The End is Just the Beginning

January 11, 2011 11:01 AM

After the bombs have fallen, the plague has wiped out most of humanity, or the dead have risen and claimed the world as their own, we must go on. The tales of those survivors are told in fiction and film, in many ways with enough to overwhelm you. Enter the apocalypse fans. Post-Apocalypse.co.uk has just under 50 reviews, with a quick note on the rating of each film. Post Apocalyptic Movie Mania has reviews categorized by the way the world ends, along with other p-a related material. But the end of the world isn't always like an Italian Post Apocalyptic Movie (Google cache), sometimes it's quirky and off-beat, in a proto-Monty Python sort of way (rough approximation of Ebert's review of The Bed-Sitting Room) (videos inside)

If you like the bleak landscapes, explosions, and survivalist punk attitude, try the Italian Mad Max rip-off that surpasses Mad Max: Exterminators of the Year 3000, available in nine parts on YouTube (start here), or also on Veoh. But watch out, there are plenty of lesser attempts at the bleak desert dystopia style.

The Bed-Sitting Room is also online, in parts on YouTube, or on Veoh.

Related: there have been a few requests for post-apocalyptic material of one sort or another on AskMetafilter. And if that's not enough, there are another 84 movie reviews in the archived version of another post-apocalyptic movie fansite. Also, you may not know this, but the sitcom Friends was originally a post-apocalyptic film from 1982 called She. It's not available in full online, but you can find some clips here and there.

But wait, you're not satiated yet? Then venture to Australia, where a deadly virus has wiped out all adults, and kids must band together to survive. This is The Tribe, a series that ran for 5 seasons. You can watch it, segemented on YouTube, thanks to user TribeBramber.

posted by filthy light thief (20 comments total)

Post-apocalypse is the new pre-fall Eden. It's where we build our myths and have our secret guilty hopes, since the past is now so well mapped out.
posted by freebird at 11:09 AM on January 11, 2011 [5 favorites]

She is actually available streaming on Netflix.

However, I'm confused. "The sitcom Friends..." link talks about a series, but She appears to have been an Italian movie. Is the Friends connection a joke?
posted by cmoj at 11:26 AM on January 11, 2011

I wish more of these movies were watchable. I want to love them, I really do.
posted by Stagger Lee at 12:13 PM on January 11, 2011

I've long wanted to try to find a copy of the movie A Carol For Another Christmas, which was something Rod Serling wrote as a one-off special; it was supposed to be for the anniversary of the U.N. and was ostensibly about the dangers of international isolationism or some such.

I've wanted to find it because the "Christmas Future" segment sounds utterly deranged; a post-apocalyptic future in which Peter Sellers is a mad despot holding court in a bombed-out cathedral while sporting a sparkly pilgrim hat.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:22 PM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh my god The Tribe. I can't remember what random, strange network that showed up on, but when I was a teen in the middle of nowhere Illinois and fresh off the original Fallout game I ate that up whenever I stumbled across it in random channel-flippings. I don't, notably, recall enjoying the actual drama much (possibly because I could only manage to catch one episode every few months and likely couldn't follow anything). But the costumes were fun. Time to give it another chance.

This is my most favorite post ever made on Metafilter. You are the best.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 12:27 PM on January 11, 2011

cmoj: However, I'm confused. "The sitcom Friends..." link talks about a series, but She appears to have been an Italian movie. Is the Friends connection a joke?

I think it's a joke on the plot of She, where it somehow mimics the plot of the beginning of Friends.

EmpressCallipygos: ... a post-apocalyptic future in which Peter Sellers is a mad despot holding court in a bombed-out cathedral while sporting a sparkly pilgrim hat.

This sounds amazing, thanks for sharing the hint of something wonderful and weird.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:31 PM on January 11, 2011

I'm still waiting for the Emily Post Apocalypse.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 12:42 PM on January 11, 2011

What is the first instance of one of these? Not movie, but trope? Off hand I'm having a hard time coming up with a classical origin, and EVERYTHING is supposed to start in the classics.
posted by IndigoJones at 2:55 PM on January 11, 2011

I'm not sure about the classics, but looking through the wiki links (the fiction and film links above the break), Al-Risalah al-Kamiliyyah fil Siera al-Nabawiyyah (The Treatise of Kamil on the Prophet's Biography), also known as Risālat Fād il ibn Nātiq (The Book of Fādil ibn Nātiq), later translated in the West as Theologus Autodidactus, was written sometime between 1268 and 1277 CE. According to Wikipedia, "the plot gradually develops into a coming-of-age story and then becomes a science fiction novel when it eventually reaches its climax with a catastrophic doomsday apocalypse." This looks to be one of, if not, the first sci-fi type doomsday story. From the wiki list of fiction, Mary Shelley's The Last Man was first published in 1826 (and pirated in 1833 in the US), but the related wiki page states that "very theme of lastness [had] become a common one in the previous two decades," which makes it seem like Shelley was late to the thematic party.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:27 PM on January 11, 2011

The Bed-Sitting Room is a work of crazed genius that I have had in my colllection since the early eighties, and which I watch every couple of years. I watch it for the same reason I listen to Trout Mask Replica: to straighten my head out and make everything all nice again.
posted by Decani at 4:03 PM on January 11, 2011

Danke, flt! I knew there had to be something.
posted by IndigoJones at 5:02 PM on January 11, 2011

pick a reason to flag: Thread considered insufficiently romantic
posted by sebastienbailard at 5:11 PM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

No reviews yet for The Road?

Far and away the most "realistic" and deeply disturbing apocalyptic movie I've seen. Not recommended for Dads of small kids! It really troubled my sleep for a while. Imagine Road Warrior but without cars or silliness...or animals...or food. Just worldwide, starving anarchy.
posted by rahnefan at 6:11 PM on January 11, 2011

A few months back the film critic Mark Kermode made the point on his radio show that The Road and others like it are apocalyptic movies, as "post-apocalypse" means the world has ended and there's no one left alive.

This reminded me of that.
posted by tapeguy at 9:11 PM on January 11, 2011

IndigoJones: What is the first instance of one of these? Not movie, but trope?

I believe it was The Last Man by Mary Shelley, which, alas, takes approximately forever to get to the good part.

Five is the first after-the-bomb movie. It's a bit heavy-handed, but there's also a lot to like.
posted by doubtfulpalace at 10:07 PM on January 11, 2011

My favourite thing in Mad Max 2 is the feral child.
posted by yoHighness at 5:41 AM on January 12, 2011

What is the first instance of one of these? Not movie, but trope?

Would you consider the Book of Revelations?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:58 AM on January 12, 2011

I can't find Hell Comes To Frogtown !
posted by rfs at 8:41 AM on January 12, 2011

huh, thinking about idiocracy/wall-e, i was watching buck rogers the other day and i never got that it took place after a nuclear armageddon + so i was just thinking like if avatar also takes place in an earth-ravaged future, judging by the treatment, um, then there could be a connection there as well :P or not!
posted by kliuless at 8:33 AM on January 13, 2011

Would you consider the Book of Revelations?

You know, I did, but I found the ending unsatisfactory.

Never seen Five. Now I feel I must. Many thanks
posted by IndigoJones at 1:04 PM on January 13, 2011