Claustrophobic Fun

Rating: 9/10 (14 October 2017)

What if you were in a car accident, and your rescuer was a crazy doomsday prepper, and it's officially doomsday? Well, you get this, a tight, claustrophobic and altogether freaky dynamic between a makeshift family that surely features at least one creepy secret. Settings like these are rife for creating character tension, and that is done quite successfully. We get our nice lull, where it seems everything is going to be fine, until the secret is exposed and Michelle and Emmett make their choices to push through the third act.
All three primary cast members are terrific, and the tension between them is very real. John Goodman is especially outstanding with Howard's increasingly bizarre behavior, and insistence that he be treated a certain way. And the mystery surrounding what went on outside never quite abates, and is put up as something that we, the audience, must know at some point. The nuance weaves through the interactions between the characters, and we are left to wait for the other shoe to drop, and when it does, the conclusion is a fantastic payoff.