‘The Battery’ reminds me of
the kind of low budget independent horror filmmaking in the 70’s Golden Age of
cinema during the transitioning of the genre from the gothic to the modern.
This is in the respect of how these young filmmakers with guts and vision were
banging and kicking the door of Hollywood and smashing right through it with
their energetically powerful films.
One of these exciting
writers and directors from this then new generation was George A. Romero who
made the first modern horror movie proper with ‘Night of the Living Dead’ at
the tail end of the 1960s responsible in that year of 1968 of creating the
modern interpretation of the zombie that we all know and love today. The film
in review here very much belongs to that sub-genre bringing it back to its
roots of Romero’s slow moving zombies but does something fresh and innovative
with a type of horror that has become truly tired by purposely going out of its
way not to be part of it. Does this sound confusing to you? This is not an oxymoron. Read on…
Two former baseball players
Ben (Jeremy Gardner) and Mickey (co-producer Adam Cronheim) travel the rural
back roads of New England, Connecticut as they make their way through the
terrifying dangers that surrounds them in a post-apocalyptic world after a
plague has caused the dead to return to life taking over the earth as they feed
off the living. The young men only knew each before on the field never
socializing and have polarizing personalities forced into this turmoil together.
These two very different people clash with opposing views of how they see this
doomed planet causing them to be become often alienated to one another and faced
with life threatening situations they must also survive each other.
What writer, director,
co-producer and co-star Gardner (Ben) has created here is essentially a buddy
road movie using a zombie post-apocalyptic world as its backdrop as the very
Romeroesque zombies are relegated to the background with no gory depictions of
these undead tearing apart the living and eating their flesh and no shots of
blown apart zombie head splatter. Although, they never feel a lesser threat
because of this as there is a constant air of dreaded melancholic hopelessness
throughout.
This is not a story about combating the zombie epidemic and the
crumbling of society but set during it this is a slow burn character study
piece framed in such way with wide shots for long take scenes with the warmth of
an emotional lending to the material. We watch two very different average young
men lock horns over their plight as Mickey (Cronheim) longs for the world he
knew before and tries to shut himself off from the grim reality by losing
himself in music with the CD Walkman he carries and refuses to take part in
killing the flesheaters. More brutish in nature Ben has become accustomed to
the fact that the world will never be the same again with his mentality adapted
to just surviving doing all the zombie killing while retaining his sense of
humour.
The film’s title ‘The
Battery’ relates to our protagonists’ previous profession as baseball players,
as it is a term used to describe collectively the pitcher (Mickey) and the
catcher (obviously Ben) to indicate the combined effectiveness of their playing
positions. However, whereas they had an understanding of each other on the
field this work ethic does not carry over to their working together on their
journey through this dead world now they are forced to deal with each other
intimately on a personal level in their horrid predicament.
The title could also possibly
be a double entendre in relation to Mickey’s constant burning through the
batteries of his Walkman as featured heavily music plays an important part here
as Jeremy Gardner combines an obvious passion for it with his filmmaking
utilizing a wonderful soundtrack with a mix of diegetic and non-diegetic Canadian
folk rock and American electronic music. The former mentioned genre matches the tone of
the movie and is used as a tool to be heard over montages of travel shots. The
latter is used through the motif of Mickey listening to his headphones serving
to juxtapose the harsh environment he is in as he tries to escape it by losing
himself in music. I have many recommendations from the fantastic songs that
score these scenes with the contributing artists of El Cantador, The Parlor, Rock
Plaza Central (also including solo material by frontman Chris Eaton), Sun Hotel,
We Are Generic and Wise Blood. The original score by Ryan Winford also has an
immensely effective impact on the overall tone of the film. One highlight
is Ben’s brilliant drunken dance scene listening to Christ Eaton on Mickey’s CD
Walkman amongst many other stand out moments that I will leave spoiler free.
Everything is handled with
complete naturalism. These two everyman characters feel so us so instantly
relatable due to the chemistry of two very strong central performances really
bringing out the strengths of its character driven screenplay. They really draw
our sympathies with an honest heartfelt emotional pull, pitch-perfect humour with witty banter and
real human drama delivering sharp dialogue. There are many exceptionally
directed poignant, suspenseful and tense scenes entailing the two’s
disagreements, dealing with the horrors of the undead and confrontations with
other people who are also dangerous posing just as much of a threat if not more
so.
Mickey’s refusal to do any
of the killings of the zombies, putting all the pressure on Ben to do it only
tightens the strain on their friendship that would not have happened under
normal circumstances with these contrasting personalities and provides the movie
with some of its most emotionally passionate scenes. Even moments that are so
ordinarily mundane such as Ben and Mickey cleaning their teeth is made riveting
viewing as the audience is made to live and wait with the characters as they do
everyday kinds of things and through more significant dramatically tension
filled scenes such as in the film’s climax.
As in most zombie
apocalyptic stories, the real monsters here are the remains of humanity from
the ruins of society. Here it comes in the form of a seemingly safe haven for
survivors referred to as “The Orchard”.
Its people deny them help yet Mickey still desperately wants to find in the
hope of living as close to a normal life as he did before. Purposely avoided, we
do not actually get to see “The Orchard”
as it is another zombie cliché to have an Eden that is too good to be true with
sinister goings on such as Woodbury in ‘The Walking Dead’. Gardner instead
smartly uses this as a plot device as a motivation for Mickey in his want for a
better life than keeping on the move and scavenging that dictates the events of
that claustrophobic climax. Ben however believes that roaming is the best way to protect
themselves and survive.
Produced on a micro budget
of $6,000 and shot in just 16 days all this and New England’s gorgeous locations of fields,
forests, lakes, waterfalls and woods is captured on a Canon 5D Mark II camera
by director of photography Christian Stella (also a co-producer) with some of
the most beautiful finely textured visually rewarding cinematography I have
ever seen in a low budget feature. This is supplemented by the smoothest of
editing by his sister Alicia Stella and Michael Katzman.
‘The Battery’ is of course a
very different kind of zombie horror compared to George A. Romero’s ‘Night of
the Living Dead’ but like that movie at the time this is a bold and brave reinvigorating
new spin on a now stale sub-genre. This ambitious indie production is certainly a
much-needed injection of adrenaline taking full advantage of its
budgetary limitations by working to full effect on its simplicity and on an
extremely minuscule budget to achieve such high quality production values and such
high emotional dramatic levels with its humour and soul is a staggering feat of
an accomplishment. The hugely talented Jeremy Gardner, Adam Cronheim and
Christian Stella form the core of O. Hannah Films and their passionate determination has
overcome the financial obstacles that were laid out ahead of them having
triumphantly crafted with much skill what is one of the greatest modern zombie films.
I wait with eager anticipation for future projects from this gifted production company one
of which includes a possible companion piece to this movie entitled
‘The Orchard’ that will also challenge the conventions of this staple
element of the zombie sub-genre I talked about earlier. So support ‘The Battery’ by purchasing
or renting via digital download from its official website and help the film achieve the
cult classic status it so thoroughly deserves so we can see the
continuation of this fantastic story...
**** out of ****
Dave J. Wilson
©2013 Cinematic Shocks, Dave J. Wilson
- All work is the property of the credited author and may not be reprinted or
reproduced elsewhere without permission.
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