Tribeca ’18: Cargo

Relatively speaking, Australia should expect high survival rates if a zombie apocalypse ever swept across the globe. They have a low population density and a good deal of open space. In fact, even the unassuming Andy has survived with his wife and infant daughter for several months. Unfortunately, dwindling supplies will lead to tragedy in Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke’s Cargo (trailer here), a feature expansion of their widely viewed short film, which screens during the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival.

Commandeering a houseboat was a temporarily winning strategy, but it is not sustainable over the long run. Eventually, the need for food forces Andy (perhaps a nod to Andy Rodoreda, the lead actor in the 2013 short) and Kay to take risks and that leads to sloppiness. The upshot is first Kay and then Andy is infected with the zombie virus. She will go fairly quickly, but he will presumably have most of his full forty-eight-hour incubation period to figure out how to secure his baby daughter Rose’s future.

There are a few survivors out there, but some of them reflect the worst in human nature. Others demonstrate kindness, like a cancer-stricken school teacher, but obviously she cannot be a long-term guardian. Frankly, Australia’s aboriginal population seems to be the best prepared to deal with the zombies, so Andy tries to forge an alliance with Thoomi a resilient teen girl, who is essentially an orphan since her father turned.

Cargo is a zombie film with real emotional heft, sort of in the tradition of the Schwarzenegger film Maggie. Frankly, Howling & Ramke serve up relatively few zombie attacks, but they maintain an overwhelming sense of tension every second of the way, so you really can’t call it a revisionist zombie movie, or Heaven forbid, “post-horror.”

Based on what we heard from Steve’s interview with Martin Freeman forthcoming on Unseen Films, it is easy to understand why the film’s themes of fatherhood and sacrifice appealed to Martin Freeman. He is terrific taking over from Rodoreda as the father. He might just be the actor with the most everyman (or everyhobbit) credibility since Tom Hanks at his peak, which serves him well in this context. Susie Porter is also pretty darned devastating as Kay, while Kris McQuade also adds a graceful note of compassion as the school teacher, Etta.

The media and popular culture generally portrays widespread calamities as a catalyst for looting and exploitation, but the historical record suggests the opposite is more accurate. Disasters usually bring out the best in people, but we never see that in zombie movies and TV shows. At least Ramke’s screenplay offers a more balanced assessment. There are both good and bad people in Cargo, just as there are in real life. Recommended as a zombie film with heart and genuine feeling, the Netflix-bound Cargo screens again tonight (4/21) and Wednesday (4/25), during this year’s Tribeca.

Ghost Stories: Scary Stuff, with Martin Freeman

Ghostly yarns are meant to be told, person to person, as indeed happens here. In this case, they are prompted by a skeptic’s investigation (it still counts) that is rooted in a dare (which makes it even better). “The brain sees what it wants to see” is the motto of our intrepid paranormal investigator, but all bets are off during Jeremy Dyson & Andy Nyman’s pseudo-anthology film, Ghost Stories (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Prof. Phillip Goodman fancies himself a British Amazing Randi, but despite his TV show, he is not nearly as famous (or respected). His role model actually happens to be Charles Cameron, a famous TV debunker from the 1970s, who has disappeared from public sight in recent years. At first, Goodman is thrilled when the mysterious old man reaches out to him, but the camper-dwelling Cameron is surprisingly hostile when he pays a visit. Openly contemptuous of the logical materialism he and Goodman offered people in place of supernatural mystery, Cameron gives his follower three case files that you could say shook his lack of faith in the beyond. He challenges Goodman to investigate and explain them, thereby launching the film’s anthology structure, except there is rather a bit more to the wrap-around segments, as we will eventually learn.

The initial “proper” story focuses on an emotionally-broken night watchman, who reports being haunted on the job by a little girl. The second relates a pre-teen’s terrifying vehicular mishap along a remote stretch of road (a bit like Bryan Bertino’s The Monster, but more demonic), while the final tale relates the very personal and tragic hauntings experienced by City investment banker Mike Priddle. However, things are not precisely as they seem, but telling would be a shame.

Ghost Stories is based on Dyson & Nyman’s long-running play, which must have featured some inventive staging, judging from the film version. Even American horror fans who learn its secrets from the film would probably enjoy seeing it unfold on the boards. In large measure, this is because the framing narrative is so inventive—so much so, it eventually takes precedence over the constituent stories.

Co-writer-co-director Nyman is absolutely terrific as Prof. Goodman. He is a real character, with real flaws—and not just a device to introduce the next haunting. Martin Freeman similarly makes Priddle seem very real, but he also helps facilitate some big surprises (again telling would be telling). Yet, perhaps the rawest, most wrenching work comes from Paul Whitehouse (much better known in the UK), who really kills it as Tony Matthews, the literally and figuratively haunted night guard.

To put Ghost Stories into context, many critics and fans have invoked the name of Amicus, the Hammer-like studio that specialized in anthologies (like Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, which featured Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and British jazz musician Tubby Hayes). However, you can also taste some of the flavoring of the decidedly existential British horror exemplified by Ben Wheatley and Gareth Tunley, but that rather makes sense, since producers Robin Gutch and Claire Jones performed like duties on films such as Kill List, Berberian Sound Studio, A Field in England, and Sightseers.

Arguably, you can see two traditions of British horror coming together in Ghost Stories, which is really cool. There is also real acting and stuff going on. The results are deliciously sly and sinister. Very highly recommended for horror fans, Ghost Stories opens this Friday (4/20) in New York, at the IFC Center.