Exit Humanity - Devouring Ourselves

It's October - time for monster movies.  Of course, I watch horror movies all year, but especially so in October.  And now that I'm blogging, I try to write a few things about the monster movies that I watch in October.

Tonight I watched the movie Exit Humanity (2011) directed by John Geddes - a zombie movie set six years after the end of the American Civil War.  Part Western, part Horror, this genre mashing film explores the horror of war and probes the self-inflicted wounds of mankind's cruelty.  But it's more than just a horror movie; the characters look for ways to live with and to live beyond  the horrors they've experienced and the horrors that they've committed.

The movie was filmed north of Toronto - imbuing the scenes with a stark, almost colorless - lifeless - pallor.  The story is structured around the chapters of the hero's illustrated journal. (And this is my only complaint about the movie.  The gritty historical realism achieved in the costumes and scenery is broken by a few animated sequences-used mostly to cover flashback material -that look too much like modern comics and graphic novels to fit within the rest of the film.) There are long scenes without any dialogue - carried very well by the actor's strength. (But there are also a number of scenes that rely too much on a voice-over narrator. Oh well...) The costumes look (mostly) authentic, and the gore and monster effects are convincing - something remarkable considering the movie's relatively low budget.

The American Civil War is often described as a war that pitted brother against brother.  Exit Humanity pushes the consequences of that war between brothers beyond the war's end in 1865. When hatred, and murder, and revenge are allowed to pour out, unchecked-like an infection- across the land, families are torn apart (quite literally).  And, as is always true in war, the innocent suffer.  Children die.  When we lose whatever is good in our humanity we become like the shambling horrors of this film, devouring and consuming each other.