Once you’ve seen a fair amount of (post-)apocalyptic flicks, you’ve come into a wealth of useless knowledge – like, say, you’d probably manage to save your hide should the world get overrun with zombies. Also, quite a bit of questions crop up to gnaw at the brain of the not-so-casual viewer, some useless as well: would I be a hero? should I buy this chainsaw? and the like. Others though are of a more insightful type, those are the ones that make you fixate on life and death, courage and the brave face, hedonism and egotism etc. One of those dawned on me halfway through 4:44 Last Day on Earth, a sci-fi drama that wormed its way into my subconscious and spawned some nightmares – ‘nuff of that though, returning to the question in point…

Even if you concede the reality of the End being here as opposed to nigh is hard to escape – wouldn’t you try your damnedest to face it high? Willem Dafoe’s Cisco goes out of his way – meaning out of the studio he shares with the lovely jail-bait Skye (Shanyn Leigh) and down the scary streets of NYC – to get his hands on some coke. Which upon his return he has to surrender to the petite emotional blackmailer. But the question remains, where in the world do you muster the moxie to face the total extinction of life on Earth? How do you stave off the depression, which, let’s face it, if allowed in will only speed up the end? My vote, as always, goes to sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. Luckily, helmer Abel Ferrara’s also a fan of that particular hat-trick.

Obsessive though I am, I’d like to think I can also heap geeky scorn with the best of’em horror buffs. But, after I wholeheartedly enjoyed Xavier Gens’ The Divide, the mostly bad reviews it got came out of left field. Its premise alone (the USA’s just been nuked and a handful of survivors are hiding out/trapped in an underground bunker) makes the whole thing worth it. Sure, I’m not one to get hot and bothered over plot points left undeveloped, which is the first box any reviewer checks these days. And there were some juicy morsels abandoned way too early in the game here, but the roads Gens did take were so satisfying! For someone who holds a deep-seated cynical view on humankind, the speed at which humanity devolves here is… just right.

What I found most engaging was seeing the age-old catchphrase, “man’s inhumanity to men”, proven timeless and true on both the global level and a more intimate one: Gens made me feel the full extent of the claustrophobia and attendant hopelessness that wrecked havoc on the survivors’ minds and morals. The grubbier things got inside that super’s basement, the more people’s limits were tested and broken down, the harder it was, for me at least, to look away. The doozy was realizing that one has to be hard-wired or trained to hang on for as long as Eva (Lauren German) does – survival of the fittest isn’t about being strong, or the bigger bully, it’s having a plan, lying in wait, keeping sane. As a former addict, she knows how to rough it. Her background’s shaped her will-power into quite a daunting piece of weaponry – better suited for the inescapable doomsday face-offs than Marilyn’s weapon of choice, sex. Eva’s the only one in the fallout shelter who never loses her bearings. She’s doing whatever it takes for however long it takes to wade through the shit (literally!) and come out alive on the other end. Her fortitude in the face of death is what makes for a solid climax in my book.

But 4:44′s Skye could also pass for a femmazon of the sci-fi genre. The youthful painter who, for most of the movie, lavishly throws buckets of color over her canvas and occasionally a  couple of tantrums too – is also the one who keeps it together at the end. Hers are the last words we hear and they are as spiritual as you’d expect from an artsy bohemian. Still, they’re comforting and fitting, in the big countdown-to-doom scheme of things: “It’s our love, it’s our wisdom… We’re going together towards this big light, Cisco, my heart against your heart, and together we’re taking all beings with us, and we’re protecting them, we’re loving them, we’re taking them with us, and we have each other, and you’ll surrender completely to God and you’re protected, and all we have is right now, all we have is each other. I love you. And we’re angels, already.“