Harrowing Horror Story That Gives You Time to Think

Rating: 8/10 (8 May 2018)

If you're finding life a bit of a struggle, spare a thought for the Abbotts in this well-acted cross between 'The Day of the Triffids' and Kaneto Shindo's 'The Island', great swathes of which are boldly played out in almost complete silence (which in itself would probably be enough to drive plenty of people crazy) with the characters forced to communicate in sign language.
It remains vague about how the calamity that befell mankind originated, and luckily for the Abbotts they only have to worry about three Creatures prowling about ready to pounce; unlike the limitless numbers that inundate other such productions. (The Abbotts are presumably occasionally safe from harm - but don't know when - when all three Creatures are temporarily out of earshot. One quibble: for nearly forty years nearly all hostile creatures like this one have been grotesquely ugly CGI-generated nightmares that move like giant insects and have rows of slavering teeth in obvious imitation of the original Alien; can't anybody come up with a new one with the lethal elegance of - say - a tiger or a shark?)
It's easy to think of ways that their plight would in actuality be far worse than in the movie (Evelyn bounces back remarkably quickly from impaling her foot on a nail; in over a year has nobody ever suffered a sneezing or coughing fit; and where is their electricity coming from?). But that realisation actually makes the film more rather than less harrowing to sit through; and some of the developments looming further up the road (how is Evelyn going to give birth silently, let alone stop the new arrival from making the usual din that babies make, for example?) occur to you uneasily ahead of time without being spelt out.
The ruthless killing off of someone in the prologue demonstrates from the world Go that no one is safe from harm at any point, and we tantalisingly learn the Creatures' Achilles heel well before the Abbotts themselves actually do, too late for one of their number.
The final shot makes you want to cheer, but as in many such films, nothing has really been brought to a conclusion.