Written & Directed by Jeremy Gardner
Official Site: http://ohannahfilms.tumblr.com/
I'm fond of lamenting that
if I never had to watch another low budget zombie movie for this site
again, that day could not arrive too soon. When you do your best to
focus on independent films, a hazard of the trade is the seemingly
never ending deluge of tossed together shaky cam films. There will always be someone ply buddies with a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon if
they'll spend a hot summer's day shambling around the backyard
covered on karo syrup and corpse paint. To borrow a phrase from David
Lowery, the world needs another George Romero like I need a hole in
the head.
Yet every once in a while a
film comes our way that makes the slog worth it all. Filmed for less
than the cost of a ten year old Subaru Forrester equipped with a faulty
cassette deck, The Battery lays
waste to films with twenty or more times the budget at its disposal.
The Battery thrusts
the viewer into the end of the world with little fanfare. Much like David Carradine in Kung Fu, Ben (Jeremy Gardner, pulling triple duty) and Mickey
(Adam Cronheim) wander the earth, sticking to the
backroads and living off the land and foraged canned goods left
behind at the isolated homes they find along the way. The former
minor league ballplayers (the title is baseball jargon for the
relationship of a pitcher and catcher) have no plan in place except
to survive one more day. Gardner makes economic use of the opening sequences to establish
both his world and the personality differences between his two leads.
From that jumping point The
Battery delves
deep into what makes Mickey and Ben tick, thoroughly dissecting them
both in a way that leaves the viewer vested in their outcome. The
zombie threat is pushed into the background, with the undead not
posing much threat to the harrowing last act. Gardener has far more
interest exploring the dynamics of his two characters, and for most
of The Battery's
runtime, any number of doomsday scenarios that paired his duo up
would have served.
The two have differing opinions on what needs to be done to survive.
He keeps Mickey on the move, never stopping for even a night's
comfort under the roofs of one of the homes the two stumble across.
You get the feeling that there's a part of Ben that secretly loves
the end of the world has allowed him to unleash his inner caveman.
While his friend clings to romantic notions of this all being just a
phase, Ben takes a realistic look at the longview, and decides that
the world is pretty much fucked, so it's best to keep moving lest you
get dragged down with it. This is a good idea in theory, but in
practice, Ben's snarky nature and tendency to play the role of Dad to
Mickey doesn't endear him to his travel partner. Ben needles Mickey
in an attempt to toughen him up but instead his effortsdrive a wedge
between them and wear his travel mate down.
Cronheim's Mickey is a fascinating study in human frailty. He clings
to vestiges and vanities of a world that's gone and will never
return. A pair of oversized headphones act as his security blanket,
literally enveloping him and drowning out the world around him.
Despite the heaps of evidence to the contrary he can't accept that
this is the world he lives in now. It's too empty an existence for
him to bear. Yo keep waiting for him to make a mistake-be it
negligence or saying the wrong thing to the wrong person-that's going
to get the two of them killed.
The
Battery explores the danger of
interjecting a glimmer of hope in a hopeless situation. At a critical
moment Ben and Mickey intercept a call on their walkie talkies. After
months of scavenging with only each others company to keep there's
the dangled carrot of community. There's food, structure, electricity
and even the promise of movie nights (Tremors!). Despite
being told in no uncertain terms to bugger off by the voice on the
other end of the line, Mickey can't let it go. Ben wants to forget
the call and press on but Mickey can't let the thought go. While
building an imaginary fantasy about life on this compound, he starts
cracking at a rapid rate, growing more petulant and careless. The
slightest glimmer of normalcy forces Mickey to examine the hell the
world has turned into. He can't stomach an endless stretch of days
sleeping on rooftops and living off pillaged canned goods any longer
when the illusion of the world left behind is within reach. These
thoughts destroy him emotionally.
Gardner's attention to small details make The Battery a joy to
watch. Ben's clothes hang a size too large on him serving as a subtle
reminder that the character's are living off whatever they can dig
up, and have been doing so for a long time. When the two find
themselves under siege by a horde and trapped within a station wagon,
they make it a point to conserve every resource at their disposal,
including draining the water from canned tuna in their empty gallon
jugs. Mickey's fanatical adherence to dousing himself with hair
product every day, or holding on to winning lottery tickets provide
further details into his inability to cope with the new reality.
These small details don't cost anything but effort and add an extra
layer of depth and understanding to The Battery. You see it too often
in indie films where directors justify narrative laziness by blaming
it on a lack of funds. The Battery is a fine example of how ambition
and dollars don't always go hand in hand. This is the first must-see zombie film in a hell of a long while. When you see something this good with this little money behind it, it lowers your tolerance for less efforts considerably. Seek this film out.
The Battery plays March 16th in the Somerville Theater Microcinema as part of All Things Horror's monthly film series.
No comments:
Post a Comment