actually had a chance to see just yet.

By: blacklite

blacklite — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 01:30:46 -0800

Looks interesting, I hope it pops around here soon. Wish I'd seen it at a festival. Hm.

By: srboisvert

srboisvert — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 01:41:31 -0800

Unfortunately, I illegally duplicated the trailer on my computer and have now turned myself in to Interpol.

By: litlnemo

litlnemo — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 02:44:18 -0800

I notice at least one familiar name in the cast.

By: matteo

matteo — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 03:40:52 -0800

I seriously doubt this is better than Haneke's Time of the Wolf

By: Mayor Curley

Mayor Curley — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 04:31:47 -0800

I liked it Better when it was called "28 Days Later" and had scary zombies.

By: i_am_a_Jedi

i_am_a_Jedi — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 04:44:11 -0800

If you like the fake documentary post-apocalytptic, you might like the fake non-fiction of post-apocalyptic zombie war, World War Z. It's pretty good.

By: D.C.

D.C. — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 04:57:33 -0800

I liked 28 Days Later better when it was called Day of the Triffids and had scary plants.

By: pax digita

pax digita — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 05:18:05 -0800

Interesting vibe to this one. Warday much?

By: Faint of Butt

Faint of Butt — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 05:18:50 -0800

I liked Day of the Triffids better when H.G. Wells wrote it and called it War of the Worlds.

By: honest knave

honest knave — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 05:27:14 -0800

I liked War of the Worlds better when.....oh. <hopeful>The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ? </hopeful>

By: trinarian

trinarian — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 05:28:47 -0800

I liked War of the Worlds better when it was called Super Pissed Giant Jesus and Four Flying Horses of Doom [of the Apocalypse], or, erm, the book of Revelations.

By: trinarian

trinarian — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 05:29:45 -0800

damn it, knave :-)

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 05:31:23 -0800

The Road is another recent apocalypse story getting good reviews.

By: honest knave

honest knave — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 05:37:55 -0800

trinitarian: Don't forget the lasers and the earthquakes. :-) The Trojan Women by Euripedes is one of the very earliest of such stories. But a different kind of scary.

By: Kikkoman

Kikkoman — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 05:48:18 -0800

I am once again reminded of Pat Murphy's excellent post-plague novel set in San Francisco: The City, Not Long After.

By: jpburns

jpburns — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 06:38:59 -0800

So why do they use those "Palme D'or" brackets for the end portion, listing the film festivals they're accepted in? I'd be pissed if I was a member of the Cannes festival...

By: craven_morhead

craven_morhead — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 06:42:21 -0800

I really like post-apocolyptic movies. A lot. Thanks.

By: Dr-Baa

Dr-Baa — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 06:49:05 -0800

This sounds really cool. Like craven_morhead, I really enjoy post-apocalyptic movies as well. I hope I get the chance to see this one.

By: pax digita

pax digita — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 07:04:56 -0800

Two classics: On the Beach, Neville Shute; and Alas, Babylon, Pat Frank. Oh, and a really hard one to watch: Testament. Nightmares from that one.

By: pax digita

pax digita — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 07:06:25 -0800

oops, try that Testament one again...

By: fungible

fungible — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 07:29:15 -0800

If it's a psuedo-serious documentary, how did they get battery power for the cameras?

By: The corpse in the library

The corpse in the library — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 07:39:24 -0800

I hate previews that give away too much of the movie, but this one gave almost nothing. I watched it before I followed the second link, and if it hadn't been for the post I'd've had no idea what I was watching.

By: hal9k

hal9k — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 07:39:29 -0800

Its the end of the world and these people seem to be experiencing a certain... angst about it? I was lightly scotch-taped to my seat throughout.

By: CynicalKnight

CynicalKnight — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 07:42:40 -0800

how did they get battery power for the cameras Can you stuff 1,000,000 shrivelled corpses into a coal-fired power plant furnace and generate electricity with it? The world wonders. oh, fuck it, let's just harvest some abandoned solar panels.

By: hal9k

hal9k — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 07:46:10 -0800

This could as easily be a preview for a documentary on starting a neighborhood food co-op. And yes, I'm including the scene with guns.

By: eustacescrubb

eustacescrubb — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 07:58:44 -0800

If you like this concept you will likely enjoy Y: The Last Man.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 08:06:13 -0800

Cast (in Alphabetical Order) ... Adam, The Engineer Adam Savage Would that be Metafilter's Own Adam Savage?

By: th3ph17

th3ph17 — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 08:14:02 -0800

i really like that they have 2 surfer characters...because, honestly, the average surfer here in santa cruz would love it if thousands of people didn't surf in the same spots every day...they dream about stuff like this.

By: nebulawindphone

nebulawindphone — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 08:54:02 -0800

Remind me never to shop in hal9k's neighborhood.

By: bitter-girl.com

bitter-girl.com — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 09:09:00 -0800

I liked War of the Worlds better when it was called Super Pissed Giant Jesus and Four Flying Horses of Doom [of the Apocalypse], or, erm, the book of Revelations. I liked it better when it was called Urgh the Caveman, Last Survivor of the Christian Laser Zombie Attack on the Fake Dinosaurs. Ok, ok, that was trying too hard. Speaking of 28 Days Later, there's a sequel coming out called 28 Weeks Later. From IMDb: Seven months after the rage virus has annihilated the British isles, the US army declares that the war against infection has been won, and that the reconstruction of the country can begin. So it's a comedy, then? Mission accomplished?

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 09:23:30 -0800

Pretty darn neat; I've always been partial to Threads, myself.

By: PinkStainlessTail

PinkStainlessTail — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 09:24:28 -0800

Speaking of 28 Days Later, there's a sequel coming out called 28 Weeks Later. Oh how I long for a golden age of people leaving well enough alone.

By: asavage

asavage — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 09:39:40 -0800

That would be me: Metafilter's own Adam Savage. I did this a few years back. Josh is a friend (I was the minister at his wedding) and asked me to consult on how a small community would survive in SF for years without any city infrastructure. I spent some time on the phone with the water people (the hetch hetchy system would likely feed water to the city for years) and power and solar folks, and started to tell them about it, and they stopped me in the middle of my first explanation, and asked me to be in the film. We shot my scenes in my old workshop. I saw the film in LA back in 2003. It's good. Definitely creepy.

By: nathan_teske

nathan_teske — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 09:45:24 -0800

Someone really needs to make a 'Summon savage' card.

By: Dillenger69

Dillenger69 — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 10:41:32 -0800

This needs more 80s valley girls like Night of the Comet.

By: ahimsakid

ahimsakid — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 10:47:56 -0800

I'd rather listen to Mose Allison's "Ever Since the world Ended" while reading Walker Percy's "Love in the Ruins"

By: drstein

drstein — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 11:33:37 -0800

"Bandwidh Limit Exceeded." Ah well.

By: tkchrist

tkchrist — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 12:06:08 -0800

This looks pretty good. But I don't know if I could go see it. I might get nightmares. Silly I know. But. Seriously. Anybody have post-apocalyptic dreams? I ask because this movie seems less creepy and more dream like. (I wonder if the filmmaker was infuenced by dreams?) I used to have re-occuring end-of-world dreams when I was kid all the time. Long before it was a popular theme in movies, etc. I know why. I asked my dad what his job was. When my dad got back from Vietnam his last job in the military was in Silk Purse part of the airbourne command structure in Mildenhall. The idea was that if a nuclear war broke out there were planes in the air 24hrs a day that could direct surviving ground forces. My dad's job woud be to direct surviving Special Forces groups. If he was actually to DO his job it would be after the worst imaginable historical event in human history. And it was a suicide job. It's likely they would never land. If they did land everybody they new was dead. Everybody knew the mission was clearly insane. Think about this. The man just got back from two combat tours in hell and the Army gives him a job of supervising the Apocalypse. Imagine how that would fuck with your head. The poor guy was already medicated. So he just comes out and tells me this when I was like ten years old. He explains what MAD was. How ballistic missiles worked. What radiation sickness was. A couple of times he woke up screaming and came to our rooms to move us to the basement in the middle of the night. Fucked up poor guy. Some of these movies deeply effect me. Not the Zombie or Sci-Fi ones, but others. On the Beach, FI.

By: bitter-girl.com

bitter-girl.com — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 12:47:24 -0800

Holy freaking Jeebus, tkchrist. It seriously makes me wonder about the sanity of those in power for plans like that to even have been made.

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 12:54:35 -0800

tkchrist, get that story on This American Life. Really.

By: scrump

scrump — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 13:02:29 -0800

tkchrist, I have them all the time. Then again, I'm an aficionado of post-apocalyptic literature, and I've already gotten some new titles from this thread. In terms of what I recommend to others, here's an off-the-cuff partial list: War:

Aliens/ELE:

Disease/Plague/Collapse:

By: Lazlo Hollyfeld

Lazlo Hollyfeld — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 13:54:24 -0800

Another host for the trailer. (windows media. ugh.)

By: eustacescrubb

eustacescrubb — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 14:09:35 -0800

My recurring nightmare when I was a kid in the 80s was of nuclear devastation -- in the dream, I'm a survivor. My family is dead. I don't know if I have radiation sickness. I don't know how to get food, or water, or if it's safe to go outside.

By: Zack_Replica

Zack_Replica — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 14:23:12 -0800

Although it's not really a life after the end of the world book, in another way it is - Raymond Briggs' "When The Wind Blows." Book / DVD / Wiki. There's a small excerpt on this page. Harrowing. Also, while searching, I found this site - EmptyWorld - "Apocalyptic and End of the World Fiction, Film and TV". The movie reviews seem to be a little on the short side and the book reviews are nonexistent, but as a list it doesn't seem too bad.

By: Ynoxas

Ynoxas — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 14:59:55 -0800

eustacescrubb: you were not alone. You are probably near me in age. Many people who were teens during the 80's expected the world to end in a huge nuclear war, striking suddenly, like a thief in the night (/purposeful). And when I say we expected it, I don't mean expect as in you expect the Steelers might win the Super Bowl, I mean expect as in expecting the sun to come up tomorrow. I used to spout off all the time as a teen how I would never see my 30th birthday. At the time, I was deathly serious.

By: tkchrist

tkchrist — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 15:29:39 -0800

I used to spout off all the time as a teen how I would never see my 30th birthday. At the time, I was deathly serious. I thought this, too. Though I came of age in the 1970's. The eighties heightened that anxiety. What with the MX missile and Reagan's gaff on live radio "outlawing" the Soviet Union "...the bombs drop in fifteen minutes" thing. In 1977, in my Freshman year of high school, we had this big book report and presentation for an English class. The theme for the English assignment was "The Future." While everyone else was doing reports on "The future of Sports Equipment", "Living on Mars" or "The First Woman President : Suzanne Sommers!" I did mine on nuclear war and proliferation. I described how the there were two guys in missile silos with keys that had be turned simultaneously and they cold shoot eachother rather than end the wolrd - all that. I showed pictures of Hiroshima and explained MAD to them. I had this stop watch going with a count down to how long a Russian R-36/SS-18 ICBM launched from Saratov would take to hit Bellingham. All before any of this was widely known. The teacher was this hippie lady and she let me go on and on. She loved it. Till kids were seriously freaked out and were yelling for me to stop. "Doesn't matter." I held up the watch. "You're all dead." Man. What a Debbie Downer. I got nearly got beat up by some kid afterwards. He said it was because I was a commie. But it was because he was scared shitless.

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 16:06:50 -0800

"Anybody have post-apocalyptic dreams?" Heavy stuff man. Remember the Soviet coup in August 1991? Gennadi Yanayev? If the Alfa spaznuts hadn't refused the order to storm the parliment building that would've...sucked. At best you'd have fragmentation and repression and states that could care less about arms limitation...yeah. Fun time to be in the service. I gotta say, the Miracle Mile gets me every time. The first run through though killed me, 'cause I had no idea what it was about. I thought it was the Glen Miller story redux. And there are modern guys with the AEC who respond to nuclear terrorism threats. Go around with radiation detectors, etc. The clock is ticking, make one mistake, a shift in the wind, you miss something, the city dies. Thought I saw a piece in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. (I'll look for it) Yeah, I'd rather shoot at people while they shoot at me. It's less stressful.

By: jokeefe

jokeefe — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 17:02:41 -0800

Many people who were teens during the 80's expected the world to end in a huge nuclear war Many of us who were in our twenties back then felt exactly the same way. Remember "dance until the bombs drop"? If You Love This Planet? Duck and cover? I had my first nuclear nightmare when I was about 11 or 12, I think. The sixties and seventies were fertile times for apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fantasy.. wonder if we're seeing a rebirth of the genre. Though this film seems less the bang than the whimper.

By: CynicalKnight

CynicalKnight — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 20:56:16 -0800

Scrump, on the "disease" angle I would also recommend Blindness by Jose Saramago. his careful prose brings a poetry to total social collapse.

By: cenoxo

cenoxo — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 21:22:29 -0800

From the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists — Where the Bombs Are, 2006 and Global Nuclear Stockpiles, 1945-2006. The good news is that we have fewer nuclear weapons to worry about than before. The bad news is that there still may be over 25,000 of them worldwide.

By: Chrysostom

Chrysostom — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 07:23:49 -0800

It got a lot of criticism for being too soft, but I found The Day After to be pretty effective.

By: elendil71

elendil71 — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:22:40 -0800

I've always sort of liked The Quiet Earth, a nifty sleeper flick about a guy who wakes up to find he may be the only person left on Earth. It's got one of the greatest lines ever: "I... I have been condemned to live."

By: concrete

concrete — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 19:37:43 -0800

I liked The Postman by David Brin a lot. Apart from some of the wilder technological ideas, it seemed pretty believable. I've never seen the movie, but from what I've heard, it's to be avoided.

By: jkaczor

jkaczor — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 11:01:18 -0800

I absolutely love post-apocalyptic scenarios. Had the nuclear nightmares as a kid as well - one was so vivid I turned it into a pretty damn good short-story. (Also had nightmares about cannibalism due to my father telling me the story of the Andes plane crash as we drove for hours in a blinding snowstorm - thanks dad!) More books on the subject, that I love include: - "The Last Canadian" (viral/plague) - William C. Heine - "Dies The Fire" (technology ceases to function) - S.M. Stirling The Postman movies is not too bad 'concrete' - I've seen worse, the problem is that it simply couldn't do the book justice in the time allotted. It did capture some of the essence though.

By: mattfn

mattfn — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 08:39:44 -0800

Thank you Cloudscratcher and LazloHollyfeld! I've been looking for more on this since I heard of it in 2003. (I'm a much kinder, gentler sort of stalker, really, you know I am, Adam!) And thanks to all the rest on this thread, I've got a heck of a lot more watching and reading to do now. (You dang thinking people!)