Director: Casey La Scala
Writer: Casey La Scala, Chris Dowling (Screenplay)
Starring: Alexa PenaVega, Johnny Pacar, Liz E Morgan, Italia Ricci, Shaun Sipos, Kimberley Drummond
Plot: Friends gather at a wedding, but the celebration is shattered by terrifying apocalyptic events forcing them to examine life, love and faith as they must choose between redemption and survival.
Runtime: 1 Hour 28 Minutes
There may be spoilers the rest of the review
Verdict: Forgettable End of the World Horror
Story: The Remaining starts with two long-term friends Skylar (PenaVega) and Dan (Dechart) getting married, with their closest friends around them, Tommy (Pacar), Jack (Sipos), Allison (Ricci) and Lauren (Drummond). What was a perfect wedding turns into a living nightmare for the friends though, when an unknown catastrophic event happens leaving people dead and our friends trying to solve what has happened.
Skylar from a religious family believes this is the rapture and being joined by Sam (Morgan) a mysterious woman also just trying to survive, the friends go in search of Allison who had become separated from them. Once reunited the group must figure out how to survive the creatures picking off the remaining survivors on Earth.
Thoughts on The Remaining
Characters – Skylar is the religious woman who is getting married, she has attended church her whole life, but doesn’t understand why she hasn’t been taken is this was a rapture, spending the film trying to figure out what she has done wrong. Dan is the man she is marrying that had attended church to make Skylar happy, but this will become the trend, they guys seem to all be written the same. Tommy is he guy filming the day and does try to record the events (don’t worry, this isn’t found footage, they just use his footage at times to look back at moments they thought they had missed). Jack is one of the best men, he leads the friends out in search for Allison his girlfriend, that is his character in a nutshell. Allison is the best friend of Skylar, wildly jealous of Skylar getting married while she has been in the long-term relationship with Jack. Sam is the random woman that joins them in search of escape from the terror that is happening.
Performances – The performances well here are the start of the negatives, this isn’t down solely to the performers though, the characters are written to feel very generic, which doesn’t give the stars much to work with, it would be fair to say you could swap the cast around easily and they wouldn’t have to do much different either. No one deserves any praise for their work.
Story – The story is the world has ended, God has taken the worthy leaving the rest to fight to survive against creatures left to roam the Earth. We watch how these six people try to survive the end of the world, making bad decisions along the way. I feel the film does want to have the balance between is it religious or other source, but in the end just falls into trying to borrow from the Bible about the rapture putting their own spin on what is going to be. We also must deal with a love triangle between friends which isn’t needed either. The story isn’t the most compelling if we are being honest.
Horror/Thriller – The horror comes from the idea the world would end instantly for the faith driven people, leaving the rest to face the rapture, this could well be a nightmare situation, but this film doesn’t drive home the horror like it should.
Settings – The settings place us in a city, not sure which one it was meant to be, but it also doesn’t matter too much, we are meant to believe this could be a worldwide issue.
Special Effects – The effects are fine, they aren’t used that often which at times works and other times doesn’t.
Scene of the Movie – The first moment.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – They spent a day in the hospital that had nobody in it or no resources, when they fear what is in the night.
Final Thoughts – This is a largely forgettable movie, the characters are bland which give the actors nothing to work with and by the end it becomes overly preachy to only the idea of Bible being the true religion, we should have opened doors to potential of other beliefs having the same prediction.
Overall: Forgettable on nearly every level.
Rating
