The Last Survivors (2014)

May Contain Spoilers 01. Large, attention-getting bonfires may be started in dry sand with one charcoal briquette propelled from a slingshot. The tactic is sound, provided you have access to a slingshot…and a charcoal briquette.02. Even if water is so scarce you need to count every drop, you will never have to worry about appearing dehydrated or suffer the indignity of chapped lips. Furthermore, dry cleaning of the hair, nails and clothing will keep you looking snappy, even if H2O becomes something the next generation only knows about in legend.03. If you do all the work and fighting, give all your water to the annoying emo guy who does nothing but look pale and whine about his kidneys shutting down. Never worry you will offend his sense of gallantry or honor: "don't waste it on me," is not in his vocabulary.04. Don't add to the annoying emo guy's problems by informing him that the well has been dry for days -- he has enough to worry about already…instead, give him more water…after all, he has to at least be able to cry if necessary.05. Food and water are not strictly necessary for human survival, they are really addictions. Hence hunger and thirst are cravings and may be overcome with enough patience and determination. This revelation awoke gooey, nostalgic memories of the film Ghost (1990) which demonstrated that death is just a disability that can be mastered if you only try hard enough.06. About every 5-20 minutes, introduce characters who sequentially speak in lower and lower registers. Your audience will thank you for distracting them from your film by having to regularly play with the remote.07. About every 5-20 minutes, be sure to have the screen go dark for what appears minutes at a time. Your audience will thank you for providing them with opportunities to imagine that something interesting is actually happening even if they can't see it.08. Ten years without rain will make Oregon look like the Lucerne Valley of the Mojave Desert. Even at Crater Lake and along the Pacific coast. Apparently Alaska, points North and the Great Lakes will have evaporated as well. In fact, it is well known that a single tanning booth turned the Sahara from a rain-forest into a wasteland in one afternoon.09. If you see strangers in the distance, leave your weapons lying on the sand as they approach so you don't hurt their feelings by implying you might not trust them. When they arrive and start killing your people, continue to not go for your weapons and stand in a line to make it easier for them to shoot you one by one. This is known as etiquette, although some unrefined types who don't know any better call it idiocy.10. Costuming the Big Bad Guy in a cassock, or at least a ministerial collar, for no particular reason adds layers and layers of subtle nuance, depth and dimension to the character and is not, by any stretch of the imagination, just a clown-like, ludicrous and trite cinematic cliché.11. When hiding from bad guys, look in the direction opposite from where they are so they won't be able to see you. For added protection, turn your face away as well. It's best not to know where they are.12. Some bad guys like to bag their heads in burlap and lay buried supine in the sand on the off chance someone will pass by. In case none of the other 8 or 9 people in the cast comes along, it's always possible a spontaneous remake of Mad Max will occur instead.13. In the future, anything viewed through a telescope or a pair of binoculars will be distorted and blurry. This is known as DystopiaVision or ApocolypseScope. The technique has had a profound effect on film-making, equivalent to the effect Citizen Kane (1941) had on Francois Truffaut, or the effect Racket Girls (1951) had on Ed Wood.14. In the future, telescopes will be rectangular, even though the optimal shape for high-quality optical lenses is circular -- a fact discovered by glass-makers even before the invention of the telescope. On the other hand, a rectangular case has the added advantages of being bulkier and more difficult to hold and focus.15. As already noted by the alert reviewer randall-50: In the future, internal combustion, prop-driven, light civil aircraft will dispense with magnetos in favor of distributors. Such crisp screen writing and attention to detail is worthy of Kubrick, or at least Microsoft Flight Simulator.16. After ten years without rain there will not be anyone left in Oregon with an IQ greater than 35.7. Exactly.17. When making a dramatic film, never hire someone who is clinically depressed to be your location scout.18. When making a dramatic film, be sure to use 100% genuine actors.XYZ

There is nothing redeemable about this awful piece of tripe. Holy isht was it bad. The whole movie is about some 17-year old girl trying to fix a Cesna. She goes through some hard times trying to find a distributor cap for the plane. ... That is the ENTIRE synopsis. Eff the Cliff's Notes. That's the movie.Seriously, skip it. It's ... HORRIBLE. Bad acting, bad casting, bad story, bad cinematography, bad ... everything. THe final boss- monster fight is her and another chick fighting with a (I isht you not) katana. Yup.Bad in EVERY way possible.Now, if you are a North Korean prison warden ... you should put this movie in your inventory, and play it on repeat. Everyone else? ... Avoid at ALL costs. If someone puts this DVD in your Christmas stocking this year ... burn their house to the ground, and go pee on the ashes.Couldn't POSSIBLY be worse, unless it was made in Nigeria, by some random prince. I am angry that I watched the whole thing. Granted, about halfway through, I realized it was in a flat spin, losing altitude, but I stuck it out. I suffered so that you don't have to. Eject. Eject. EJECT!!!

Direction: fine; Acting: decent; Cinematography: good; Plot: WORTHLESSI stuck it out till the end but alas, no plot was forthcoming beyond just: girl trying to survive in post-apocalyptic desert and fighting greedy murderous bad guys who are stealing everyone's water. SPOILER: In the end, she kills them. That's essentially it: done, finished. Well there is this flawed subplot where she's scavenging distributor caps from wrecked cars so she can fix this airplane and she and her sick boyfriend and some little kid can go... where? Who knows, or really cares. Oh and also, AIRPLANES DON'T HAVE DISTRIBUTORS THEY HAVE MAGNETOS, so no way that would work. I wouldn't bring it up except they kind of make a big deal about that. Why not pick some other thing that could be interchangeable or at least adaptable (generator maybe?) Oh well I suppose it's moot given the lack of a worthwhile plot.

I enjoy Fallout-themed features like "The Book of Eli", "Snow Piercer" and "The Hills Have Eyes." For its independent film budget, "The Last Survivors" delivered good production quality and intense drama with well-paced scenes. The film director depicted hardships and life-and-death struggles that were very convincing. Carson and his daughter make formidable villains (think "Neegan"). I can empathize with Kendal's day-to-day struggle to hide from the hunters, scrounge enough food and water for her group, and eject stragglers from their land, with the hope to find the correct distributor cap to fly their plane a better place. For its originality and fine execution, I give it high ratings.