It seems interesting that Sony, Samuel Goldwyn, and Magnolia
Pictures (Magnet) all have their hands in the Welsh horror film “Retreat”,
which seems timely now given the worldwide explosion of Ebola virus. The premise of the film reminds one of the
“28 Days Later” movies. The film,
released in October 2011, is directed by Carl Tibbetts.
A nice young couple, architect Martin (Cillian Murphy) and
journalist wife Kate (Candie Newton) rent a cottage on an offshore island from
Doug (Jimmy Yuill), to get away from it all (and repair their relationship
after a miscarriage). But a fall
extra-tropical storm hits and the generator fails, and help is slow in
coming. Then a soldier Jack (Jamie Bell)
is found washed up on the shore. When
they bring him in, Martin finds a gun, which he tries to hide. When Jack recovers
enough, he tells them that the whole world is engulfed by what sounds like an
airborne version of Ebola (it’s called ”R1N16”). Jack insists that the house be sealed, and
starts to behave aggressively. We get an
idea of his temperament from some well-placed tattoos.
Is he to be believed?
Perhaps the occasional sound of aircraft above should be fair warning.
Well, this may be a movie where “not all ends well”, in fact very little. They say civil liberties mean nothing if
“everybody’s dead”. Would the government
really kill civilians to “spare the rest of the world”?
There is a scene where Martin has asthma attacks (playing
into the Enterovirus 68 idea, belatedly), but when he starts bleeding out, that
is evidence that he’s got the virus. The
soldier says that the government used him as a “lab rat”.
The official site is here.
I viewed it from a Netflix DVD. The film can be rented from Sony on YouTube
for $9.99. The DVD has a "Making Of" featurette.
Wikipedia attribution link for picture from Scottish uplands I think the script mentioned Scotland rather than Wales (where it was actually filmed).
I visited Scotland by train in November
1982. The film clocks at exactly 90
minutes, as if intended for TV, but it is also wide anamorphic.
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