FORGIVE US ALL (2024)
3 stars
Lightbulb Film Distribution. DVD and Digital. 13th October
The film has a strong opening – unfortunately the rest of the proceedings don’t live up to it. Close up of an upset woman, who we later learn is Rory (Lily Sullivan, EVIL DEAD RISE). Screams in anguish as she kneels in front of a burial mound a gun in her hand. She walks back to her house. A scene of a struggle with broken glass on the floor and blood on the furniture.
In the bedroom is her daughter Maddy – she is panting and bloody and suddenly sits up, as if possessed, screams and leaps at her mum…
Cut to two years later. Rory awakens from being asleep on the sofa. A voiceover on the radio talking about people fighting back against the regime. It’s that kind of movie – which goes out of its way to not fill you in to what is going and the situation its characters are in. We are drip fed information about what is going on.
She is still grieving and leaves the remote house. Also living there is Otto – who appears to care and worry about her. Down by the river she discovers an unconscious and wounded man – who we had seen earlier escaping from Camp 13, with three others in hot pursuit.
She decides to help him and take him back – locking him up in the outhouse. In his backpack she discovers what looks like an EpiPen – which is the antidote for a virus that has ravaged much of the population of the world… but don’t expect the script to tell you that any time soon.
We are in a post apocalypse – people have been turned into rampaging and deadly zombie like creatures. Hence why Rory and Otto live as far away from anyone as possible. The man on the run is Noah (Lance Giles), and he is trying to get back to his son with the medicine he has stolen – as his young boy has been infected and he only has 72 hours to get him the cure…
A New Zealand set sort of Western, this is well shot by Peter McCaffrey with sweeping shots of the forest location, though the external shots have this yellow tint over everything which feels unnecessary. The problem here is not much actually happens and whilst Sullivan is okay in the lead, she isn’t given much to do except look morose. The film was written and directed by Jordana Stott and Lance Giles – they funded it themselves after selling their successful business. Considering the potential in the setup, it does little with it and it is all resolved in a perfunctory manner.
Steve Kirkham
